A description of the course would be incomplete without a description of the Kettle Moraine and Ice Age Trail. We would like to acknowledge the Wisconsin DNR, Kettle Moraine Natural History Association and The Ice Age Park and Trail Foundation for their publications and research.
The race is held within the boundaries of the 18,000 acre, Southern Unit of the Kettle Moraine Forest. When the Wisconsin glacier receded about 13,000 years ago, its glacial ice and melt waters shaped the Kettle Moraine landscape. The race course you run is a living museum of the imprints of the last glacial advance, with its glacial boulders, steep ridges, knobby hills and kettle depressions. Land forms known as drumlins, eskers, kames and kettles predominant the landscape.
The irregular distribution of materials gathered by the advancing glacier and the myriad ways in which the sun strikes the ever changing topography created a multitude of interesting habitats for plants and animals. For a temperate climate, the Kettle Moraine boasts an amazing variety of species. Your running journey will take you through pine and hardwood forest, wet and dry prairies, along high ridges overlooking wetlands and lakes, down to the lowlands only to charge up another hill. There are literally hundreds of hills, small and large that you will traverse on your running adventure.