⏵ Course guide · Southern Oregon watershed marathon
The Lithia Loop Trail Marathon starts and finishes in Lithia Park and circles the entire Ashland watershed, 7,200 feet of elevation change on dirt roads and trail through the Siskiyou Mountains. A Mini-Marathon and 10K share the same start. I will walk you through the course and crew logistics first, then give you a pacing and fueling plan built for a heavy-vert trail marathon, plus free tools to dial in your own numbers.
These facts come from the official Rogue Valley Runners race page. The site had not yet posted a firm 2026 date at the time this guide was checked, so confirm the exact date and any current-year changes at roguevalleyrunners.com before you commit.
Starting and finishing in Lithia Park, the marathon circumnavigates the Ashland watershed on dirt roads and trail, with about 2 miles of asphalt mixed in. The Mini-Marathon and 10K start with the marathon field and share the early course before splitting off onto shorter loops.
This is not a course with one headline climb: it is 7,200 feet of total elevation change distributed around a full circuit of the watershed. Runners coming from flatter road marathon backgrounds should expect this to run considerably slower than a road PR pace, since sustained climbing and descending, not a single mountain, is what defines the difficulty here.
The 10K runners turn right onto the Wonder Trail and follow the lower Wonder Trail back down to Lithia Park, cutting their day short relative to the full loop. Mini-Marathon runners follow the marathon course further, past the Lower Horn Gap Road aid station, before taking Ricketey Trail up to the 2060 Road junction and looping back down through the upper and lower Wonder Trail to the finish.
There are two places to meet your runner on course: mile 20 at the Four Corners aid station, and mile 23 at the White Rabbit trailhead. The drive between them takes too long to make both, so decide in advance which one your crew will use rather than planning to hit both.
With roughly 6 hours to cover 26.2 miles and 7,200 feet of elevation change, this is a pace-by-effort race, not a pace-by-mile-split race.
A flat-ground marathon pace target is close to useless on a course with this much sustained climbing and descending. A grade-adjusted pace target gives you an honest number for the climbs and lets you run the descents at an effort your quads can sustain for a full 26.2 miles, since this course does not give you a long flat stretch to recover on.
A vert-aware finish prediction, built from a course with 7,200 feet of total change, gives you a far more honest number than a generic marathon time converter. Check that projection early against the roughly 6 hour time limit so you have room to adjust effort on the back half rather than discovering a problem near the cutoff.
⏵ Free tools to pace this course
Early November in Ashland can run cool and crisp at 8 AM but warm up through the middle of the day, so plan your intake to adjust as conditions change over your roughly 6 hours on course.
Aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour. The course has 5 well-stocked aid stations carrying Skratch electrolyte drink and GU energy gels, spaced to give you regular touch points across the loop. Use that density to keep your intake steady rather than skipping stations early and trying to catch up later on the climbs.
Sodium in the 300 to 500 mg per liter range covers most runners on a cool November morning, moving toward the higher end of 500 to 700 mg per liter if the day warms up through the middle miles. The Skratch on course gives you a baseline, but bring your own concentrate or tabs if you know you run salty.
⏵ Build your fueling plan
Get a carb, sodium, fluid, and caffeine plan per hour built for your weight, your goal time, and a cool-to-warm Ashland fall day 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 race-day plan built around YOUR fitness, this exact 7,200 ft watershed loop, and your projected splits. Summit Line reads your real training, builds a plan for sustained trail climbing and descending, and rehearses your fueling so race day is something you execute, not guess at.
The marathon circles the entire Ashland watershed and accumulates 7,200 feet of total elevation change, almost all on dirt roads and trail with only about 2 miles of pavement. That is a serious vert total for a 26.2 mile course, on par with a mountain trail marathon rather than a road marathon with some hills, and the roughly 6 hour time limit gives you real but not unlimited room to manage it.
The official course description states 7,200 feet of elevation change for the marathon distance circumnavigating the Ashland watershed. The Mini-Marathon (13.1 miles) follows the marathon course before cutting back to the finish near the Lower Horn Gap aid station area, and the 10K peels off earlier onto the Wonder Trail, so both shorter distances see meaningfully less total climbing than the full loop.
With 7,200 feet of climbing and descending over roughly 6 hours, aim for 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour and sodium in the 300 to 700 mg per liter range, adjusting up if the day runs warm. The course has 5 well-stocked aid stations providing Skratch electrolyte drink and GU energy gels, spaced to give you regular access, but build your own per-hour plan rather than relying on aid alone. Build your numbers with the free ultra fueling calculator before race day.
The official race page lists the time limit as "6 Hours-ish." Given the 7,200 feet of elevation change on trail and dirt road, that works out to a meaningfully slower per-mile pace than most road marathon cutoffs allow, so respect the vert when you set your goal time rather than benchmarking off a flat marathon PR.
The official course notes two crew access points on the marathon course: mile 20 at the Four Corners aid station and mile 23 at the White Rabbit trailhead. The drive time between the two is too long to hit both, so pick one location in advance and plan your crew's day around it rather than trying to leapfrog your runner.
The start and finish both sit in Lithia Park with parking and restrooms, and the field is capped at 300 runners, so logistics are simple for a first attempt. The 7,200 feet of elevation change is the real test: if you have trained on rolling, technical terrain and respect that a trail marathon at this vert total runs much slower than a road marathon, the roughly 6 hour window gives a well-prepared first-timer real room to finish.
Link this guide
Race directors and clubs: link or embed this guide anywhere. It stays current.
<a href="https://runsummitline.com/guides/lithia-loop-trail-marathon">The Lithia Loop Trail Marathon course guide</a><iframe src="https://runsummitline.com/embed/race/lithia-loop-trail-marathon" style="width:100%;max-width:420px;height:180px;border:0;" loading="lazy" title="Lithia Loop Trail Marathon course guide by Summit Line"></iframe>This guide is independent and for planning only. The course details, dates, cutoffs, and aid stations 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.
The timeline
Get the week-by-week countdown for this race: when to build, when to peak, when to taper.
One email with the timeline, plus training notes for this race. Unsubscribe any time.