The scenic Green River Marathon returns to New England for its second installment Sunday, with an impressive field of 450 runners set to journey down the 26.2-mile course.
The marathon begins at 7 a.m. in the Green Mountains of Vermont at Marlboro College and runs along the Green River. Runners will pass forests and historical farms, cross the Green River Covered Bridge in Guilford, Vt. — a marvel from the 1870s — before reaching their completion at Greenfield Community College.
The marathon was started by Tom Van den Broeck Raffensperger, who frequently ran along the Green River with his wife and decided to turn it into a marathon.
“We saw how beautiful it was and wanted to share it with everyone,” Raffensperger said.
In the inaugural race in last year, 350 runners participated. They set out to cap this year’s field again at 350, but that number was reached by April. The organizers decided to allow another 100 people to sign up, which took just one month to fill.
Raffensperger doesn’t want the race to grow more than it has, as he wants to keep a small group of runners.
“We’re not going to grow higher than that,” Raffensperger said. “People said they liked it being a small race, didn’t want it being too big.”
Runners competing will notice the course is different than most marathons. It’s a fast course, with a net 1,400-foot downhill route. It is also 60 percent on dirt roads, which many runners enjoy as it doesn’t put the stress on joints that running on pavement does.
“It’s faster but hard in a different way,” Raffensperger said. “There is about 600 feet of uphill. It’s rolling hills, you have to train their quads and thighs … it’s quite a challenge going downhill for that. It is likely to be fast.”
Last year, Meg Brockett of Hampton, N.H., was the first person to cross the finish line with a time of 2 hours, 46 minutes and 37 seconds. It was Brockett’s first-ever marathon. Coley Carden of Winchester was the first male to finish, coming in second overall with a time of 2:51:11.
Ben Whitbeck, 41, of Greenfield was the top local finisher, taking fifth overall with a time of 2:55:43.
This year’s race is a Boston Marathon qualifier, with runners from all over journeying to Vermont and Franklin County.
“People from all over New England are signed up,” Raffensperger said. “Folks from 25 states, as far as California and Florida, have signed up. It’s a pretty popular race.”
The money raised for the marathon goes toward the Connecticut River Conservancy, with an effort to preserve and clean up the Green River. It also helps support the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club.
The race raised several thousand dollars last year, according to Raffensperger, and he hopes to do more this year with 100 additional people in the field.
The race went smoothly a year ago, and the race committee has tried to maintain a consistency with what was done in 2018.
“We want it to be a community race,” Raffensperger said. “It went so well last year, we’re going to go with what we did. We put in an extra aid station in the last five miles where the road is all paved. We heard that was needed from runners — another place to get water and Gatorade.”
Raffensperger encouraged spectators to head to Greenfield Community College to watch the finish line and celebrate.
With most of the race on narrow, dirt roads, he urged drivers and spectators to remain off them while the race is going on to keep the runners safe.