New England Green River Marathon

Two local runners built this race around the road they train on, and it has stayed deliberately small. Natural High Running caps the field because Green River Road is narrow, winding, and open to traffic, and because the runners they surveyed asked them to keep it that way. Entry opens on New Year's Day and closes when it fills. There is no waiting list, no bib transfer, no deferral, and no race-morning signup, so missing the window means waiting a year. Proceeds go to the Connecticut River Conservancy and the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club.

The opening two miles head steeply down packed dirt on Moss Hollow Road from the Potash Hill campus in Marlboro, Vermont, with one uphill interrupting. From there the route tracks the Green River nearly all the way to Greenfield: a few paved miles, then dirt again, a spur turnaround around mile 7.6, and the 1870s Green River Covered Bridge in Guilford just past mile 10. The Vermont line arrives at mile 13.3, close enough to halfway to use as a checkpoint. Two climbs are worth knowing. Airstream Hill at mile 17 rises 80 feet in four tenths of a mile, and the harder one at mile 20.8 gains 85 feet in half a mile on tight curves with a drop-off along one side. Dirt and gravel run to roughly mile 21, then five paved and mostly downhill miles cross the Greenfield Meadows before a short rise up College Drive to a grass finish at Greenfield Community College. Roads stay open to traffic the whole way. Net drop is 1,459 feet against 650 feet of climbing, and runners who race the early descent instead of riding it usually find those last five paved miles very long.

Fog sits on the water early and the dirt miles run under trees, so the first two hours of a late-August morning here are usually the most comfortable part of the day. The end is the problem. The closing five miles are pavement with almost no shade and they arrive mid to late morning, once the valley has warmed into the upper 70s or better. Plenty of runners who dressed for the start are overdressed by mile 22.