A PERSONAL CHALLENGE THAT INSPIRED THOUSANDS
FAQ
Common Questions
National Park Visitor Center (NPS) Cruz Bay St. John
Start at the Homepage of www.8tuffmiles.com & click – Register for the 2025 8TM
Everyone from anywhere can participate as long as you have registered for the event before February 20th, 2025
Nope! 10 different water stations will be armed with volunteers handing you water and giving good cheer!
Registration for the 2025 race starts July 1st at 12:01am!
We are registering 1,500 entries for the 2025 event.
Every (registered) participant who starts and finishes the race will recieve a finisher medal, T-shirt & goodie bag!
The Course
The Trek from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay
The race begins on the west end of the island of St. John, Virgin Islands and travels in an east direction. This map shows each mile of the course and the elevation at each mile. Note that the course measures 8.38 miles.
The starting line is located at the National Park Visitor Center in Cruz Bay at an elevation of about 5 feet. As you can see here in this description the highest point on the course is 999 feet and the finish line is back to near sea level in Coral Bay.
Over the years many stateside residents have programmed their treadmills and turned up the heat in their home gyms to mimic the course for their personal training proposes.
The race course is Route 10 aka Centerline Road from the west side of the island in Cruz Bay eastward to the finish line in Coral Bay.
Climbing to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building (using the stairs) and reaching the highest point of the 8 Tuff Miles course you are close in elevation. There is about 51 feet difference between the two but I would like to know,
“… Who do you think has the better view?
All Finishing participants receive a finisher medal & T-shirt!
Over 102 Awards will be given out this year!
17 Age Groups – Both Male & Female- 3 deep in each age group.
Plus Overall Male, Overall Female, Youngest Male & Youngest Female.
Which age group do you fall into?
12 & Under, 13-16, 17-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, 85 Plus
The Overall Male wins $300.00 St. John Brewers Beer Dollars
The Overall Female wins $300.00 CASH.
A BIT OF HISTORY
"[MANY] THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY TO SUGGEST THE IDEA..."
“Upon returning to St. John in September 1996 I was trying to quit smoking and decided to punish myself by running and hopefully then realize that my body and lungs were beat up because of all the chemicals in the cigarettes. On a December Sunday morning close to the end of the year I woke up, put on my running shoes and started running towards Coral Bay from the downtown Cruz Bay area. Carrying a single bottle of water and not at all sure how much time this would take, I now knew I’d be quitting smoking in the very near future. I reached the corner in Coral Bay known as the T intersection in about 1:20:00 and was both surprised and pleased.
Soon after that I attended a meeting of the St. John Action Committee. They were looking for ways to entice St. Thomas folks to come over and spend the day on St. John on the last Saturday of each month with fairs and music and other ideas. My suggestion was to have a footrace and the course would be from one end of the island to the other. Most of the people at the meeting seriously thought I was crazy to suggest the idea but there were people there that saw the idea had potential. With a handful of new friends the date for the first race would be the last Saturday of February. The last Saturday of January was coming up to quickly and that is why we waited, planned accordingly and had the first race on the last Saturday of February, “February, 22 1997.”
All time
Course Records
Male: David Riddle Cincinnati, OH – 45:46 – Feb 23, 2013
Female: Jessica Rice, from Needham, MA – 56:03 – Feb 22, 2014
Timeline
1997
21 finishers
1998
121 finishers
1999
143 finishers
2000
187 finishers
2001
239 finishers
2002
356 finishers
2003
403 finishers
2004
515 finishers
2005
589 finishers
2006
627 finishers
2007
640 finishers
2008
726 finishers
2009
780 finishers
2010
899 finishers
2011
881 finishers
2012
984 finishers
2013
1207 finishers
(officially the largest participated food race in all of the Virgin Islands!)2014
1106 finishers
2015
1045 finishers
2016
1155 finishers
2017
1063 finishers
2018
If you were there, you were one of the winners! (Hurricanes Irma & Maria decimated the islands).
2019
2019 - 941 finishers - 18 months after two major hurricanes.
2020
1085 finishers
2024
1120 finishers
Videos From Past Races
