Paradise Valley Trail Runs

The trails at Paradise Valley are a mix of wide and narrow, smooth and bumpy, straight and curvy, so the courses offer a good variety and will keep you on your toes.  All courses start out the same way, going out the medium-width mainline trail then out the Wetland Plateau Trail, which starts out narrow and eventually widens and joins the Southern Traverse Trail.  The course passes the mid-loop aid station for the first time at 1.6 miles then narrows again when it turns onto the swoopy and gradually descending Lloyd bike trail.

At the bottom of Lloyd Trail, the 5k runners continue down and across the Mainline Trail and finish with a tour around the plateau above the start/finish on the Cascara Trail, which starts out relatively straight and then becomes increasingly curvy before rejoining the Mainline Trail for a short return to the finish.

The 10k and half marathon loop continues on back up the gentle slope and back to the aid station at 3.1 miles.  The loop then crosses the valley that bisects the area on Southern Traverse Trail before returning to the finish on a combination of twisty single-track and the wide Mainline Trail.

The Half Marathon course is two loops of the 10k course.

The terrain is mostly gently sloping, making for course profiles that are predominantly runnable, with only short steeper slopes.