The Traverse City Trail Running Festival brings runners of many distances together in the Pere Marquette State Forest in northern Michigan.
It uses the VASA trail system, a mix of narrow singletrack and wide doubletrack you can run side by side on.
The organizers describe the surface as soft and smooth, but the longer course also includes forest hills.
The short course is mostly flat with gentle rollers, while the long loop is designed with a steep climb in the first half.
The festival opens with shorter individual races and relays, followed the next day by longer individual races and an ultra relay.
Long-distance runners build their distance by repeating the same forest loop, meeting the terrain again each lap;
one lap through the forest is the basic unit of every event.
With short and long distances in one event, runners trying trails for the first time mix with those spending a long day in the woods.
After finishing, you can share food and drinks, relax by the campfire or play lawn games while cheering on other runners.
As the long events keep finishing, those who are done stay on site to welcome the runners behind them.
Finisher finisher medal are made of wood, a keepsake of a race in the forest.
Course that change in width and elevation, loops for each distance and time spent together after the run define the festival's character.
