With the exception of the Cape Cod Frozen Fat Ass 50K in January, the ultramarathon season has been quiet in Massachusetts so far in 2018. That will change on March 24 with the opening of the Trail Animals Running Club’s race series at Hale Reservation. In the meantime, one Bay State resident hit the road on the weekend of March 17-18 for an out-of-state ultra. Nantucket’s David Desnoyers traveled to North Carolina and hammered out a top-10 finish at the Badwater Cape Fear 50K. He gets this week’s roundup all to himself.

Badwater Cape Fear

Unlike its notorious “big brother” – the 135-mile road race through Death Valley, Calif., the Cape Fear ultras are the beach version of the Badwater franchise, and one Bay State resident got a taste of that experience at the Badwater Cape Fear 50K on Saturday, March 17, on Bald Head Island in North Carolina.

David Desnoyers knows a thing or two about beach running – the 30-year-old lives on Nantucket, Mass. – so he knew what to expect from the course conditions. The first 12 miles of the Cape Fear 50k course took runners along the roads through Bald Head Island before funneling them onto the sandy beach for the remainder of the race as they made their way from Cape Fear to Fort Fisher State Recreation Area and back.

The victory went to 48-year-old Mark McGeough of Huntersville, N.C., who cruised to the victory in 4:23:00. It was his second straight year winning the 50K, and he knocked five minutes off of his winning time from 2017. McGeough’s closest competitor, 35-year-old Luke Way of Kelowna, B.C., finished 20 minutes later, followed by third-place finisher Nick LaBoffe, 36, of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 4:48:00.

The top four finishers completed the race in less than five hours, and they were followed by women’s champion Joyce Lee, 37, of Fremont, Calif., who was fifth overall in 5:10:00.

While he narrowly missed out on a podium finish, Desnoyers closed out his race with a strong finish, placing sixth overall and fifth among the men in 5:13:00. Desnoyers was the lone New England resident in the 50K.

The top 12 runners all finished in less than six hours. Sixty runners completed the 50K race within 10 hours.

In addition to the 50K, a 51.4-mile race was offered. Runners had 14 hours to finish that distance on a course that was identical to the 50K save for an additional 20 miles of sand, and 112 successfully completed the race. No Massachusetts residents were among the finishers, although a trio of New Englanders – Kristen Lomastro of Dover, N.H. (10:07:00 – 11^th woman); Mark Laferriere of Somersworth, N.H. (11:09:00); and Jacqueline Brown of St. Albans Bay, Vt. (13:10:00) – all completed that distance.

*Editor’s Note: Results are found on a variety of sites, including ultrasignup.com, UltraRunning Magazine, and official race websites. We do the best we can to find as many results as possible to report on and recognize the local ultrarunning community.