Runners at the Big A 50K in Maine enjoyed comfortable temperatures and good trail conditions thanks to the benefit of the calendar – Big A was held on May 7. A week later, those who toed the line at Maine’s only 100-miler, the Riverlands 100, or any other races in the Northeast were far less lucky. Merciless conditions on May 14, from high heat to humidity, took their toll on runners at Riverlands, as well as those at Vermont’s Runamuck 50K. In this edition of the roundup we catch up with those New England events.

The May 6-8 weekend was jam-packed in Massachusetts with the return of Wapack and Back and the inaugural Needham Backyard Ultra, but those local events weren’t the only attractions to lure New England ultrarunners. Some headed north to New Hampshire, including Harvard’s Roy Van Cleef who followed up his shared victory at the 2021 Manchester 2 Monadnock 55-miler by setting a course record this year. Meanwhile, Stow’s Sophia Farnsworth secured her first 100-mile finish at the grueling Hellbender 100 in North Carolina. Others headed to Pennsylvania for the Dirty German Endurance Festival, to Colorado for the Quad Rock 50, and Tennessee for the legendary Strolling Jim 40-miler. All of those events are featured in this edition of the roundup.

It was a record-setting weekend for ultrarunners in New Hampshire as five of the six course records fell at the fourth edition of the White Lake Ultras. In addition to that increasingly popular event, a few runners from the region traveled elsewhere to race. That included a few 100-mile finishers on the C&O Canal, as well as Winchester resident Tom Flummerfelt’s first foray into Backyard Ultra racing in Wisconsin. Those events are featured in this edition of the roundup.