A new trail ultrarunning event made its regional debut with the inaugural running of The Next Loop Endurance Series: New England on Saturday, April 11, at White Barn Farm in Wrentham, Mass. It was the lone scheduled stop in the region for the series, which also includes events in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas.

The event offered two options: a distance-specific 50-mile challenge and a separate loop-by-loop challenge with the opportunity to complete a 50K. Results for the 50-mile challenge were unavailable at the time of publication, but results were available for the latter event and are included in this story.

While the 50-mile race involved continuous running and had a 12-hour time limit, the Next Loop Challenge brought a similar approach to a backyard ultra, with a new loop starting on the hour every hour; however, runners weren’t considered as “did not finish” if they weren’t the last person standing. Instead, they received credit for whatever distance they completed, up to 10 laps and 50K over 10 hours, with their time for each lap tallied for their finishing time.

Ultimately, 18 runners completed at least nine loops, surpassing the marathon distance by three kilometers. Fifteen of those runners completed 10 loops for 50K finishes. Thomas Lindstrom led all runners with a 10-lap cumulative time of 4:13:55, earning the overall win and top spot in the male field. Hugo Lopes and Michael Rath followed in 4:42:02 and 4:52:57, respectively. Igor Vishnepolskiy and Jim Schofield rounded out the overall top five in 5:54:13 and 6:00:24.

In the female field, Lauralynn Weymouth earned the victory with a cumulative time of 6:07:45. She was just ahead of runner-up Emily Barbados who finished in 6:13:16. Emma Wickman rounded out the podium in 6:42:23.

The next Next Loop Challenge event takes place May 2 in Tyler, Texas. A week later, the series heads to Roland, Ark.