October arrived with cooler temperatures and a less crowded ultramarathon racing schedule for the Oct. 1-2 weekend, but plenty of New Englanders found opportunities to run long. In New Hampshire, runners ran from dusk to dark at the Joe English Twilight Challenge. In Virginia, several New Englanders ran through the night and into the next day on their way to 100-mile finishes at the Yeti 100-Mile Endurance Run. And in New Hampshire, runners ran all day, all night, all day and well into a second night for far beyond 100 miles at Bubba’s Backyard Ultra. It was once again a showdown between Ed Clifford and Brian Burke at Bubba’s, and that race leads off this edition of the roundup.

Midstate Massive and Ghost Train are on the horizon for hundreds of ultrarunners in New England, meaning the final weekend of September was either the last big preparatory race or the start of taper time. For some, the final tune-up came at a New England classic – the Vermont 50 – where hundreds of ultrarunners took on the hilly dirt roads and scenic foliage of the Vermont countryside. Others made the weekend their focal race of the fall, including a trio who headed west to Utah for the rugged Bear 100. Still others like Marshfield’s Mari Engelhardt used the weekend as a measuring stick for progress – she improved on her eighth-place finish at the 2021 Water Gap 50K by bringing home the victory this year. Those races and more are featured in this edition of the roundup.

From New Hampshire to Virginia, all the way out to Colorado, Part 2 of our roundup from the Sept. 16-18 weekend focuses on big, burly courses. We start in New Hampshire with the brutal Kilkenny Ridge 50-miler that took runners over two of the state’s 4,000-foot peaks twice. From there, we head south to Virginia to the Beast Coast classic Grindstone 100-miler before closing out at the high-altitude Run Rabbit Run 100-miler in Colorado.

The jam-packed September racing calendar rolled on during the Sept. 16-18 weekend, and that means another two-part roundup is necessary to capture the action of the New England crew. We’ll catch up on the Kilkenny Ridge 50-miler, Grindstone and Run Rabbit Run in Part 2, but here in Part 1 we’ll catch up on Daniel Grip’s pursuit of the course record at the Forgotten Forest 9-Hour Ultra in Connecticut, and then head to Colorado for the Red Feather Trail Jamboree before closing out with the Barkley Fall Classic in Tennessee and the Pawling 24-Hour Trail Festival in New York. There’s plenty to read – and that’s just Part 1!