Ultramarathon action was intense in the Northeast during the Sept. 13-15 weekend, but a handful of New Englanders also headed West to tackle tough ultras. A few stopped in the Midwest to take on the Cowboy 200, highlighted by Cole Crosby’s course record-setting performance, while others ventured further West to Montana for the rugged Rut 50K. We have both events covered in Part II of this week’s roundup.

The second weekend of September remained red-hot for New Englanders on the ultramarathon racing scene. Here in Massachusetts, runners took on the rugged Free to Run Trail Races at Pittsfield State Forest, but the Bay State wasn’t the only spot where New Englanders raced. There was plenty of ultramarathon action in New Hampshire where runners tackled 50 miles at Kilkenny Ridge or 50K at the Pisgah Mountain Trail Races. Additionally, runners in the Northeast tackled ultras in New York and Pennsylvania. We have all those races covered here in Part I of this week’s roundup. In Part II, we’ll head to the Midwest and the West. 

The Sept. 6-8 weekend was jam-packed with ultramarathon racing in New England – and that goes far beyond the 500-plus runners who raced a variety of distances at the TARC Fall Classic in Massachusetts. Five additional ultra events took place in the region, with two in Maine, one in Vermont, and two in Connecticut. We’ll catch up with the TARC Fall Classic in a separate article, but we start this edition of the roundup in Maine with the Cherry Hill Farm 50K, then sweep through Vermont for the Groton Forest Trail Run 26.5-miler, and then drop down to Connecticut for the Cross-Connecticut Run for Mental Health Awareness 56-miler and the Macedonia 50K. Results from Maine’s Megunticook Trail Festival were unavailable at the time of publication, but there’s still plenty to read in this edition of the roundup.

New England was slammed with ultramarathons during the Sept. 6-8 weekend – six to be exact. Still, all those options didn’t prevent runners from the region from venturing to ultras across the country. We’ll catch up on the local events in Part II of this week’s roundup, but here in Part I we catch up on seven other ultras, beginning in Michigan where Boston’s Laura Ricci had a podium finish – as did her older sister – at the Hallucination 100.

Labor Day weekend had a mostly quiet ultrarunning calendar in North America, but there was a bit of action in New England and beyond. In Massachusetts, The Village Ultra once again welcomed runners to the New Salem Town Common for a choose-your-own-adventure-style run which will be highlighted in a separate article. In Maine, more than 150 runners gathered at Pineland Farms for an epic Last Man Standing showdown that saw the defending champion remain at the top. From there, we swing through Ohio and Iowa where runners from the region secured hard-earned finishes.