WESTWOOD, Mass. – Katya Divari’s eyes were locked on the narrow segment of singletrack trail. One last downhill, a final web of tangled tree roots and a quick uphill awaited her as she closed in on the finish line at Powissett Lodge. She made quick work of the descent, danced deftly through the roots and then paused before the final climb. The sun warmed the left side of her face as she spread her arms and looked up toward the blue sky above.
“Can you believe it?” Divari asked, a smile gracing her face. “So much better than yesterday.”
The Trail Animals Running Club played host to its fourth running of the TARCtic Frozen Yeti 30-Hour Ultra and 15-mile night trail race on Feb. 4-5 at Hale Reservation in Westwood, Mass. Runners in the ultra were treated to the coldest Frozen Yeti on record as a historic cold snap blasted the region, leading to a -9 degree Fahrenheit temperature at the start with -28 degree wind chill. Ultimately, 47 runners logged ultra mileage and another 44 completed the 15-miler.
Ultramarathon racing in New England has been relatively quiet thus far in 2023, but it has already been a busy year for runners from the region who are willing to travel. January closed out with a busy weekend for ultrarunners from the region as they traveled to nearby New York, far-away California and Utah, and a handful of other destinations throughout the country to race. We may have missed a few, but we have several of them covered in this edition of the roundup.
Snow has started making its way into New England, and a handful of ultrarunners from the region headed for warmer climates to race during the Jan. 14-15 weekend. A few headed to the U.S. Virgin Islands, including Maine’s Nikolas Franks who capped the trip with a course-record performance. Others traveled south to Florida for the Long Haul 100, while a few more traveled to Hawaii and Arizona for 100-mile ultras, including Rhode Island’s Justin Hetherington who raced to a podium finish at the Coldwater Rumble. Those warmer weather races produced some feel-good results for New Englanders, and we have them covered in this edition of the roundup.
TOPSFIELD, Mass. – A few things have changed through the years at the G.A.C. Fat Ass 50K. There was the change of venue in 2003, the shift from the last Saturday in December to first Saturday in January starting in 2005, and the new start/finish area in 2022 to allow for more sun.
Still, plenty has stayed the same. It’s still free to participate and there are no bibs. You just show up and run. Additionally, the most important details – the people, the low-key atmosphere and the all-are-welcome attitude – have remained consistent through the years, and they were once again on display for the 23rd running of the event on Saturday, Jan. 7, at Bradley Palmer State Park.
Bandera, Texas, was the main attraction for North American ultrarunning during the Jan. 7-8 weekend, and a handful of New Englanders were there to join in the fun, including Vermont’s Kasie Enman and Massachusetts’ Elena Horton who secured top-10 finishes in the 100K. Additionally, Vermont’s Nigel Bates traveled to North Carolina and brought home a 50K victory, and New Hampshire’s Kerri Haskins kicked off the year with a 50K in Virginia. The 2023 season is off to a fast start, and we have it covered in this edition of the roundup.
Gil’s Athletic Club played host to the 23rd running of the G.A.C. Fat Ass 50K on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023, at Bradley Palmer State Park in Topsfield, Mass. Around 200 runners took part in the event, including 37 who completed five loops of the course for 50K finishes.
The 2023 Massachusetts ultrarunning season officially opened on Saturday, Jan. 7, when Gil’s Athletic Club played host to the 23rd running of the G.A.C. Fat Ass 50K at Bradley Palmer State Park in Topsfield, Mass. Around 200 runners took part in the free, laid-back event, completing anywhere between one and five loops of the approximately 6.2-mile loop course. The following are a sample of the photos taken by MassUltra Editor Chris Wristen, who also ran two loops of the course. A larger gallery can be viewed on the MassUltra Facebook page here. Additionally, a much larger photo gallery courtesy of Patrick Caron can be viewed here.
The 2022 ultrarunning season is officially over and 2023 is under way. A handful of New Englanders seized one last opportunity to log a 2022 ultra or opened the new season in its earliest hours by taking on events between Dec. 28, 2022, and Jan. 3, 2023. For Sudbury’s Seng-Lai Tan, that meant a trip to Alabama for 100K ultra in the final hours of the year. For several others, that meant a trip west to Arizona for the multi-day Across the Years Endurance Festival. We have both of those events covered as we close out 2022 and welcome in 2023 in this edition of the roundup.
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.
