The full Cowboy 200: 200-plus miles start to finish with zero repeated ground, starting at Ta Ha Zouka Park in Norfolk at 6:00 AM Friday and finishing at Bolo Beer Co. in Valentine. Eleven staffed aid stations and eight water-only unmanned stations support the route, with three sleep stations along the way (Atkinson, Long Pine and Wood Lake).
The Cowboy Trail is a converted rail line: non-technical, crushed limestone, and, in the race's own words, "extraordinarily flat" -- there are short paved sections through towns, and the race is framed as suited to a first 200-miler or a PR attempt. Two stretches leave the rail-trail on marked backroad detours around bridges damaged by flooding: Oakdale to Neligh (miles 29.8-38.4) and Neligh to Clearwater (miles 38.4-54.4), the second entirely on dirt road for about ten miles, adding rolling terrain the rest of the course doesn't have. With no real climbing to speak of, the challenge here is wind, heat, and the accumulated hours on your feet across up to three and a half days and nights, not elevation.
A point-to-point 200-mile footrace on the Cowboy Trail, a converted rail line across northern Nebraska, run on crushed limestone from Norfolk west to Valentine with no repeated ground. The trail crosses more than 200 former railway bridges, including one a quarter-mile long and over 148 feet high, and passes through small towns that still hold depots and other relics of the old railroad. It also offers a 100-mile option that starts a day later and partway along the same trail, in Atkinson.
The race was first run in November 2022. Editions since 2023 have run in September.
| Mile | Station | Cutoff | Crew access | Bag | Pacer | Med | To next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | Ta Ha Zouka Park (Start) | – | ● | · | · | ? | 10.00 |
| 10.00 | Battle Creek | – | ● | · | · | ? | 7.10 |
| 17.10 | Meadow Grove | – | · | · | · | ? | 5.40 |
| 22.50 | Tilden | 2:00pm | ● | ● | · | ? | 7.30 |
| 29.80 | Oakdale | – | · | · | · | ? | 8.60 |
| 38.40 | Neligh | 8:00pm | ● | ● | · | ? | 16.00 |
| 54.40 | Clearwater | – | · | · | · | ? | 10.00 |
| 64.40 | Ewing | 5:00am | ● | ● | ● | ? | 13.20 |
| 77.60 | Inman | – | · | · | · | ? | 7.90 |
| 85.50 | O'Neill | 1:30pm | ● | ● | ● | ? | 8.20 |
| 93.70 | Emmet | – | · | · | · | ? | 10.30 |
| 104.00 | Atkinson | 2:00am | ● | ● | ● | ? | 10.00 |
| 114.00 | Stuart | 7:00am | ● | ● | ● | ? | 9.80 |
| 123.80 | Newport | – | · | · | · | ? | 11.10 |
| 134.90 | Bassett | 4:30pm | ● | ● | ● | ? | 9.50 |
| 144.40 | Long Pine | 10:00pm | ● | ● | ● | ? | 7.80 |
| 152.20 | Ainsworth | 2:00am | ● | ● | ● | ? | 11.80 |
| 164.00 | Johnstown | – | · | · | · | ? | 10.60 |
| 174.60 | Wood Lake | 11:00am | ● | ● | ● | ? | 9.80 |
| 184.40 | Arabia | – | · | · | · | ? | 15.60 |
| 200.00 | Bolo Beer Co. (Finish) | 6:00pm | ● | ● | ● | ? | ? |
Parking. A start-area parking map for crew had not yet been published as of this research -- the Runners Manual says only "We will add a map later of the exact location of the start and where your crew should park."
Parking. Crew must park in the large lot to the north of the Mill.
Parking. Crew parking in the Community Center parking lot is permitted; an RV park beside the Community Center should be used instead for extended stays or overnight accommodation.
Parking. Crew must park along Clark Street and walk to the aid station; no vehicles at the station itself.
Parking. No parking on the grass; crew vehicles must park along Main Street in a legal, standard-sized parking space. Campers, RVs, trailers and other oversized vehicles are not permitted here -- use the Long Pine RV park instead. Crew are not allowed inside the aid station itself (limited room), but may aid their runner just outside the bunkhouse.
Parking. Congestion at this station in past years means, starting in 2026, campers, RVs, trailers and other oversized crew vehicles are not permitted here at all, and crew may not arrive until their runner is within 5 miles of the station per the live-tracking system.
8 people have been out there with a camera or a microphone.
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.
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This changes nothing on the page on its own. Somebody checks it against the race first.
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.
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.
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.
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