WINDSOR, Mass. – When Taylor Verville hobbled to her car after finishing the Notchview Ultra and braced herself for the three-hour ride home to Kingston, her body felt like it couldn’t give much more. She’d just run 216.6 miles in the 72-hour race and broke the previous overall course record by 15 miles.
Verville’s legs felt like concrete and her brain was fried from the lack of sleep. To say she was exhausted would’ve been the understatement of the year. It was July 11, 2022, and though her mind and body both needed rest, within just a few days Verville was already beginning to plot her Notchview sequel.
The Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service (BURCS) played host to the eighth edition of the Notchview Ultra from July 7-10 at the Trustees of Reservations’ Notchview Reservation in Windsor, Mass. Runners tackled a 1.9-mile loop course for 100.7 miles (53 loops), or 72-hour, 48-hour, 24-hour, 12-hour and 6-hour time-based options. Those who ran the most days started their race with high humidity, sun and temperatures in the low 80s and finished their races with temperatures in the 70s and nearly 24 hours of rain.
By design, the Vegan Power 50K course presents ample opportunities to run a fast time on singletrack trails. The loop course with rolling hills and mix of technical spots and smooth sections is inviting – even tempting – for a trail-runner looking to throw down.
The Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service (BURCS) played host to the 10th annual Vegan Power 50K and 25K Trail Races on Saturday, June 17, 2023, at Pittsfield State Forest in Pittsfield, Mass. Runners took on a 5-mile loop course on singletrack trails racing multiple loops to complete their distance.
After months of anticipation, registration for the Free to Run Trail Races opened on Saturday, May 27, on UltraSignup. The event, which has been a staple of the Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service’s BURCS Badass Race Series since 2015, returns with a few new features for 2023.
From the earliest days that the Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service began putting on trail- and ultrarunning events in western Massachusetts, Cathy Troisi was there.
For around 90 minutes, I perched halfway up the hill below Wright’s Tower and clicked away with my Nikon D90 camera as runners came toward me in both directions. Some danced down the hill, navigating its tangled web of tree roots while others dug deep and made the steep, rocky march upward.
When the United States military and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Taliban returned to power, the country was thrown into turmoil as its new leadership set about rolling back all sorts of rights people had gained and enjoyed in years prior. No group was more targeted than women and girls, as the Taliban sought to deny them access to education, freedom of expression and movement, and so much more. In a very real way the Taliban sought to deny women and girls their own identities.
Following two years of virtual events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service (BURCS) welcomed back runners for in-person racing at the eighth annual (and sixth in-person) Free to Run Trail Races on Saturday, Sept. 17, at Pittsfield State Forest in Pittsfield, Mass. Runners once again took on 50-mile, marathon or half-marathon distances on a 12.5-mile technical trail loop course with plenty of climbing.
Durgesh Mankekar was still a relative newcomer to ultrarunning when he made his first appearance at the Berkshire Ultra Running Community for Service’s Sweltering Summer 8-Hour Ultra in 2019.
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