May 15-17 was a big weekend for ultramarathon running in New England with a pair of ultras in Massachusetts and a few more throughout the region. We will have the Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service’s Tails & Trails State Forest Run and the Free Spirit 50K covered in separate recaps, but in this week’s roundup we catch up on other results from throughout the region, as well as across the country. New Englanders took part in at least 14 other ultras from coast to coast, and we have results from several of them included here.
The Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service (BURCS) played host to the second annual Tails & Trails State Forest Run on Saturday, May 16, 2026, at Pittsfield State Forest in Pittsfield, Mass. The event offered 50K, 25K and 5-mile trail races on rolling singletrack trails. Proceeds from the event benefitted three area nonprofit animal rescue organizations.
The fourth annual Free Spirit 50K took place on Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Leyden, Mass. The course consisted of dirt country roads in Massachusetts and Vermont with around 4,200 feet of climbing.
A pair of Massachusetts races highlighted the New England ultrarunning calendar during the May 8-10 weekend with the Watuppa Trail Races in Fall River and the Trail Animals Running Club’s Wapack and Back races in Ashburnham, Mass. We’ll have those covered in separate stories, but there was plenty of additional ultrarunning action for New Englanders at events across the country. From the Hellbender 100 in North Carolina to the Cocodona 250 in Arizona, we have them covered in this edition of the roundup.
The 18th edition of the Trail Animals Running Club’s Wapack and Back Trail Races took place Saturday, May 9, 2026, in Ashburnham, Mass. Runners took on a 43-mile out-and-back of the Wapack Trail, a 50-mile race that included the 43-mile out-and-back plus an additional 7 miles, or a 21.5-mile one-way journey through the course. Since its founding in 2007 by Bogie Dumitrescu, the event has been held annually with the exception of 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It rained steadily for much of the race for the second straight year.
The 12th running of the Watuppa Trail Races took place Saturday, May 9, 2026, at Watuppa Reservation in Fall River, Mass. Runners took on a 10K loop course for 50K, 30K and 10K distances.
A big weekend of ultramarathon racing in New England with four events across three states. In Maine, the 10th and final running of the Riverlands 100 took place, as did the Big A 50K. In New Hampshire, the White Lake Ultras attracted hundreds of runners to do laps around the water. In Connecticut, technical trails were aplenty at the Blue 2 Blue Challenge 50K. Results from Big A and Blue 2 Blue were unavailable at the time of publication, but we have the other events – as well as more from beyond the region – covered in this edition of the roundup.
April came to a close with a pair of ultrarunning events in New England. On trail, runners took on the TARC Spring Classic in Massachusetts, which we will have covered in a separate article. On road, runners raced the historic Jack Bristol Lake Waramaug Ultras for the 52nd time. In this week’s roundup, we catch up on the action at Lake Waramaug, and then look beyond the region as New Englanders earned ultra finishes in Maryland, Georgia, Virginia and Utah.
The Trail Animals Running Club played host to the 14th edition of the TARC Spring Classic 50K, marathon, half marathon and 10K trail races on Saturday, April 25, 2026, at the Jericho Woods in Weston, Mass. A crowd of 402 runners toed the starting line for any of the four distances, which took place on a 10K loop course on mixed terrain trails in the forest.
The Trail Animals Running Club played host to the 30th annual “Don’t Run Boston” 50K and 17th edition of the DRB 50-miler on Saturday, April 19, 2026, at the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Mass. Runners took on an unmarked course through the reservation, amassing around 5,700 feet of elevation gain for the 50K and nearly 7,000 feet of climbing for the 50-miler.
MassUltra 