Saturday, November 14, 2026 · Palo Duro Canyon State Park, TX

Ride the Palo Duro Marathon on a plan, not a hunch

The opening round of the Texas marathon series: 38 miles on laps of the canyon floor, with 28 and 14 mile options. Redline Athlete forecasts your finish from your own numbers, prices every climb against your reserve, and puts the plan on your head unit.

No card. No account needed to try it.

01 · The course

Thirty-eight miles on the canyon floor

38 miThe marathon · 28 and 14 mile options
~1,200 ftClimbing per 17 mile lap, rider-shared route
2,944 ftHigh point of the lap
10:00 AMStart, per prior editions

Laps rather than a point to point, so the plan multiplies the lap and tells you what lap two and lap three cost when they are ridden on lap one legs. The climbing figure is from a rider-shared route of the 2025 lap; the organiser has not published one. Figures from the TMBRA calendar and event page (38, 28 and 14 mile options) and a rider-shared Trailforks lap (16.6 mi, 1,192 ft). When you load the course file, the app measures it for itself.

02 · What it asks of you

A lap race hides its difficulty in the second lap

Seventy feet per mile is gentle on paper. What a lap race asks is whether you rode lap one at lap-one pace, which is the mistake the plan exists to prevent.

Lap fade

Set the lap count and the plan predicts each lap, including how much slower the last one is than the first. Riding lap one at lap-one pace is the usual mistake.

Short punchy climbs

Canyon-floor climbs are short and sharp and come from your anaerobic reserve rather than your aerobic base. The plan ranks them by what they cost you.

Heat and exposure

Even in November the canyon can run warm and there is no shade. Set the temperature you expect and the plan adjusts your sustainable power and your fluid warning.

Three distances

Load your distance, not the marathon, if you are riding the 28 or the 14. The physics is the same; only the number of laps changes.

03 · What the plan tells you

What the plan tells you about Palo Duro

Your finish time

A forecast from your weight, fitness and the course file, with a pace target you can hold rather than an average someone else rode.

The climb that empties you

Every climb ranked by what it takes out of your anaerobic reserve, not by how tall it looks. On short climbs the reserve empties and refills many times; the plan shows the windows where it comes back.

Fuel that covers the effort

Carbohydrate burned against what you can absorb, hour by hour, with a warning when the plan runs short. Three to five hours in dry air: the fluid warning matters more here than the carbohydrate one.

Markers on your head unit

The longest climb, the hardest one for you, the recovery window before it and the technical stretch late in the day, sent to your Garmin, Wahoo or watch as waypoints.

04 · Proof

Fitted against real race files

The model is fitted against recorded races, not lab assumptions. On a Chequamegon 40 validation ride it predicted 2:24:28 against an actual finish of 2:24:20.

Predicted finish2:24:28
Actual finish2:24:20
Difference8 seconds

Your prediction comes with a confidence range, because honesty beats a single flattering number. Palo Duro has not yet been run through the model on a recorded file. When a rider shares one, this page gets its own numbers.

Three steps before race morning

  1. Load the course. TMBRA publishes a course map; a rider-shared lap is on Trailforks. Export the GPX, upload it, and set the number of laps for your distance.
  2. Say what the ground is. The trail’s own corners suggest where the ground changes; you name each section or describe the course in a sentence. Worth 13 to 17% of a finish time.
  3. Set the pace and get the plan. Weight and fitness once, then one slider drawn on what each pace costs: finish forecast, reserve at the line, fatigue curve, a fueling schedule, and the markers that matter sent to your head unit or watch. No power meter required.

Palo Duro Canyon MTB Marathon questions

How long does the Palo Duro Marathon take?

The front of the 38 finishes in under three hours and the field spreads to five. The calculator forecasts your time from your own numbers, lap by lap.

Does it handle the 28 and the 14?

Yes. Load the lap and set the lap count for your distance.

Is it really free?

Yes. Run the full analysis as a guest, no account. Pro ($9/month, or $59/year) adds saved rides, a saved athlete profile and the head-unit export.

Other race plans

Same model, one page per course.

Every race on the calendar

Find out what lap three is going to cost

Same course, your fitness, your pacing. Two minutes of setup now beats thirty-eight miles of guessing.