Shorefire Trail Races

The Shorefire 25K and 10K take runners on a scenic tour linking the Smith Mountain Lake State Park trail system. The park’s stunning lake views are easy to enjoy thanks to well-maintained doubletrack trails, with open stretches of shoreline and a variety of native forest terrain. Flat, fast sections are balanced with several punchy climbs to keep things interesting. 25K: The 25K course starts and finishes at the Beach Pavilion. The first 0.2 miles heads up the main parking lot and along the road, giving runners space to spread out before turning right at the Playground parking lot and heading into a flat, runnable section of doubletrack trail. Overall, the course is fast and mostly nontechnical, with a little over 1800 feet of elevation gain spread across rolling hills. The biggest challenge may not be the terrain; it’s resisting distraction from the beautiful lake views along the way. Because Smith Mountain Lake State Park has an extensive trail network with multiple connectors, the 25K includes several turns and a few lollipop sections. The route will be clearly marked with blue flagging and directional arrows, and an official GPX file is available for runners who prefer to follow the course on a GPS watch: https://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/6673167949 As a general rule of thumb for the 25K, most (though not all) turns are right turns, and runners will spend much of the course with Smith Mountain Lake on their right-hand side. While the trail system is expansive, runners are never far from a road or connector trail. 10K: The 10K course starts and finishes at the Beach Pavilion, with about 700 feet of elevation gain. The first 0.2 miles heads up the main parking lot and along the road, giving runners space to spread out before turning left across from the Playground parking lot and dropping into Walton Creek Trail. This early section includes the only technical portion of the 10K, but it’s short-lived. Once runners reach the bottom of the hill, the course opens u