May doesn’t feel like race season on Amelia Island. The humidity has been creeping up since mid-April, and last week I ran the Egans Creek Greenway at 7 AM in 80 percent humidity with the temperature already in the low 70s. By June it’ll be worse. By August you’re just surviving.
But May is exactly when I start paying attention to the fall race calendar. If you want to line up in October or November in any kind of shape, summer training has to mean something — and it’s a lot easier to gut out a July long run at 6 AM when you know what you’re building toward.
Here’s what I’m looking at for fall.
Florida Roots Trail Series at Fort Clinch
I’m biased here because I’m the race director, but hear me out. The Florida Roots Trail Series runs in the fall at Fort Clinch State Park, which means you’re racing on the same singletrack I’ve been running for years, the same trail I broke down section by section a few weeks ago. The course winds through live oak canopy, over sandy double-track, and along sections of the Amelia Island coastline.
Running it as a local is a different experience than coming in cold. You know the footing well enough to run it at race pace without thinking about it, which means you can actually race instead of navigate. The tight singletrack on the north end of the park — where the trail squeezes through palmetto — is where most people lose time because they hesitate. If you’ve trained on it, you don’t hesitate.
We built Florida Roots for people who are curious about trail running, not just people who’ve been doing it for a decade. The distance options reflect that. But it’s got enough challenge to push experienced runners too. If you’re on the island for any reason in fall, it’s worth putting on the calendar early.
Croom Fools Run
If you run trails in Florida and you haven’t done Croom, that’s the gap to fill. The Croom Tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest sits about 90 minutes south of Jacksonville near Brooksville, and it’s the closest thing Florida has to honest technical trail running.
The terrain is rolling in a way that feels almost jarring after months of flat island running. Real elevation changes — not huge by any standard, but enough to remind your legs they have glutes. The trail surface alternates between packed dirt, loose sand, and limestone outcroppings that require some attention. You can’t zone out on Croom the way you can on the Amelia Island Parkway.
Croom races typically run in October, which means you’re racing after the worst of summer heat but before Florida settles into its ideal winter running window. The temperature is usually somewhere in the low 70s at race start. After four months of pre-dawn 80-degree training runs, that feels almost cold.
I use Croom as a benchmark. When I run well there, it tells me the summer wasn’t wasted. When I struggle in the hills, it tells me I leaned too hard on flat easy miles and didn’t build enough actual strength.
Alafia River Rendezvous
Hillsborough River State Park, outside Tampa. The trails at Alafia have more character than most of Florida’s flat options — similar to Croom in that they reward runners who’ve built real leg strength, not just pace on easy ground.
The race typically lands in November, which puts it at the end of the fall build. That timing works well as a late-season goal: if you’ve been training since May, you’ve got enough runway to build fitness and then sharpen into it over the last few weeks. This is the race I point to when someone tells me Florida terrain is too easy to train on. You can build everything you need here; you just have to be deliberate about it.
What Summer Training Actually Looks Like with These Goals
Running through June, July, and August on Amelia Island with fall races in mind requires accepting some things up front. Pace doesn’t matter until September. Heart rate matters all summer. If you’re running by pace in July, you’re either not pushing enough volume or you’re heading toward a breakdown.
What I focus on: time on feet, not miles per week. An hour at conversational effort in 90-degree heat at 7 AM trains the same energy systems as a tempo in October — the adaptation is just different. I lean heavily on the Egans Creek Greenway for early morning runs when the canopy holds cooler air longer than open road, and I shift beach running to evening sessions when the sea breeze actually helps.
The beach running guide covers timing and footing in more detail, but the short version for summer: hard-packed sand at low tide in the morning, soft sand only if you’re treating it as strength work and keeping the pace genuinely easy. In the peak of summer, that means virtually every beach run is an easy run.
By September, when the temperature drops back into the mid-70s, the fitness you built in July and August starts to show up in ways you can measure. That’s when pace work comes back and you can actually use it.
Making the Commitment
Registering for something in May — paying the entry fee, putting it on the calendar — is what makes summer training coherent. Without a target, August becomes a month of just getting through it. With one, you’re building something specific.
If you’re based on the island or planning a fall visit, the Florida Roots Trail Series is the natural anchor. If you want something that’ll test you on different terrain and give you an honest read on your fitness, Croom is the standard and worth the drive.
The racing calendar is the easy part. The summer is where the work happens.