Icebox 480/240 2026

Icebox 480/240 offers runners a clock instead of a fixed finish line: choose four hours or eight hours, then cover as many miles as possible on a roughly five-mile single-track loop at Whitetail Ridge in River Falls, Wisconsin. It takes place in November, just across the Wisconsin border from the Twin Cities via Highway 94. The staggered start window helps keep the narrow trail moving, so runners can settle into their own rhythm instead of getting trapped in a pack. The setup is deliberately simple and a little old-school. Before starting, each runner writes their start time on a large board, then tracks laps there after each loop and records a finish time at the end. Drop bags stay at the start point, which matters when runners are returning again and again to the same spot. In the final hour, a shorter one-mile loop opens for anyone trying to squeeze out extra distance. The original Icebox 480 began as an eight-hour test on single track near River Falls, and runners have pushed it past 50 miles; it has also been a first step into ultrarunning for people crossing beyond 26.2 miles for the first time.