The Life Time mountain biking and trailing running event debuts in October 2025 and will offer a variety of race categories to accommodate both competitive and recreational participants.

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ANNISTON, Alabama — “This is so technical!!” exclaimed ultrarunner Regan Sikes as she tore across one of the rocky sections of the soon-to-debut Life Time Coldwater Trail MTB & Run course in Anniston. “Put that in all caps, with lots of exclamation points,” she recommended.

This week, ahead of registration opening, Sikes and a handful of athletes and journalists got an exclusive preview of the race, which will take place Oct. 24 and 25, 2025.

The Coldwater Trail MTB & Run offers 100k and 50k distances for cyclists and 50k and 15k distances for runners. Fitness brand Life Time, well-known in the endurance sport community because of its ownership of the Leadville Race Series, spent four years and scouted numerous locations in the Southeast before settling on Alabama for its newest event.

The meat of the course involves rolling and fast single-track trails around Coldwater Mountain, punctuated by ankle-biting rocks, deep beds of fallen leaves, hip-bending switchbacks, and thick-canopied wilderness.

It begins and ends just outside the headquarters of the Northeast Alabama Bicycle Association in a quaint, historic section of Anniston. The road to the finish line is long, straight, and yet slightly hilly, conjuring a bit of the iconic look and feel of Leadville.

Over two days, the preview runners covered roughly 15 miles of the mountain, while the mountain bikers wound their own unique path through the trees, which hadn’t quite started budding out for the spring season yet.

Locals joined ActionHub and other visiting athletes on these outings, helping to guide the way and fill in some of the history of the region and the evolution of the trail system. Most of the visiting runners are currently based in Colorado, though everyone had a connection to the Eastern U.S.

“I started as a runner on the Appalachian Trail when I lived in Georgia, so I loved the technicality and being in between the trees. It was definitely a bit of nostalgia,” Sikes said. “But it also made me realize that I’m very spoiled in Colorado, despite how everyone thinks that elevation is so much harder, the technicality here was so tough. I had to put forth more concentration and energy into picking my feet up and things like that.

“Yet it’s very, very pretty,” she added. “I think people are going to love it!”

Putting the Event Together

The Coldwater Trail MTB & Run is the most easterly Leadville qualifying event in the country, and officials with Life Time told ActionHub that accessibility was a consideration in planning the race. Not only is it in the Eastern U.S. to ease some of the travel burden on those seeking a qualifying Leadville Series event, but both the ride and run portions have smaller, more entry-level distances to ease people into outdoor competition.

The smaller distances will be a way “for people to get a feel of Coldwater Trail, and maybe we get them to do the 50k in the future,” said Micah Rice, race director for the Life Time Coldwater Trail MTB & Run. He noted that the various distances also allow couples who have different interests and different skill levels to take part in something together. In all, he said he hopes to have about 1,000 participants.

The trails around Coldwater Mountain have a robust following in the eastern mountain biking community. An estimated $3.5 million to $4 million has been poured into the Coldwater Mountain Bike Trail System to make it a premier destination in the Southeast. Coldwater even pops up often among the Top 10s of East Coast mountain biking trails and descents.

Yet these 4,000 acres of trails — sporting names like Momma Bear, Papa Bear, Goldilocks, Bomb Dog, Chilhowee and Talladega — remain a relatively unknown destination for trail runners outside of Anniston and Calhoun County.

Rice told ActionHub that one of the most alluring aspects of this trail system was how quickly it dries out after a rain, making it usable even in the midst of inclement weather. The rocky sections, well-draining sandy sections, and heavily pine-needle-covered stretches offer a lot of protection against accumulating moisture.

For anyone familiar with the technicality of East Coast trails, Coldwater noticeably lacks many shallow-rooted trees, eliminating one of the major fall hazards for trail runners and mountain bikers. It also doesn’t have much wildlife, aside from some roving bands of turkeys.

Despite its more technical aspects, this course is largely runnable, with Sikes describing it as very flowy, without a lot of punchy ups and downs.

“Someone who’s looking to have a faster 50k, this would be a course to come try that out on,” she said.

Coldwater is spread across a Friday and Saturday in October, when average high temperatures are in the low- to mid-70s. The impact from humidity should be tapering at this time of year, but depending on where you’d be arriving from and what you’re conditioned to, some of those sweaty, suffocating effects could still be present. Drinking lots of water is a must!

All of the races will start in the mornings. On Friday, the 50k mountain bike race will be first, with the 50k run (a Leadville qualifier) starting an hour later. There was no official documentation available, but locals said the course has over 5,000 feet of total gain.

Saturday will feature the 100k mountain bike event, which will be two loops — the first one somewhat shorter than the first. This is intended to allow enough time for slower racers to get entirely through the first loop before the fast ones catch up on their second loop.

“We don’t want the head to catch the tail,” Rice explained. “We want to have a good experience for the people in the front who are trying to qualify … and we want a great experience for those who are just trying to finish a big day on the bike and to make sure that experience is elevated for everyone.”

The 15k run will take place while the riders are on their first lap.

Abundant Community Support

Anniston, Alabama, isn’t particularly close to anything — it’s an hour and a half from Atlanta’s airport and about an hour from Birmingham’s. With a population of a little more than 21,000 people, it also doesn’t fit the bill of a laid-back mountain town or remote and rugged gem.

Among its best spots is the Coldwater Mountain Brewpub, a trendy tavern with a dark interior, exposed brick, and a vibe perfect for endurance athletes. There’s also places like Sinclair Social, a converted auto repair shop that now operates as a food truck bar with lots of live music. But on the other hand, there’s only one hotel in town, meaning that most of the Coldwater racers will have to stay a few miles south of town in Oxford along Interstate 20.

Anniston has been working to grow and market itself in recent years, and landing a Life Time event is a major way to do that.

“Over the past two years Innovate Alabama has invested nearly $20 million in outdoor recreation infrastructure across the state to further Alabama’s position as a home for an outdoor lifestyle, with Coldwater Mountain being one of those key early projects,” said T.C. McLemore, executive director of Outdoor Recreation Programs at Innovate Alabama. “Life Time’s recognition of not just Coldwater as a unique natural asset but of east Alabama’s community of mountain bikers and outdoor enthusiasts validates that investment.”

While the investment in the Coldwater region is vital to making this happen, it’s the people in the community who are providing the real momentum.

In nearly every instance, the locals proved themselves to be welcoming and eager to make our time on the trails enjoyable. They’ve poured a lot of volunteer hours into the outdoors community, and partnerships with trail advocacy groups were forged to conserve the land. Enormous amounts of manhours and skill were invested to renovate the joint headquarters for the Northeast Alabama Bicycle Association and the Anniston Runners Club, which is at the start/finish line of the race.

They take pride in their recreation, and they want everyone to know it. Essentially, they’re putting “southern hospitality” on display.

“Everyone is so sweet, and I picked up from the meeting at the headquarters the passion that everyone has here,” said Sikes. “I felt like they had to be very patient through this process, which oftentimes can deter people off the path from the objective at the end. Seeing these people and being able to see this project come to fruition for them was a really cool moment and great to be a part of.”

The Alabama Tourism Department has declared 2025 to be “The Year of Alabama Trails,” surely helping to elevate what Life Time is bringing to the state.

Registration for the Life Time Coldwater Trail MTB & Run opened today.

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Ryan Tipps is Managing Editor for ActionHub. He lives along the Blue Ridge Mountains, is an avid hiker, backpacker and trail runner and has been a part of the wilderness search and rescue community since 2005.