Set for its annual running along the trails and hills of Santa Teresa County Park near San Jose, the King Richard Annual Half Marathon, 10K and 5K race takes runners on an out-and-back double-loop route that winds through this 1,627-acre park filled with plenty of challenging uphills and downhills.
The race is organized by Troy’s California Trail Runs, a Northern California-based race management company that stages trail races throughout the spring and summer around the San Jose and San Francisco areas, with a wide range of race distances — all the way from 5K and 10K runs all the way to 32- and 50-mile trail runs, in the parks and mountains that lie just to the south of San Jose.
For the Santa Teresa County Park races, runners will follow an out-and-back course that starts and finishes at the park’s Pueblo Day Use Area. From there — all three races share an 8:45 AM starting time — runners will head west along the park trails, with names like the Mine Trail, Fortini Trail, Stile Ranch Trail and the Bernal Hill Trail, making what could be described roughly as a figure-eight-shaped pair of loops around the park.
The steepest hills occur in the early going, on the switchback trails that lead runners up several twists and turns along the Stile Ranch Trail between the first and second mile markers.
