My name is Will Robens. I am the founder of Ironwood Adventure Works, organizer of challenging adventure trail races in the Northeast. Our races to date include the Frost Town Trail Fest in the Finger lakes of NY, Black River Beatdown hosted by Craftsbury Outdoor Center, Smuggler’s Mountain Race, Trapp Mountain Marathon, 24 hours of the Northeast Kingdom at the Northwoods Stewardship Center, Paine Mountain Race in Northfield, and last but not least the Catamount Ultra hosted by Trapp Family Lodge.
Catamount Ultra was our first and flagship event, created in 2014. That year, I had some free time as a stay-at-home dad and trail running became more of a presence in my life and a healthy outlet for me. For most people, trail running is a pretty attainable sport; all you need is trails and a decent pair of shoes! I was surprised that there wasn’t already a long distance trail race going on in the immediate area. As a lifelong runner and in more recent years, an avid ultra-runner, Catamount Ultra was created out of personal desire to have a great trail ultra-race in my own backyard. For some reason, at the time it didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t actually get to run this super fun race!
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