Xterra Boney Mountain Trail Race

Fun, challenging course (the most challenging in their series)! I had run the Xterra Crystal Cove race, so I was familiar with the event and knew them to be small, but well-​organized and efficient. I love that they offer same day packet pickup. The shuttling to Boney Mountain was great and easy to figure out. If you’ve never run a trail race, you should know the ambiance is different than a road race. It tends to draw a more «running for the sake of running» type crowd and obviously, on the trails, there is no crowd support, save for random hikers and runners who may give you well-​wishes.
The climbs in this race are no joke — prepare for a fair amount of walking unless you’re in truly top condition! But the views are lovely, as was the trail. I love the finish line at Xterra events — it’s always really enthusiastic, especially given how small the race field is. They have good food following the race and usually some giveaways and lots of age category prizes.
The medals are small and definitely «budget» but these aren’t big races, so that’s par for the course. I would highly recommend Xterra events to someone new to trail running who wants a more structured way to explore the trails. I plan on doing more in the future — I really enjoyed the vibe of the Xterra races and this race in particular was the right combination of challenging and beautiful!

Xterra holds a series of trail runs throughout the year with the best of the best competing at the Xterra Nationals.
The Boney Mountain Trail Race is #4 of the series (7 total). There are two options for this run. A 6K and 21K. Since my fiancée and I are training for 2 marathons (LA And Paris) and a ½ Ironman Triathlon, we decided to go with the 21K (13 mile) course. The 21K course has 2,800 feet of climbing with 1,800 of that climb coming at mile 6 – 10. If you can get yourself up to the top or even close to the top the views are amazing (well if you aren’t concerned with your time and can enjoy the views).
This is a tough course. It’s the toughest of the series. The course consist of very little pavement (in the beginning and the end), some fire roads and mostly singletrack.
The race is well organized with a good amount of support. There are water/​Gatorade stations scattered throughout the course and at least 1 or 2 Gu stops but I didn’t stop since I usually carry my own nutrition on long runs. I’m sure the people were friendly. The one thing that stood out to me about this race was the amount of paramedics available. There seemed to be a couple of them station at every 3 miles or so. It goes to show how tough and dangerous this course can be.
As the saying goes «what goes up must come down» the descents on this trail is pretty technical. If you can master the downhill and not be afraid you can pick up a lot of time. During the first practice run 3 – 4 weeks back I was hesitant on going full blast down the hills because I didn’t want to eat dirt and I don’t like pain. This time I decided to just go for it and make up as much time as possible. I’m so glad I did because I shaved a lot of time off.
The weather was sunny on race day but cold. However, this wasn’t the problem. The Santa Ana winds were blowing so it made the run a lot tougher in the beginning. Once you made it past the first 2 miles or so the wind wasn’t bad until the last mile. The final ½ mile was the toughest because you knew you were at the end and wanted to give it your all only to have mother nature and her 20MPH head wind coming at you. It felt like running in slow motion. I really wish there was somebody I could have drafted off of.
In the end I did have fun. Got my butt kicked by the trail but got a great workout and a better understanding of trail running.
Happy runnings!