Ice Age Trail Run Half Marathon, 50-Mile & 50K

Saturday, May 11, 2024 • La Grange, WI • Course Map

Named one of America’s most scenic trail races by Trail Runner magazine, the Ice Age Trail Run features a 50-mile and 50K that celebrate their 42nd annual running this year — and their 12th with the 13.1-mile half marathon distance.

The race takes runners on a tromping, hilly run through the trails of the Southern Unit of southeastern Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine State Forest, which stretches some 30 miles between the towns of Dousman and Whitewater.

The forest area features a diverse natural landscape of ponds and marshes as well as wide-open prairies and forest lands, through which runners will make their way along a series of both single- and double-track trails, along a combination of soft, grassy trails as well as twisting, hilly runs through the woods.

Trails 13,000 years in the making. Several hundred runners crossed the finish line in all three races each year, which takes runners along what is known as the Ice Age Trail, which was formed by the receding of the Wisconsin glacier some 13,000 years ago.

Today, the land forms and impressions left by the glacier are visible all around the Kettle Moraine forest, with hills and depressions as well as land forms like drumlins, kames and eskers found throughout the 18,000-acre park.

For the half marathon race, runners will follow an out-and-back course that starts and finishes near the trailhead for the Nordic Trail inside the forest, just off County Road H.

You’ll run the same loop route twice. From there, runners will make a double loop along a series of established trails through the forest, including the Nordic Trail, Purple Trail, Green Trail and Blue Nordic Trail.

Along the way, runners will see so much of what gives this forest its unique natural diversity, as the landscape carved by the glacier thousands of years ago serves up large boulders and natural ridges along the trails.

The half marathon distance, organizers add, unfolds along what they describe as a “very runnable” trail — meaning that it is more gentle on the feet and joints than other trails inside the forest, as well as wide and scenic.

Though there were once many rocky sections along the trail, they add that those have been covered since with wood chips to make the going easier for cross-country skiers in winter, which as a result will make the running easier across these trails as well.

Gibraltar Rock on the Ice Age Trail, Wis. (Photo by The Cut/flickr)

Gibraltar Rock on the Ice Age Trail, Wis. (Photo by The Cut/flickr)

Race Weather & Climate

Located just south of the Kettle Moraine State Forest in southeastern Wisconsin, about 10 miles south of La Grange and about 45 miles southwest of Milwaukee, the nearby city of Elkhorn typically sees mild to moderately warm weather in May.

On race day (May 11), the average low is 51ºF and the average high is 75ºF.

Past Results

Course Map

See the race route map for the Ice Age Trail Run Half Marathon here.

Starting Time

  • 6:00 AM – 50-mile
  • 8:15 AM – 50K
  • 9:00 AM – half marathon

Fees

See race website

Registration

To reserve your spot in the 2024 running of La Grange’s Ice Age Trail Run Half Marathon, 50K or 50-mile race, register online at the event website below.

Official Race Website

www.iceagetrail50.com

Comments

Ever run in the Ice Age Trail Run? Share your impressions here, or post your review in the Comments below.

See more races in: May, Wisconsin

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