Brazos Bend 100
Marathon · 26.2M
Registration open
Entries are open on RunSignup. The price for every distance goes up after 30 October.
Race dateDecember 5-6, 2026
Duration2 days
Start8:00am
Whenin 87 days
Free, and always will be. NavRun makes money from race-day planning for runners who want it, never from this.
Ultras change constantly, sometimes the morning of. Always confirm with the race director and the official website before you rely on anything here.
Distance
26.2M
Climb
not checked yet
Descent
not checked yet
High point
not checked yet
Time limit
30:00:00
Aid stations
8
Started
not checked yet
Finished
not checked yet
Finish rate
not checked yet
The course
Where it goes
multi-loop · 8 aid stations · rust marks a stop your crew can reach
Two laps of the 13.1 mile loop, which leaves out the Horseshoe Lakes and Hale Lake sections of the main loop. It starts at 8 AM and shares the 2 PM Sunday finish, so there is no hurry unless you want one. No pacers in this event.
Flat and fast. The course is 99.9% flat and the only hill is a ten foot rise over a tenth of a mile. Underfoot it moves from hard crushed rock to soft hiking trail under tree canopy to smooth horse trail, wide and with good footing. Most runners choose a road shoe when it is dry; some sections turn muddy when it is wet, and the race avoids the parts of the park known to get too messy. December in this part of Texas is usually between 40 and 70 degrees. Brazos Bend State Park is known for its birds and its American alligators, and there has never been an incident with one in the park's fifty year history.
The race
What this one is
Brazos Bend 100 is run in a state park an hour south-west of Houston, on laps of a flat 16.7 mile loop past lakes full of alligators and under live oaks hung with Spanish moss. Four distances share one start line and one 2 PM Sunday finish: the 100 mile, the 100 kilometre, a marathon and a half marathon. The 100 mile is a Western States Endurance Run qualifier at 32 hours, and it is the biggest trail race in Texas. Aid comes round every three to six miles, and between loops runners come back through Elm Lake Pavilion, where families and clubs put up canopies for the weekend.
The race is run by Trail Racing Over Texas, the Needville-based company Cal and Rachel Neff built out of the first unofficial TROT event in 2013. There are two Brazos Bend weekends now: 50 kilometre and 50 mile distances in April, and the 100 mile and 100 kilometre in December. Finishing one of each in the same calendar year earns the Brazos Bend Challenge Coin.
Getting in
Getting in
Entry, lottery and what the race asks of you before race day.
- Lottery
-
No
brazosbend100.com
- Lottery opens
-
not checked yet
- Lottery draw
-
not checked yet
- Field cap
-
not checked yet
- Registration
-
RunSignUp
brazosbend100.com
- Qualifying
-
not checked yet
- Minimum age
-
14
brazosbend100.com
- Transfers
-
Yes
brazosbend100.com
- Deferrals
-
Yes
brazosbend100.com
Running, crewing, pacing or still deciding
How NavRun helps with Brazos Bend 100
Thirty hours.
You are running it
You reach Nature Center, mile 12.6, and you already knew this morning what time that would be.
An arrival time for all 6 stations, worked out from your own training.
Start free →
You are crewing it
You park at 40 Acre, and you are standing there when they come in.
One link from your runner, with the stop and the window they arrive in.
You are deciding
You find out Brazos Bend 100 is months of work away, not years, and you enter.
Put in a race you have already run. NavRun shows you where this one sits from where you are.
No account needed →
Crew access, pacers and drop bags
The rules that shape your day
Anything marked "not checked yet" is a gap in what we hold, never a no from the race.
- Crew allowed
-
Yes
brazosbend100.com
- Vehicles per runner
-
not checked yet
- Pacers
-
No
brazosbend100.com
- Muling
-
not checked yet
- Drop bags
-
Yes
brazosbend100.com
- Cupless
-
Yes
brazosbend100.com
- Course marking
-
Fully Marked
brazosbend100.com
- Night running
-
not checked yet
- Dogs
-
Not allowed
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- Headphones
-
Allowed
brazosbend100.com
- Crew rules
-
Crew and spectators are welcome at any aid station in limited numbers, but Elm Lake is the one to plan around. Every other aid station is reached on the shuttle, on foot or by bike, because vehicles cannot stop at an aid station. Crew do not use the aid station supplies, and no physical support (gear, fuel, hydration) may be handed over between aid stations. Everyone who is not a registered runner, pacer, volunteer or child under 13 needs a park pass bought from the race. Support for one runner should carpool in a single vehicle; parking in the park is limited.
brazosbend100.com
- Pacer rules
-
not checked yet
- Drop bag rules
-
There are no drop bags out on the course. Your own bag lives at the main start and finish at Elm Lake, where you reach it between loops, alongside the personal support area a runner, their family or their club can set up on the grass.
brazosbend100.com
- Cutoff philosophy
-
One clock closes the whole event: the finish line closes at 2 PM on Sunday, whichever distance you entered. The race counts from the gun, not from when you cross the start line, and it also records chip time. The last lap should be started before 8:40 AM on Sunday, which is the slowest average pace that still comes in under 32 hours, and the sweepers head out from then so the aid stations can close on a rolling schedule. The race director, the medical director and the park staff decide together whether a runner goes out for another lap.
brazosbend100.com
Aid stations
Every stop, and what you get there
● yes · no ? nobody has checked – does not apply to this race
| Mile |
Station |
Cutoff |
Crew access |
Bag |
Pacer |
Med |
To next |
| 0.00 |
Elm Lake
|
? |
● |
● |
? |
? |
1.90 |
| 1.90 |
40 Acre
|
? |
● |
· |
? |
? |
2.70 |
| 4.60 |
Nature Center
|
? |
● |
· |
? |
? |
0.70 |
| 5.30 |
Big Creek
|
? |
? |
· |
? |
? |
3.30 |
| 8.60 |
Sawmill
|
? |
● |
· |
? |
? |
3.10 |
| 11.70 |
Big Creek
|
? |
? |
· |
? |
? |
0.90 |
| 12.60 |
Nature Center
|
? |
● |
· |
? |
? |
0.50 |
| 13.10 |
Elm Lake
|
2:00pm |
● |
● |
? |
? |
? |
Driving your crew
Getting your people there
1 stop with directions the race published.
40 Acre
mile 1.90
Parking. 40 Acre Lot: left after entry, 3.2 mi from Elm Lake. Near restrooms, crew access, shuttle pickup.
Same race, other lines
Other distances and other years
What it looks like out there
Somebody has been out there with a camera
the tables say the climb is long. these say what long feels like.
10 people have been out there with a camera or a microphone.
+ 2 more.
These are other people's work and we link straight to them. Watching costs nothing and needs no account.
More of them: every race we hold, on film.
Add to this page
What you know
every one of these is read by a person before it changes anything
Ran this race? Tell the next runner what you know.
Nobody sees it until we have read it. No account, no sign-in.
See something wrong or out of date? Suggest an edit.
This changes nothing on the page on its own. Somebody checks it against the race first.
Seen a course preview or a film of this one? Send it over.
Somebody watches it before it goes anywhere near this page. What we are after is footage of this course, on the ground. If it would be just as true of any other race, it is not this.
Have the GPX? Send us the link.
We want the address of the file the race publishes, not the file. We download it from there so the page can say where the line came from.
Are you the race director? Get in touch and we'll make it right.
We read every one of these and we write back. Every fact here carries the source it came from, and the way a wrong one gets fixed is a person checking it against what you tell us.
Where this came from.
Every fact on this page records its source and when we last checked it: 132 sources for this race. Hover a source link to read the sentence it came from.
39% of what we track for a course is filled in. The rest says "not checked yet" rather than guessing.
Ultras change. We will tell you when this one does.
Cutoffs move, races get postponed, lotteries open and close. We read the race's own sources and record where every fact came from. Put your email in and we will send you what changed, and where we read it.
No account, and nothing to cancel.
What happens to your email. Nothing else. I do not sell it, and I will not send you anything except this race changing. One click gets you out.
I keep this catalog because the information is scattered and hard to trust. Telling you when it moves is the same job.
Running this one?
NavRun builds your pacing from your own training, then turns it into a plan your crew can follow: when to leave and where to park.
Start free
