⏵ Course guide · Texas fixed-time ultra festival
Trail Racing Over Texas runs Jackalope Jam on an exact 2 mile out-and-back farm road loop at 7IL Ranch, a fixed-time festival where you pick your own duration, from 6 hours up to 100, and rack up as many laps as you can. I will walk you through the loop and the format first, then give you a pacing and fueling plan built for sustained time on feet rather than a finish line, plus free tools to dial in your own numbers.
These facts come from the official Trail Racing Over Texas race page and RunSignup. Fixed-time formats have no set distance, and the schedule can shift year to year, so confirm the current specifics with the official race before you plan anything.
Forget a finish line. At Jackalope Jam the course is a single exact 2 mile out-and-back on a flat grass and gravel farm road, and the race is really six or more separate events layered on the same loop, each defined by a duration rather than a distance.
Every lap is exactly 2 miles, running north along the farm road for a wheeled-accurate 1 mile to a marked turnaround nicknamed "The Cone of Death," then back the same way. There is no climbing to speak of, sitting at sea level on flat farm terrain, so the entire physical demand comes from repetition and time on feet rather than technical difficulty.
You register for a specific duration: 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, or 100 hours, each available as a solo run or a weighted ruck division (10 to 30 lb depending on your bodyweight and which ruck tier you choose). A 2-6 person team can also share a 24 hour relay, trading off in the start/finish area with no fixed running order. Longer events start earlier in the week (100 hour starts Wednesday, 72 hour Thursday, 48 hour Friday) so that every format finishes across the same closing weekend.
TROT staffs one fully stocked aid station at the start/finish with food, drinks, and a cooking station for evening hours, but runners are strongly encouraged to set up their own tent, chairs, and supplies along the course line for extended rest between laps. Unlike a backyard ultra, there is no hourly bell forcing you back out. You complete a lap, then you can eat, rest, or even leave and return later, as long as your last completed lap lands before your event's scheduled finish.
Pacing a fixed-time race is about maximizing total distance across your chosen window, not hitting a goal pace for a set course, so effort management and rest discipline matter more than raw speed.
On a flat 2 mile loop, the temptation is to run hard early because it feels easy. Resist it. A pace you can hold nearly unchanged from lap one to your final lap, whatever your event length, beats a fast start followed by a slow fade every time in a fixed-time format, because every hour you spend recovering from an early blowup is distance you never get back.
Use a race-time prediction off your real fitness to sanity-check how far a given lap pace, held for your registered duration, would actually take you, whether that is a 6 hour afternoon push or a 100 hour multi-day grind. That gives you a realistic distance target rather than an arbitrary number picked out of ambition.
⏵ Free tools to plan your effort
The longer formats can stretch across multiple full nights, so fueling and mindset planning become a genuine daily routine rather than a single race-day checklist.
Aim for roughly 200 to 300 calories per hour of moving time, mixing real food from the aid station (sandwiches, burritos, and hot food like soup, noodles, and quesadillas overnight) with gels and drink mix. Because the pace is sustainable rather than intense on this flat loop, your stomach can generally handle more real food here than in a faster race, so use that rather than relying purely on sports nutrition.
Unlike a backyard ultra, Jackalope Jam does not force you back out on an hourly bell, so you have real freedom to rest, nap, or even leave and return between laps on the 48, 72, and 100 hour formats. Use that freedom deliberately: a short, planned rest beats an unplanned collapse. Mid-February in Cat Spring is usually mild by day and cool at night, so plan layers for the overnight laps regardless of how warm the afternoons feel.
⏵ Build your fueling plan
Get a carb, sodium, fluid, and caffeine plan per hour built for your weight and a sustained multi-hour or multi-day effort with the free ultra fueling calculator. Browse the rest of the free running tools at the tools hub.
⏵ Train for it with Summit Line
Get a training plan built around YOUR fitness and the sustained time-on-feet a fixed-time event demands, whatever duration you choose. Summit Line reads your real training, builds the durability and back-to-back long efforts the format asks for, and rehearses your fueling so your laps become something you execute, not guess at.
It is a fixed-time ultra festival, not a fixed-distance race. You pick a duration, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72, or 100 hours (solo or ruck), and simply cover as much distance as you can within that window on a flat 2 mile out-and-back loop. Only fully completed laps count toward your total, and your last lap has to finish before your event's scheduled end. There is no course to "finish," just a running tally of laps against the clock.
The loop is exactly 2 miles: 1 mile out along a grass and small-gravel farm road to a marked turnaround nicknamed "The Cone of Death," then 1 mile back. It sits at sea level with no meaningful elevation change, so the physical demand comes entirely from repetition and time on feet, not terrain.
The terrain itself is easy, flat farm road with no climbing, so the difficulty scales entirely with how long you sign up for. A 6 hour event is a manageable afternoon effort for a fit trail runner; a 100 hour event means running, resting, and eating in cycles across four-plus days with almost no real sleep. Because you choose your own duration, Jackalope Jam is really several different races layered on the same loop, each with its own level of difficulty.
There is no per-lap time limit like a backyard ultra. Instead, only fully completed laps count toward your distance, and your final lap must be completed before your registered event's scheduled finish time (for example, the 24 hour, 12 hour, and 6 hour events all start Saturday at 9:00 AM, with the 6 hour finishing at 3:00 PM and the 12 hour at 9:00 PM). If you need to stop early, you can check out with the race director at any point and keep your medal.
Because the effort is sustained rather than intense, especially for the 48, 72, and 100 hour events, plan fueling as an ongoing routine rather than a single race-day plan. Aim for roughly 200 to 300 calories per hour of actual moving time, mixing real food (sandwiches, burritos, soup and noodles at night) with gels and drink mix, and keep sodium steady with regular intake rather than trying to catch up after you fall behind. Mid-February in Cat Spring is usually mild, but you will run through multiple full nights on the longer formats, so plan for real temperature swings.
Buckles are awarded by total distance covered, regardless of which event you registered for: 100K, 100 mile, 150 mile, 200 mile, 250 mile, and 300 mile. You receive one buckle based on your highest milestone reached, plus a finisher medal for every runner and bonus patches for ruckers. Because the course loop counts identically across all events, a strong 72 hour or 100 hour performance can chase the same milestones as a dedicated multi-day specialist.
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<a href="https://runsummitline.com/guides/jackalope-jam">The Jackalope Jam course guide</a>This guide is independent and for planning only. The format, dates, schedule, and entry rules come from public sources and can change year to year, so confirm the current specifics with the official race before you register or run. The fueling and pacing advice is general and not medical advice.