Palo Duro Trail Run
50 Miler
Registration open
Registration closes on Wednesday 14 October at 11:59 pm Central.
Race dateOctober 17, 2026
Duration1 day
Whenin 38 days
First held1986
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
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Climb
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Descent
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High point
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Time limit
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Aid stations
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Started
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Finished
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Finish rate
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The race
What this one is
The Palo Duro Trail Run is run on the floor of Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the Texas Panhandle, the second largest canyon in the United States. It is a loop course from the Mack Dick Pavilion: 50 miles is three laps, the 50K is two and a 25K is one, so you come back past your crew every lap and see other runners most of the day. Underfoot it runs from rolling singletrack to sand and rock, with short steep technical climbs and descents. Mid October in the canyon can be freezing at the start and over 100 degrees by the afternoon.
The race was started by Red Spicer as a road race and became a trail run. By 2003 it was in its 18th year, with a 20K, a 50K and a 50 mile on a 12.5 mile loop and nearly 200 runners on the line before dawn. The distances now are 25K, 50K and 50 miles on a 15.5 mile loop. From 2024 the direction alternates, east in even years and west in odd, and west is the way the course has historically been run. The 2025 running was the race's 40th year.
Getting in
Getting in
Entry, lottery and what the race asks of you before race day.
- Lottery
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- Lottery opens
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- Lottery draw
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- Field cap
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- Registration
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UltraSignup
palodurotrailraces.com
- Qualifying
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- Minimum age
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- Transfers
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Yes
palodurotrailraces.com
- Deferrals
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No
palodurotrailraces.com
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
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- Vehicles per runner
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- Pacers
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- Muling
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- Drop bags
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- Cupless
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- Course marking
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- Night running
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- Dogs
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- Headphones
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- Crew rules
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- Pacer rules
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- Drop bag rules
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- Cutoff philosophy
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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.
9 people have been out there with a camera or a microphone.
+ 1 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: 29 sources for this race. Hover a source link to read the sentence it came from.
0% 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.
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