Nov. 10-11 was a light weekend for ultramarathon racing, but a handful of Massachusetts residents still found courses to tackle. Wendell’s Kelsey Allen took her talents out west and did battle at the competitive Run the Rock 50-miler in Oregon, while Allston’s Caroline Tangoren earned her first ultramarathon finish in North Carolina. Both Run the Rock and the Lake Norman State Park 50K are featured in this roundup.

Run the Rock

Kelsey Allen has spent most of the past seven years proving to be a force on the trails in the Northeast, be it a short-distance mountain race like 7 Sisters or a 100-miler like Massanutten. In fact, the resident of Wendell, Mass., has ventured outside of the Northeast just once to race the trails – a year ago when she traveled to California and won the Mt. Tam 50K.

Allen, 35, headed west again on Saturday, Nov. 10, to compete at the second annual Run the Rock Trail Races in Terrebonne, Ore., and Allen once again was among the strongest runners in the field for the 50-mile distance.

Racing on a course that consisted of two 25-mile singletrack loops with 7,500 feet of vertical gain, Summer Button, 33, of Eagle, Id., ran away with the win for the women’s category in 7:48:16. The battle for second was fierce as Allen dueled with Danielle Snyder, 32, of Bend, Ore., and Corinne Sayler, 38, of Anacortes, Wash., as well as Maria Dalzot, 30, of Bellingham, Wash. All four raced in close proximity, and the competition heated in the final miles as they were within each other’s sights.

Ultimately, Snyder secured second place in 8:56:08, followed by Sayler in 8:57:36 while Allen placed fourth in 8:58:22. Dalzot finished fifth in 9:00:33 to round out the top end of a tough battle for the women’s podium.

Meanwhile, Colton Gale, 27, of Bend, Ore., won the men’s race in 6:52:50, holding off 30-year-old Ryan Ghelfi of Ashland, Ore., by 2 1/2 minutes. Benjamin Metcalf, 37, of Cambridge, Mass., found himself among the fastest men as he placed eighth in the men’s field and ninth overall in 8:32:14. The top 19 overall finishers completed the race in less than nine hours, and 81 runners finished within 12 hours.

In addition to the 50-mile race, another 106 runners completed a 50K race that used one 25-mile loop of the course plus a bit extra. In total, the largely singletrack course challenged runners with around 4,500 feet of vertical gain. Two Massachusetts residents – Medford’s Galen August and Cambridge’s Catherine Marinac – were up to that challenge. August, 28, cruised to a 14^th-place overall finish in 5:17:52 while Marinac, 32, placed 69^th in 6:36:53. There were 104 finishers within nine hours.

Byron Critchfield, 31, of Eugene, Ore., was the men’s winner in 4:05:26 and Rayleen Hsu, 38, of San Francisco, Calif., won the women’s race in 4:58:39.

Lake Norman State Park 50K

Caroline Tangoren made an impressive ultramarathon debut at the second annual Lake Norman State Park 50K on Saturday, Nov. 10 in Troutman, N.C. Tangoren, a 22-year-old resident of Allston, Mass., found a fast, easy-running course for her first foray into the ultra distances and used it to her advantage.

The course utilized two distinct loops – a 30K and a 20K – and consisted of smooth, rolling singletrack dirt and around 2,200 feet of vertical gain. Runners had 10 hours to complete the distance, but Tangoren didn’t need nearly that much time. She cruised to a fourth-place finish in the women’s field and placed 20^th overall out of 45 finishers with a time of 6:00:02. Jennings Garry, 44, of Asheville, N.C., was the top woman and fifth overall finisher in 5:12:40. Katie Henderson, 31, of Wilmington, N.C., was the women’s runner-up in 5:16:32, followed by Kelly McFadden, 48, of Cornelius, N.C, in 5:47:31. Asheville resident Jordan Tager, 26, was the men’s winner in 4:09:51.

*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.