RUNNING USA – News – Ogden / Snowbasin to Host 2011 XTERRA Trail Run Nationals – Off-road national championships will conclude 70-race XTERRA U.S. Trail Run Series

The 2011 XTERRA Trail Run National Championship half-marathon is moving to Snowbasin Resort near Ogden, Utah, and the off-road event is slated for Sunday, September 25.

Located just 35 miles north of Salt Lake City, and just up the road from the adventure capitol of Ogden, Snowbasin is easy get to and an increasingly popular adventure travel destination. It also has an incredible collection of trails, which are nothing short of spectacular in late September as the fall colors start bursting in an array of red, pink, orange, green and yellow.

The race will be held one day after the XTERRA USA Championship of off-road triathlon, creating the ultimate XTERRA racing weekend.

The championship race is again a half-marathon, and will start and finish at Snowbasin Resort – a world-class ski resort that hosted the downhill and super G races for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and most recently served as the final stop of the Winter Dew Tour.

All 2010-11 XTERRA Trail Run Series regional champions, like the recently crowned Arizona Trail Run Series Champs, earn a comp entry into Nationals and runners from the 12 respective regions in the U.S. Series can now focus on Snowbasin in September as one of their goals.

The championship race is open to the public and no qualification is necessary, so one and all can challenge the best-of-the-best trail runners and race for a national championship.

As the final event of the 70-race XTERRA U.S. Trail Run Series, the race will be filmed for a nationally syndicated XTERRA Adventures TV show.

The half-marathon championship race will be accompanied by 5K and 10K trail runs along the same run courses that the XTERRA Utah short and long course triathletes ran the day before. In addition to the races, XTERRA will host an expo in downtown Ogden with free kids races, vendor booths, a Paul Mitchell hair cut-a-thon for charity and evening dinner parties.

"We are terribly excited to bring our entire XTERRA Tribe together in Utah this September, the energy level is going to be off-the-charts," said Janet Clark, president of TEAM Unlimited / XTERRA. "Ogden and Snowbasin are proven winners – between the facilities at Snowbasin, the great restaurants and atmosphere along Historic 25th Street in Ogden, and the unbelievably supportive community – we couldn't have asked for a better situation."

For more information visit www.xterraplanet.com or www.xterratrailrun.com or call toll-free to 877-XTERRA-1 (877-983-7721).

2011 marks the fifth year XTERRA has hosted a trail running national championship race. In the inaugural season of 2007 nationals was a 10K race at Incline Village, NV. In 2008 XTERRA switched the championship distance to the 21K or half-marathon, and moved to Bend, Oregon, who played host to the past three trail run national championship races from 2008-10.

RUNNING USA –  News