July 2026 Newsletter

By Drew Prescott

Joining a new club can be scary. When I first joined UVRC a few years ago, the thought of actually showing up to an organized event where I was an outsider among a bunch of runners I didn’t know was slightly terrifying. What if I wasn’t a good enough runner, or what if I didn’t fit in with the group? The first TNT (Tuesday Night Track) I worked up the courage to attend, I almost left before it even started. I showed up extra early to make a good first impression, only to find no one else was there (the UVRC tends to be more of a last-minute arrival crowd). I seriously considered bailing and saving myself the anxiety of new social interaction, but I worked up the courage to stick it out, and I’m so glad I did.

The UVRC is such an amazing source of community and friendship for me. It’s a place where I can go each week to see and catch up with a welcoming and diverse group of people. A place where I’ve made friends to train with, to race with, to trail run and bike with, to have dinner and game nights with – turns out it’s possible to do something other than run together. Some of my favorite memories over the past few years are with the friends I’ve made through UVRC. There are too many to count, from a triathlon in the Adirondacks, to the Boston marathon, to long trail runs in the Whites. My UVRC friends were there to share all these and much more.

If you’re reading this newsletter, you likely already know what a great club the UVRC is. But if you’re a new member or have been part of the club for a while and are nervous about joining us for a run, I would encourage you to take the leap. Come to a few runs and try striking up a conversation. I think you’ll find we’re really not that scary, and I hope you find the same community and friendship I have. 

THANK YOU to all of those who answered the call for volunteers for the Covered Bridges Half Marathon. UVRC was well-represented by our pace crew as well as early morning parking volunteers. Permits are not issued, and therefore races don’t happen, without awesome humans who show up in a grass field at 5AM to ensure runners park in an orderly fashion. We appreciate everyone’s efforts to ensure things ran smoothly that day.

Thank you also to the fabulous folks who helped with parking at the Mount Washington Road Race this past weekend, all of whom also camped just down the road from the race start. We had a great weekend of volunteering, hiking, running, and sharing stories while roasting marshmallows around the campfire. And as you can see from the pictures, humans weren’t the only ones making new friends and enjoying time in the Whites! 

Happy Summer, UVRC.

Kristina

UVRC Calendar

Looking for a local race? Did you know UVRC’s website features a race calendar? Scroll through to find your next adventure!

Western New Hampshire Trail Series

Not a fan of pounding the pavement? Looking to try some new events this year? Check out the Western New Hampshire Trail Running Series! Races take place from May-September throughout the Upper Valley. All races are designed to be welcoming to newbies while still challenging for seasoned veterans. 

Updated Discount Code: Running Warehouse

As a UVRC member, you can enjoy a discount from Running Warehouse: 20% off clothing and socks and 10% off select clearance shoes, visors & hats, and nutrition. Enter code HJZ93FA6 at checkout. Note: this is a new code as of July 1st. 

Volunteer Challenge 2026

Have you ever avoided getting lost in a race because someone in a stylish traffic vest pointed you in the right direction? Have you ever had someone hand you a cup of electrolyte mix mid-stride and continue to smile brightly even though some of that sticky liquid spilled on their hand as you took it from them? Have you ever had a stranger put a medal around your neck and congratulate you? Have you ever reached an aid station 20 hours into a race and had a stranger hand you pickle juice and an otter pop and tell you you look great even though you know they were lying through their teeth out of kindness? 

If you answered yes to any or all of the above, you have benefited from the generosity of volunteers in the running community! Knowing that running events do not happen without volunteers, UVRC is once again issuing a Volunteer Challenge in 2026 – now with a new format! Any UVRC member who volunteers at least 3 hours at a running event or trail work day will be entered to win a pair of running shoes of their choice from Omer and Bob’s or Stateline Sports at the end of the year! Each person gets one entry, though volunteering more than 3 hours is always encouraged. You can submit your hours by emailing  volunteering@uppervalleyrunningclub.org. If you;ve never volunteered at a running event before, we think you’ll find it to be a fun and rewarding experience!

by Scott Prescott

On a humid Sunday morning in early June, UVRC was well represented at the annual Covered Bridges
Half Marathon. We had 24 pacers, leading the way for runners shooting for times between 1:30 to 2:30.
A crew showed up at 5:15 am to help with parking. We also had many more UVRC folks running as
participants. Several finished either at the top or near the top of their age group and some ran their first
half marathon. Impressive accomplishments. (I’d try to list them all, but am sure I would miss many, so
here is the link to the results if you want to check them out.)
As usual, our pacers did an awesome job, with everyone crossing the finish line within a few seconds of
their goal time. It is greatly appreciated by the race organizers and participants. I can’t count how many
folks came up to me after the race and thanked us for providing consistent, cheerful, encouraging
pacers. You guys rocked it!
So why pace a race? I’m sure folks have many reasons which might include a free entry, a fashionable
pacers pinny, or the pleasure of carrying a little sign on a stick for 13.1 miles. For me, I started pacing
about 4 years ago and have loved every stride of it. Pacing gave me permission to slow down a bit and
enjoy the run, the crowd, fellow runners, aid station folks, bands, and scenery. In the past, every time I
ran a race, I felt compelled to push myself no matter what my initial plan was. I would see that person
ahead of me and say to myself, “you can run faster than that Scott,” and the race was on. It was
liberating when I decided to pace at a time I knew I could do comfortably.
I always meet interesting people from all over the country. They inevitably want to know about the
course, how many times I have run it, how I can carry the pacing sign, and what time I would run if I
wasn’t pacing. After answering some variation of these questions, the conversation turns to their story
and how they ended up here. I have run into parents running with their children, folks that have traveled
thousands of miles to run in support of a loved one, people who have run the race 20 or more times,
and many first time half marathoners. Most of these folks I talk to for a few minutes and then they go
along their way and I never see them again. But their stories are inspiring and remind me of the many
reasons we lace up the shoes and head out the door.
I would encourage any of you who have considered pacing to jump in and do it one of these days. I was
quite nervous the first time I showed up to pace. Would I be able to keep a consistent pace, could I
carry that sign for 13.1 miles, what if I bonk? You’ll be fine and may actually enjoy the run a little bit
more than usual.

By Patrick Wheeler

There’s a corner on the road into Chamonix, just past Les Houches, where the valley finally opens and the Mont Blanc massif rises up in front of you all at once. I relax the instant we round it. Ten years of arrivals and it still happens; my shoulders drop, my breath slows, something in me settles. We don’t live there. But turning that corner feels like coming home.

Hillary and I found the place on our honeymoon in January 2017. We’d gone to ski, and somewhere in that first trip the valley got its hooks in us and never let go. We’ve been back one or two times a year most years since. In 2019 Hillary and her family walked the full Tour du Mont Blanc, guided and supported, and came home glowing. In 2022 she ran the OCC while I ran the ETC; the next year we both ran the ETC. This summer was our tenth visit (I think?), and strangely, our first in a full calendar year, since this past winter pulled us to Cortina and Milan for the Olympics instead. A year is a long time to be away from a place that feels like home. When we finally rolled back into town, the owner of Moody Coffee who welcomes us like locals each time we return. That’s Chamonix. You leave, and the mountains and the people are still there holding your spot. And there really aren’t mountains anywhere we’ve traveled quite like the western Alps. 

So let me be honest about what this article is. It’s part trip report and part love letter; to the valley, to the people who live and move through it, to a whole culture that treats the mountains as something to be revered and the act of moving through them as a kind of daily grace. But it also had a purpose. This winter I’m entering the lottery for the CCC, the 102-kilometer race that runs from Courmayeur, over the mountains, and back to Chamonix: roughly 64 miles and 19,000 feet of climbing. Before I put my name in for something that serious, I wanted to know the ground. Not the elevation profile on a screen. The real trail, under my own feet. So we spent five days fast-packing the course: running where we could, power-hiking the climbs, sleeping in mountain huts and villages along the way. A preview. A reconnaissance. And, it turned out, some of the best training I could ask for, landing right in the heart of my build for the Vermont 100K a few weeks from now.

The route

The CCC traces the northern section of the Tour du Mont Blanc, stitching together three countries. We broke it into five days:

– **Day 1 — Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonatti.** 13 miles, 5,700 feet. A steep climb straight out of town, and then the trail opens onto the Italian Val Ferret balcony; a long, flowing traverse with the granite and glaciers of the Grandes Jorasses filling the sky across the valley.

– **Day 2 — Bonatti to La Fouly.** 12 miles, 3,000 feet. Down to the valley floor, then the long, steady climb to the Grand Col Ferret at 8,300 feet, the border between Italy and Switzerland, and down the far side into the quiet of La Fouly.

– **Day 3 — La Fouly to Champex-Lac.** 9 miles, 1,900 feet. The gentle day. Swiss villages, pine forest, wooden chalets, and a short final pull up to the lake.

– **Day 4 — Champex to Vallorcine.** 17 miles, 5,800 feet. The queen stage. Two long and unrelenting climbs (and corresponding descents).

– **Day 5 — Vallorcine to Chamonix.** 11.5 miles, 3,500 feet. Home, along the Grand Balcon Sud with the whole Mont Blanc chain laid out across the valley.

The beauty

The Italian side is still the most beautiful stretch of trail I know. From Courmayeur to La Fouly the path clings to a balcony high above the Val Ferret, and the Grandes Jorasses stand across from you the whole way, sheer and glaciered and almost too big to hold in your eye. You round a bend, and there they are again, and it never stops working on you. The scale and beauty doesn’t feel real. 

Our night at Rifugio Bonatti was its own small perfect thing. You come in off the trail tired in the good way, sit down to a long communal dinner with strangers who won’t be strangers by morning, and go to bed early because the mountains have taken everything you had. There’s no wifi to speak of, nowhere to be, nothing to do but eat and talk and sleep and get up and run again. Yet unlike the huts in the Whites, Refugio’s in the Alps balance ruggedness and dignity in way not easily achieved. There isn’t WiFi, but they do have hot showers (limited to 90 seconds each via a token system), hot espresso, and delicious Orangina that is becoming harder and harder to find back home in the States.

The valley gave us its wildlife, too. Marmots everywhere, whistling their alarm and vanishing into the rocks as we came through (except one who was quite interested in Hillary and almost booped her toes!). On the first big climb on the first day we came on a Chamois and her brand-new calf, close enough to watch for a while before we continued the climb still ahead out of Courmayeur. It was a welcomed break from a climb tipping over 40% grade! There was still a little snow high up in places, including enough on the north side of the Grand Col Ferret that we glissaded down on our backsides, laughing, a little colder, entirely happy. 

And then there are the people, which is the part I didn’t expect to love as much as I do. On the TMB you leapfrog the same faces for days; you pass them on a climb, they pass you on the descent, you find them again at the next hut. We fell in with an American family backpacking the full loop, out to celebrate their son’s recent graduation from the Naval Academy. His sister is at Annapolis too, and he’s about to begin flight training to become a pilot, so this was likely their last long trip together for a good while. The whole route had been his idea. Every time we crossed paths the welcome got warmer, and by the end it felt less like running into strangers and more like checking in on friends. That’s the thing about these mountains, everyone here has chosen to be moving through them, and it makes for very good company.

The hard part

The queen stage earned its name. You leave Champex and climb up and over the Bovine, cross the Col de la Forclaz, and drop down into Trient, and that’s only the first half. From Trient we took the CCC route, which splits off from the standard TMB there, up over Les Tseppes: brutally steep, and one of the few long stretches without water. Two big climbs in a single day, the harder one saved for when your legs are already gone. That’s the kind of thing you can’t learn from a profile chart. You have to stand at the bottom of the second climb with tired legs and start walking up anyway. And if the climb doesn’t hurt, the technical descent on the other side certainly will. 

What I came home with

The weather was perfect the whole week. Everyone felt strong. And I got the answer I’d come for: I can do this. The CCC will be hard, I have no illusions about that, but after five days on the course I know it’s within reach. That’s a different kind of confidence than staring at a start list and hoping. It’s the quiet certainty of having covered the ground.

So the lottery entry goes in this winter, and I’ll spend the months between now and then hoping my name comes up. There’s a 100K in Vermont with my name on it already. And whatever the lottery decides, we’ll be back in Chamonix before long. We always are. We round that corner past Les Houches, the whole massif rises up to meet us, and I feel my shoulders drop, and I’m home.

Dan Shea finishes Skip’s Run

The 2026 Upper Valley Running Series (UVRS), brought to you by BE Fit Physical Therapy, had a race in June: Skip’s Run 4 miler. Hope everyone enjoyed the post-race BBQ!

https://results.raceroster.com/v3/events/bvggsm3fmmbrvcb3/race/297208?filter_search=

You can find UVRS standings on the UVRS website (email me with any corrections):

https://uppervalleyrunningclub.org/upper-valley-running-series/

The next race in the series celebrates Independence Day: The Red, White, and Blue 6.2 5K/10K, in Lebanon NH. See the website for full details:

https://lebanonnh.gov/823/Red-White-Blue-62-and-5K

However, given the timing of this newsletter, that race might have happened already. So, don’t forget our August race: The Triple Dam 10K, August 30th in Perkinsville, VT:

https://www.runlikeardy.com/races/triple-dam-10k/

So, what is this UVRS that you’re hearing so much about? It’s our club’s series of local road races. Full information: 

https://uppervalleyrunningclub.org/upper-valley-running-series/

As an up-to-date UVRC member, you can participate in the series, just by signing up for each race through the normal race registration (even day-of is OK). You’ll get credit as a series participant.

For 2026, you need to run 6 (of the 11) races to get the finisher prize. You got this!

If you don’t want to race, or have a family member along, who doesn’t want to run, consider volunteering. Prizes available. Volunteering into:

https://uppervalleyrunningclub.org/volunteering/