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For this month’s column, I sat down with Meghan Canfield and Pam Smith—who are friends, running partners, teammates and competitors, both with long and outstanding ultrarunning pedigrees—for a conversation about menopause, aging and the frustration of slowing pace.

The final quarter of the year is here, and it’s definitely starting to feel like fall. Per popular reader request, What’s Up In Ultra is coming to you a day earlier so some of you might have a better chance lining up last minute at one of the races highlighted on our North American UltraRunning Calendar. This weekend we have a historic 100-miler in the Land of Opportunity, a flat and fast point-to-point trifecta of ultras a couple hours west of the Windy City, a premier 50k in the Scenic City and a ton more. 

Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, the end of the calendar year brings colder temps, shorter days, rain and perhaps snow. Between Thanksgiving and January, I tend to run less and sleep and eat more. But wait—I have one last ultra of the year on the calendar to get my rear into gear. One last hurrah to challenge my legs and lungs to run hard before taking a holiday-oriented break.

Welcome to our very first Ultra Weekend Recap where we dish out results from ultrarunning events around North America. As with our What’s Up In Ultra column, please help us out and feel free to chime in with anything we missed in the comments section below. We’ll do our best to get as many events as we can each week, but know that we can’t find them all on our own. Thanks in advance for your help.

This week’s What’s Up In Ultra is our 50th consecutive column that highlights events on our  UltraRunning Calendar each week. We’re always looking to improve and would love to hear any feedback you have about the weekly column, so drop a comment below. Standouts on our calendar for the first official week of fall include a mountain 100-miler in the Wasatch Mountains, a point-to-point 50k in the Cascade mountains and a classic 50-miler in the Green Mountain State.

An ultrarunning evolution is happening around the country as race directors work to get more women to the start line. Case in point, officials of the High Lonesome 100, which takes place in Colorado’s breathtaking Sawatch Range, introduced a lottery system to level the gender playing field.

Training for ultras can be a serious business. That does not mean that you can’t deviate from the plan every now and again. Adventure can fuel your goals, physically and emotionally. So, when these opportunities arise, regardless of if they are meticulous or haphazardly planned, take advantage of them.

A new model in the Topo Athletic lineup this year, the Specter, is a highly cushioned performance trainer built for fast training days, paved ultras or road racing, particularly in the marathon distance.

Do I want to train for another ultramarathon? Is it worth it? Are there better things I could be doing with my time? These are questions I’ve wrestled with lately.

It’s finally starting to feel like fall in many places around the country and on our UltraRunning Calendar, with a welcome relief from late summer heat and some much-needed precipitation to help big wildfires out West. Leading our calendar is a Colorado ultra with the biggest ultrarunning prize purse in the world, a qualifying race for next year’s Barkley Marathons and the state of Georgia’s longest-standing 100-miler.

Don’t miss the opportunities that fall brings. Being free from a formal training structure can be very liberating and should be unique to each athlete’s needs. Address areas that need attention, take the opportunity to connect with nature in ways that will be novel and revitalizing. Appreciate what your body has allowed you to do during the racing season but take the break you need.

Last weekend across North America, events on our UltraRunning Calendar suffered in the sweltering heat. However, this weekend looks to provide some late summer relief in a few locations. We have a quartet of challenging 100-milers, Canada’s largest ultrarunning festival and a collection of other fun events in unique places. 

In 2022, LEKI stepped proactively into the post-pandemic resurgence of the trail running industry, making significant changes across their product line, as well as an updated website and even a new logo. This new brand identity is demonstrated in two models we’ve tested this summer, the Ultratrail FX.One Superlite for lightweight speed, and the Cross Trail FX Superlite for more versatility of use.

The beauty of ultrarunning is that there is nowhere else you’re able to carry a “why not” attitude further. At any given time, there are not very many people on this planet who could win the most competitive ultrarunning races. At the same time, I genuinely think that just about anyone, with the right attitude, can be a great ultrarunner if they really want to.

Mario Mendoza enters the UR Podcast inner sanctum just days ahead UTMB’s CCC. Mario is a four-time USATF Trail Runner of the Year, two-time former treadmill World Record holder and he recently took first place overall at the Lake Sonoma 50 in 2021.

Labor Day weekend signifies the proverbial end of summer, but that doesn’t mean the number of races on our North American UltraRunning Calendar is diminishing. We have an exciting mountain ultra in Montana, an age-handicapped race in Tennessee, a last person standing event in Maine and much more.

The Duro LT and Dyna LT vests are minimalist additions to Osprey’s long-standing Duro (men’s) and Dyna (women’s) running hydration lineup. They are designed to carry the bare necessities for distance training, and are something of an in-between option if you want to carry more fluid than a waist bottle can manage but don’t want the increased weight of a traditional vest.

On August 12, veteran ultrarunner Dean Karnazes was attacked by a coyote while running the Headlands 150-Mile Endurance Run in Northern California. Dean shared an Instagram video following the attack,…

You spend a third to half of your life postmenopausal, and 10 or more years perimenopausal. Symptoms are common and expected, but can impact your racing and training, and your heart and bone health. The good news is, like any race, the more you know about the course, the better you can adapt your training to meet the demands of the “Menopause 200.”

This week we’re in Chamonix, France, at the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc trail running festival, more affectionately known as UTMB. Still, there’s tons of North American races worth noting on our UltraRunning Calendar to close out the month of August.

European males have dominated Ultra Trail du Mont-Blanc since day one. Ex-Arizonian, HOKA athlete, and now French resident Jim Walmsley has been trying to change the game since his first attempt at UTMB in 2017, where he finished fifth (he didn’t finish in 2018 or 2021). What can Jim Walmsley do to win UTMB?

Badwater Basin in Death Valley, California, sits at 280 feet below sea level. Each year in July, endurance athletes from all over the world converge to run 135 miles from the start at Badwater to the finish line at the portal of Mt. Whitney (elevation 8,360 feet). Runners traverse three mountain ranges and face numerous other challenges, like scorching desert heat and sleep deprivation, over the course of two nights.

We’re closing in on the official end of summer on our UltraRunning Calendar but still have some heavy hitters to wet your ultrarunning appetite. Whether you prefer a high-altitude 100-miler in Colorado, a historic Southern California 50k, a Canadian technical 50-miler or a fun, low-key race, we’ve got you covered.

As mountain runners and ultrarunners, it can feel natural to tackle more technical, high consequence terrain—readily available in the backcountry and often highly appealing. What is the role of “scrambling” in mountain and ultrarunning, and what are some best practices for approaching it?

The Forerunner 955 Solar is Garmin’s first running smartwatch with solar charging capability. It comes with a full feature set that matches and exceeds anything in the Garmin lineup (for now), and many of the updates are focused on processing the multitude of metrics that the device collects, with the result of providing much more accurate and insightful analysis for practical use.

This week our UltraRunning Calendar features a nice mix of races from the East Coast to the West Coast, up to Canada and even, Alaska. 

There is no safe place outside in a thunderstorm. If you can hear thunder, you can be struck by lightning. What should you do when you’re out on the trail or in the middle of a race during a thunderstorm?

It seems like summer just started, but now kids are already gearing up to head back to school. Time sure does fly, especially when your UltraRunning Calendar is as loaded as ours is each week, and this first week of August is no different.

This past June, the top two women and men at the sixth annual Broken Arrow Skyrace 52k in Olympic Valley, California, qualified for the 80k US Trail team competing at the inaugural World Mountain and Trail Running Championships.

Marathon Des Sables (MDS) never shows mercy. I have taken that race for granted a few times and suffered the consequences. There’s always something new to learn. Some of the new things I tried went unexpectedly sideways this year. But hey, it’s all good: I survived and finished. Here is my humble take on a few items.