Race the Reserve

Runners will begin and end their adventure on the south side of the historic seaport community of Coupeville. This is the second oldest town in Washington and government center of Island County, located on the south shore of Penn Cove on beautiful Whidbey Island. You will have the unique opportunity to traverse both Ebey’s Prairie and Crockett Prairie within Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve offering spectacular, panoramic ocean, mountain and prairie farmland views. Across the pastoral landscape in the Reserve and vast waterways of Puget Sound, Admiralty Inlet and the Straits of Juan de Fuca, runners will be greeted with sweeping vistas that include Mount Baker, the North Cascades, the Olympic Mountains and Peninsula, Mount Rainier and the San Juan Islands. If you participate in the marathon, relay or half, you will also have the opportunity to run through Fort Casey State Park where you will go past the lighthouse and bunkers used in WW II. If your lucky you will catch a glimpse of the ferries running between Coupeville and Port Townsend as you skirt the shores of Admirality Inlet.

A combination of dramatic seaside bluffs, dense forests, dirt and paved trails and fertile prairies offers a unique location and opportunity for competitive running in the first (1978) of only three designated historical reserves in the country.