Trail Running Locations

Once a month, we offer our members an organized trail run at a nearby State Park within an hour and a half drive from Downtown Houston.

These adventure runs became popular with our group during the COVID Pandemic, and many runners got hooked on trail running.

Since then, we have built trails into our program as a chance to get out of the city and explore beautiful nature trails close to Houston.

Most of these trail runs are easy on your body yet challenging and more technical, with some rolling hills and varied surfaces to run on.  Below are just a few of the locations we explore as a team, once a month on Sunday mornings.

 Huntsville State Park
 Huntsville, Texas 
Huntsville State Park is a 2,083-acre recreation area nestled within the Sam Houston National Forest in the East Texas Piney Woods. Runners can explore over 21 miles of trails for hiking and biking through the mixed pine and hardwood forest, where they might spot wildlife like deer, raccoons, and alligators. This park is pretty hilly offering a great workout whether you are hiking or running.  It's the home of  mountain bike races and ultra marathons.

 Brazos Bend State Park
 Needville, Texas

One Brazos Bend State Park, a 5,000-acre park located about an hour southwest of Houston, offers visitors diverse ecosystems including coastal prairies, bottomland forests, and wetlands teeming with wildlife, most notably American alligators.  Runners can explore over 30 miles of trails.  This park is pretty diverse, with one side offering mostly flat trails and the other side, closer to the Brazos River, offering some rolling hills with more shade and denser forest.

 Stephen F. Austin State Park
 San Felipe, Texas 

Stephen F. Austin State Park is a forested park along the Brazos River about 50 minutes west of Downtown Houston. It offers outdoor recreation such as trail running, hiking, biking, camping, and birdwatching through its unique East Texas bottomland forest habitat, which includes large cottonwood trees.  This park has a shorter trail but offers almost full shade.  One full loop runs about 4 miles, but routes can be extended to easily get in a 4, 6 or 8-mile trail run. 

 

 Double Lake Federal Recreation Area
 Sam Houston Forest - Coldspring, Texas 

Our hill training interval workouts are held at various hilly segments along Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou inside the 610 loop and just west of Downtown Houston.  Locations vary and utilize inner loop bridges, overpasses, and hilly bayou trail segments.  These workouts help prepare runners for the hilly terrain they may experience on the race course and also improve power and strength in the legs.  During the season, we cycle throug

 Lake Houston Wilderness Park
 New Caney, Texas 

Just 40 minutes north of Houston off of I59/69 in New Caney, is one of Southwest Texas' most beautiful trails for hiking and running.  Lake Houston Park is owned and operated by the City of Houston and offers some great trails that hug Peak Creek until it empties into Lake Houston. The "Ameritrial" is the main trail that allows runners to run out and back distances from 3 - 12 miles.  Terrain is varied with some climbs along dirt and sandy trails.  A member fav!

 Kemah/Seabrook Nature Trails - Upper Galveston Bay
 Rex Meador Park, Seabrook, Texas 

South of Houston are some beautiful nature trails that hug upper Galveston Bay in the City of Seabrook, just north of Kemah.  These crushed granite trails are easy on the body and include a mix of marshy areas that run along Toddville Rd.  The trail head ends oceanside at Pine Gully Park and oceanside neighborhoods.  We usually run 2 legs from Rex Meador Park in Seabrook: one over the Kemah bridge and back, and one heading north along the Seabrook trails. 

 Surfside Inter-coastal Bridge & Bay
 Surfside, Texas 

Away from the hustle and bustle of Galveston, is it's laid-back sister down the coast, Surfside.  During this run, we start at a seaside park in Surfside, run over the inter-coastal bridge, along bayside neighborhoods and run out and back on the Jetty that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico. Surfside is about an hour and 15 minute drive from Downtown Houston.