Spa Running Festival

Hot Springs is a gem of a mountain town, and we’re not the first to notice. The healing waters the town is named for have been attracting everyone from Native Americans to early-20th-century health nuts to a good chunk of the nation’s organized crime leadership. When Hot Springs was at full throttle in the 1930s, it was a hotbed of gambling, bootlegging, prostitution and opulence. Elaborate restored bathhouses, where you can still get old-school spa treatments, line Bathhouse Row behind shady magnolias on the east side of Central Ave.

This will be backdrop for the Summit Challenge Half Marathon!!

You’ll run nearly all the way to the top of West Mountain inside Arkansas’ Hot Springs National Park at the all-new Summit Challenge Half Marathon, which makes its annual running at this year’s Spa Running Festival on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, part of an event that has featured a 10K and 5K race for the past few years.

The route is the normal Spa 10K until the top of West Mountain, turn right at the Summit – go to top of the Summit, come back down Summit and West Mountain to Pecan Street, left on Flint, left on Quapaw, left on Fern, right on Pecan, travel back up West Mountain to the top of the Summit, back down Mountain and follow 10K route to finish. All participants will receive a finishing medal!