Everything You Need to Know About Ogden Races in 2026 | The Ogden Wire

Shane Osgurhorpe
Welcome out to the very first episode of 2026 of the Ogden wire. We are joined here in the studio today with by Troy Callantine, he's the Executive Director of the GOAL

Foundation and Director of Sales. Stephanie Solomon, with Visit Ogden, beginning of the year, everyone has their New Year's resolutions. Fitness is always gonna be a part of, everyone wants to lose a little weight or try something they've never done, and a marathon, quite often, or some kind of race at least, is often on that list.

And so we got the two people in here that can talk with the most expertise about all the race opportunities here in Ogden. Let's start with Troy and the Ogden Marathon. And kind of Troy, we know the marathon is not till May, and that leaves a lot of training time in between. So you guys, a few years ago, came up with the concept of the winter race circuit, which basically helps you train to the levels you kind of need to be at in your training progress to make sure you're marathon ready. And why don't you walk us through how that works and what people can do.

Troy Callantine
Yeah for sure, so the winter running series is open and rocking. We have our first race February 14. It's a Valentine's Day theme this year as well. So we're pretty excited about that, a new 5k course for that. But essentially it's a four part race series about every two weeks, starting in mid February. So yeah. So it starts mid February. Every two weeks. We run a 5k February, 14. In February, 28 we run a 10k then we run two weeks later on March 14, a 10 mile race, and then we have our final half marathon up in Eden on April 4. So the idea is that you can progressively move up in distance and a little bit more in difficulty as well. So again, our 5k is gonna be a nice, flat course. It's brand new for us this year, actually, out on Ogden Airport Road, so it's just east of the airport, right from basically 31st Street south to 44th we've got a great little course there, nice, flat, super fast course. It should be a lot of fun and fully volunteer supported.

Shane Osgurhorpe
Anyone can go out and run their intervals that they need to run, run around the track, run around their neighborhood, whatever they're doing. But there's also that aspect, that social aspect of the racing that I think is hugely important, where you get to know the other athletes, you're going to make new friends throughout the reigning the circuit, possibly new training partners, people, you'll be racing alongside marathon day.

Stephanie Solomon
So yeah, community, and this is the year to do it, because it's so warm in January.

Troy Callantine
Yeah, hopefully it stays the same February, right? We'll see and, but you're right, yeah, well, we have a full start arch. It's fully timed. You get with the series. You get a participant medal for each race. You get a shirt with the race as well. We have vendors at the finish line, start and finish line, and so he does give you that normal experience of what a race is like. It's a smaller volume. We have between three and 500 people at the race, but it's a great, super local, good feel, and the camaraderie is amazing. You see, like you said, you'll build friendships there or in between from some of our other training clinics, which, if you enter the marathon, there's a free training clinic that comes with it. We launched our first one last night at Fleet Feet, and so there's a free training clinic. You can learn more about running, more about nutrition along the way, and we have group runs set up with that as well, because running is a bit of a social sport.

It's a single time, a solo result, but it does have a social aspect, right? Where, you know, Stephanie and I meet, we meet every Wednesday for runs, long runs, but maybe we will, I don't know, but, but it does have that social component. And so the training clinic offers a bit of that connection, where, if you're not already in a running group, or, you know, with other committed runners, you can come there and just meet other people, and that's free with your organ marathon registration.

Stephanie Solomon
Absolutely, I did the relay last year, and it was so fun to be able to do that with a group of girlfriends, that collectively we could do a marathon, but individually we may not be there. And so 100% agree it's it's all about community. And this winter race series is super fun because it's reachable for most people.

Shane Osgurhorpe
And the beauty is, you don't have to be committed to the Ogden marathon to do the race the circuit in the winter. It's like if you're only up for a 5k or a 10k or maybe, maybe the 10 Mile, maybe you just want to see if you're ready for the half. Yeah. And so how do they how do people sign up? How do they get to know more about this? What do they need to do to get get ready in time?

Troy Callantine
Yeah, if you go to the Ogden Marathon page, there's a Winter Running Series link in there as well. And if you just type in winter running series Ogden, it should pop up for you and populate and you can race. You can enter for the whole series. Which is all four races, or you could enter the standalones as well. So if you're only available for two of the four, it might make most sense to just enter for the 10k and the half marathon, or the 5k and the 10 Mile or something. So you can enter individual ones and and it's, it's easy. Just get online and hop in. You'll be in our system, and we'll, we'll get you there just in time for New Year's.

Stephanie Solomon
Just, now, that last one, tell me if this is true or not, because I'm not 100% sure it takes place in Eden, right? So is that last portion kind of that run down like you would be in the marathon?

Troy Callantine
It's not this year. It is part of our vision to do that, though, is so right now, starts at Eden Park and makes a loop over to Huntsville and comes back around that way. So it's a full it's so beautiful, a big portion of it is the same part of the Ogden Marathons, like the first half of it in the future, though we very well may we explored it this year, doing a shuttle system, with bussing up to the full marathon start and then coming down ending at Eden Park. And just permitting. And there's a lot of logistics to putting that together. We didn't do it this year, but we do think there's demand for that, and it would be a really cool way to if you only want to run the half, you could come run that half and then you come back in May and run the other path, run the whole Ogden Marathon course.

Shane Osgurhorpe
So yeah, just great. Well, now all this leads us to the Ogden Marathon, and we're definitely gonna have you back for another episode as the marathon approaches, to talk about more how community and everybody can get involved. But for now, I've been involved with marathon for a lot of years. Know a lot, a bit a lot about it. Let's talk through how the numbers looking right into this. What this is one of the most scenic marathons, top 10 rated by runners world, all kinds of accolades for this race over the years. What's the registration looking like right now? Can people still get into this race?

Troy Callantine
You can, but I would do it sooner than later. Yeah, last year we sold out in early March. We're trending above that right now, and the full marathon is over 70% sold. So if you're looking to get in the full I would do it soon. And we once we sell out, we really do sell out. It's not like we can't just add another 500 spots. It's, it's not really possible for a multitude of reasons. So, yeah, it's trending really well. The half marathon is about, I think it's somewhere in the 55% sold range, and that one always tends to sell right about now, we'll start seeing a lot of new entries coming in.

Like you said, the new year. People are starting to think, what will the new me want to do, New year, new vision, and then our 5k and the the newest addition, the 8.2 mile, those are also both selling really well. We took 200 spots out of the 8.2 this year from last year, so we have less people in that race available, and that one will also sell out for sure. That gives you the whole canyon experience from really just below the dam, all the way down through so that one, that one will sell really quick as well. So, you know, feel a little bit salesy, but yeah, if you, if you're looking to get in the full I would, I would hop in sooner than later and get your registration booked.

Stephanie Solomon
So good advice, better get on that,

Shane Osgurhorpe
Right on. Well, like I said, and then that, that's for the runners themselves. So they need to go to go to the Ogden Marathon website. The registration link is right there. They can get registered.

Troy Callantine
That's correct, yep. And if you come to like our training clinics, or if you're, you know, in on the Facebook groups, we have ambassadors out there as well, and there's typically a discount code available for you. So if you look around, you can usually find somebody in that community that make that social connection, and, you know, help you get in the race if you've never done it before, and maybe save a few dollars as well along the way.

Shane Osgurhorpe
So if we didn't mention it, that's May 16 of this year, always the third, third Saturday in May. So May 16, and obviously the visit Ogden folks in the room are going to say, come into the early make sure you're the expo. Enjoy the town carbo load on 25th Street. All that good stuff. Expo. What do you have planned this year that's gonna be in the same location at the conference center?

Troy Callantine
No. So this is our 25th anniversary, which is super exciting exchange on 28 of those 25 so, but yeah, our 25th anniversary coming in, we made a couple of changes. We are gonna have the expo at the Union Station in Ogden. Crazy, nostalgic. Building, super, super cool. The layout for it is going to be amazing. I think we'll have a really just, just a nice flow for everybody. It's going to be a really good vendor experience. And so Union Station Downtown Ogden.

Shane Osgurhorpe
Can vendors still get involved and get involved to get an expo space? Do they go to the GOAL website or the marathon website?

Troy Callantine
Go to the marathon website and you can click in, I believe it's under there's a space to get involved for for vendors and expo stuff. And Trevor, our new event manager, is phenomenal. He lining up and get you set up and going in. We have all the details on a link through there for what a booth costs and what option or options are available for that. If any sponsors out there looking for a space as well. We typically include vendor booths for our sponsors that are at certain tiers. So if you wanted to have more branding, exposure and that type of thing, as well as showcase and demo your product on site, we've got that there. And we see about 15 to 17,000 people come through the Expo, and about the same at the finish line festival. And. Which has held the same day as the race. So there's a lot going on. And again, great, great time. Good times, great exposure, fantastic.

Stephanie Solomon
And you can always get involved with the volunteering effort.

Shane Osgurhorpe
So I was gonna say so like the marathon is produced and the winners race circuit are produced by the gold Foundation, which you're the executive director of, and that is kind of our volunteer organization in town, if you if you want to get plugged in as a volunteer to any of this racing, which is equally enjoyable, honestly, you'll make new friends doing that as well. Go to the gold Foundation website to volunteer. How's that work?

Troy Callantine
Yeah, two locations you can go to get out live.org and we've got a volunteer tab there. Click on that and you can get involved. We'll release the marathon volunteer spaces closer to early April, so we about five, six weeks out, we'll open those up. We have about 1000 to 1100 people that come on the day of the marathon, between the Friday and Saturday of the marathon itself. So there's plenty of opportunity to come anywhere from a couple hours to a full day if you're willing and able to participate for the whole day. And really cool, fun things that you can do. You can help in our food shoot. You get to see people come through and finish off their their Keystone achievement for the spring and the early summer. Or you could be at a water station, or one of our one of our cheer zones and that kind of stuff. And so, tons of opportunity, great things. You don't need a specific credential other than just, you know, willingness to show up and come help out.

Shane Osgurhorpe
So when you are a volunteer for the GOAL Foundation, you'll work the marathon probably. In addition to that, the gold Foundation supports all kinds of other cool events. I should say. Big one coming up is the World Curling thing, which we'll be talking about in a very soon, upcoming episode. So come back for that one, but some other races that we want to talk about, and going chronologically after after that may marathon, next big race date on the calendar is not really one that we produce, but it's one that we support. And that's the Spartan Trifecta up at Snow Basin resort on July 11 and 12th. Steph, you want to tell us a little about, like, kind of what it's like for an outside producer to come in and produce an event in this community, sure.

Stephanie Solomon
So Spartan puts on quite an event up at one of our Olympic venues, Snowbasin, as Shane mentioned, they have the trifecta, which has got a little bit for everybody. So if you really want to go hard and do the beast, you can at 21k but they've got a 5k and I think the other one was a 10k option with the kids race as well. And so basically, these organizations come into our community, and they lean on people like Troy and the Cole Foundation to help support with volunteer efforts. It kind of takes a full team to make it happen. So when you come to our community and you see these amazing events, you will see all the manpower behind it, with all of the moving parts, and the people working their tails off to make sure that you have such a fantastic time running and beating that time that you had, or doing these obstacles that you never thought you would do.

Shane Osgurhorpe
That's definitely one to look forward to. That takes us through September, which now we're in, into the fall. If you're really hardcore, and you're now a hardcore runner, thanks to starting the winter race circuit 5k right? That's right. That takes us to the women's epic. Tell us a little bit about that one Steph,

Stephanie Solomon
So Women's Epic is also a trail race that started down south. They have two events down there, but last year we had their first road race in history, and it is actually a pretty neat organization that is for women to support them in this race journey. And so they hosted their celebration camp at Stuart Stadium, which did you know Stewart stadium is the only stadium named after a woman?

Shane Osgurhorpe
Wow. I didn't know either. Claim to Fame for Ogden, the stadium named after a woman?

Stephanie Solomon
Way to go, Weber State, yeah. So they did this amazing yoga meetup with everyone to grab their registrations, and then they had a silent disco party after that, and then off to the races they went the next day. So they ran up on country hills, drive all through those nice rolling hills, all the way up to 12th Street, and then came down the parkway and back down. So it's in and out celebration at Weber State. It's really great to see the community support a women a women's race, I should say. But it was also really great to see all walks of life at the base camp that they had there, all the supporting of the ladies coming in on the Jumbotron that you would see, and their whole families behind them, and it was really special.

Shane Osgurhorpe
So welcome back to women's epic. That's going to be October 24 where can they go for information about that?

Stephanie Solomon
We'll try to put links to all these registration for all three of their events on the ninth of this month, so next week, I believe, and they tend to sell out pretty quickly, so I would hop on that if you're planning on joining the women's epic journey, and that is at their website.

Shane Osgurhorpe

Right on, and then kind of become a one of the crown jewels of our racing world here in Ogden, we kind of round out the year in October with the nut up at North Fork Park. Tell us a bit about that, Troy, that's that's a CO produced event between you and trails foundation northern Utah. Is that?

Troy Callantine
That's right, yeah, GOAL Foundation and Trails Foundation of Northern Utah co-produced that with partnership with Weber County Parks and Rec as well. October, it's always the first weekend of October, so essentially closed the campgrounds down at the right before, so the end of September, and then we get to host our trail festival that first weekend of October, and Friday's check in, load in, which will be October 2 this coming year, and or this year, I guess it's already 26 so October 2 will be your camp.

Load in, we have music and vendors set up that night. So you've got entertainment, food beverage on site as well. We'll have beer provided by roosters, and probably, I believe, Utah will be there as well, maybe another one or two. So we'll have all that and food trucks on site. And then Saturday morning, we start races. So we have a trail race that is kind of a lap format. So it's about a 5k a three and a half mile loop, and you get to pick a window of three hours, six hours or nine hours, and the goal is to complete as many laps as you can inside that time frame that you select. So if you choose to run the three hour time frame, you get to just run as many as you can.

You have to finish your lap before the end of the time frame. Tip for the lap to count, and it's the fastest of the highest lap count, if that makes sense. So then, so that's the the trail side, and this is all on a separate course as well. So the trail runs on the north end of Cutler Flats, and then on the other side of where our campground is, which is Cutler flats, the mountain bike race occurs, and that's a three or six hour journey. So you pick a three hour or six hour time slot, and I failed to mention both the mountain bike and the trail running series have races. Have a duo category, so you can pick a partner and do the six hour category. So you could do a lap and then your partner could do a lap, or you could do two and they do two. However you want to split it up. But you do have that option as well. So if you want to have that longer journey, but split up the pain a little bit, you can do that. And so that's happening, you know, starts Saturday morning, October 3. Those two trail races and the bike races are happening simultaneously. So it's really exciting, because bikers and runners are kind of coming through the finish lane and through the finish arch and then separate back onto their own course again. And that comes adjacent to the festival that we set up, which has, gosh, I think we have 45 vendors or so last year and sponsors and people there. We have a big county stage up front. We bring in top notch bands. We have great music going all day. We had the proper way there last year, and we have, we had some we do. We always book Great music, at least. So I seem to think so as well.

Stephanie Solomon
Really great on the programming

Troy Callantine
And the festival part's free. So even if you don't want to race in the bike race or run in the trail race, either you can just come up and enjoy the festivities. We've got. We work with we pride ourselves on all of our events, including at the marathon's Finish Line festival, to partner with other local nonprofits to help make a really fun and inviting and welcoming experience. So we'll have the nature center will typically be there. The Tree House Museum will be there. The Scouting of America will be there with a climbing wall. And all these services are free for people to come up and enjoy.

So we're proud recipient of ramp grant funding, and that helps support this stuff for Weber County residents to come up and enjoy some culture, some arts, some athletic experience and exposure there, all the while getting to learn a little bit more about some of the other nonprofits in the area and what they do. Most importantly, the nut really, is designed around showcasing the North Fork Park area. And if you been up there, you're clearly aware of how beautiful it is. If you haven't been up there, come up there, come up there before October, and then book your campsite, because it's really, really incredible. We We try and time it with the leaf change the best we can. Typically, we're right in that window, though, at that first weekend of October where the leaves are just popping and they're crazy color, and we sit in such a prime camp spot that it's just hard to be in anything but awe of the beauty of the nature that surrounds us.

Shane Osgurhorpe
So yeah, when we say NUT, we mean Northern Utah Trail Fest. That's going to be October 2 through the fourth. Believe that you guys have probably ordered, ordered up better weather for this year's event than last year, which is, okay..

Troy Callantine
That was the fourth year or third year of the event. The 25 was our fourth year, and it was the first year we had rain. Yeah. So that worked out 75% of the time. It's gonna be perfect. That's funny. Ready to go three years of sunny, imperfect and then, but yeah, it's a rain or shine event as well. We do our best to be good stewards of the trail. And we were committed to, you know, making improvements and repair anything back to back to her better than it was when we found it. And so, yeah, it's, it's a this year's gonna be great, perfect weather.

Shane Osgurhorpe
Well, I told you earlier you were going to be a frequent guest on The Ogden Wire, and we will definitely have you back for an entire episode about the Northern Utah Trail Fest, because it is just such a cool draw for locals and visitors as well. So expect to be sitting in that seat again later. Steph, did we get everything covered on these races? I mean, obviously Ogden still has all the traditional 5k and 10 K's, the charity races that happened.

Stephanie Solomon
Yeah. I mean, I believe most, except for women's Epic, are all open for registration. Then not, probably not quite yet, up until..

Troy Callantine
I believe we're targeting march for registration.

Stephanie Solomon
Yeah, and the Women's Epic, I don't think I mentioned they do have a couple options. So there is a half marathon and a 10k involved in that one

Shane Osgurhorpe
Right on. Well, thank you guys for joining us. I think we got kind of our race calendar more or less laid out, and we will be checking in throughout the season and throughout the year to if we need any updates. But thank you guys.