Strangers at the Start Line, Friends at the Finish: Vermont's Running Community Is Something Special
There's a moment that happens in almost every runner's story — the moment the sport stops being something you do alone and becomes something you do together. In Vermont, that moment tends to arrive faster than anywhere else.
Maybe it's the rural roads that make you grateful for company. Maybe it's the winters that force solidarity. Maybe it's just something in the culture of a small state where six degrees of separation feels more like two. Whatever the reason, Vermont has built one of the most genuine grassroots running communities in the country, and the Vermont City Marathon sits at the heart of it.
"Run Together" isn't just a tagline around here. It's a way of life.
Margaret and the Monday Night Group That Changed Everything
Margaret Okafor moved to Burlington from Atlanta three years ago for work and didn't know a soul. She was a runner — had been for years — but always solo. Earbuds in, head down, miles done. Running was her private thing.
That changed on a Monday night in October when she showed up, almost on a whim, to a free group run organized out of a local running store on Church Street. There were maybe fourteen people gathered on the sidewalk, ranging from a guy in his sixties with a knee brace to a college student in neon yellow shoes. Nobody made her feel like a newcomer.
"We ran six miles through the neighborhood and I talked more than I had in weeks," Margaret says. "By the end I had three people's phone numbers and a standing Saturday morning invite. I didn't feel alone in Burlington after that."
She ran her first Vermont City Marathon the following May with two women from that Monday night group. All three of them cried at the finish line — not from pain, but from something harder to name.
"It's the people," she says simply. "Vermont running is the people."
Tom's Back-Road Brotherhood in the Northeast Kingdom
Not every Vermont running story unfolds in Burlington. Up in the Northeast Kingdom — the rural, sparsely populated northeastern corner of the state — running culture looks a little different. There are no running stores with group nights. There are no packed Saturday morning meetups. What there is, though, is Tom Beauregard and his loose-knit crew of six guys who've been running the same back roads outside Lyndonville for eleven years.
They started as strangers, too. Tom was a high school cross-country coach looking for adult training partners. He put a note up at the local hardware store — yes, actually — and three people showed up the first Saturday. Now they have a group text chain, a shared training spreadsheet, and a tradition of stopping at the same dairy farm at mile nine of their long run to pet the cows.
"We've run through blizzards, mud season, heat waves," Tom says. "We've run the morning after funerals and the morning before weddings. One guy ran with a broken toe for two weeks because he didn't want to miss group day." He pauses. "We're not a running group anymore. We're just friends who happen to run."
Four of the six have run Vermont City Marathon together. They always start as a pack and finish however they finish, but they wait at the finish line for every single member — no exceptions.
Rosa's Story: Finding Pace and Purpose After Injury
Rosa Theriault ran her first marathon at 28 and her last at 29 — or so she thought. A stress fracture in her left tibia sidelined her for eight months, and when she came back to running, she came back different. Slower, more anxious, and deeply uncertain whether she'd ever race again.
She found the Vermont City Marathon training program — a community group that meets weekly for coached long runs in the months leading up to the race — almost by accident. Her physical therapist mentioned it. She showed up expecting a room full of serious athletes who'd make her feel out of place.
Instead, she found a pace group of runners who were, like her, rebuilding. Former injury survivors, new mothers returning to the sport, people running their first marathon at 55. The group's volunteer coach, a soft-spoken woman named Diane who had run seventeen marathons, told Rosa something on her first day that she still thinks about.
"Diane said, 'Your comeback pace is still a pace. Every mile counts the same whether you run it in eight minutes or fourteen.'" Rosa laughs a little. "I know it sounds simple. But I needed to hear it."
Rosa finished Vermont City Marathon that spring — her comeback race — in 4:52. Diane ran the last four miles with her.
Kevin's Small-Town Race Day Tradition
Not everyone in Vermont's running community runs marathons. Kevin Marcotte, a dairy farmer from Addison, has never run more than a 10K in his life and has no plans to change that. But every year on Vermont City Marathon weekend, he drives up to Burlington with his wife and two kids, stakes out a spot along the course, and cheers for strangers for six hours.
"We bring a cowbell and a sign and snacks," he says. "The kids love it. We pick random runners and cheer for them by name if they've got it on their bib. You should see the look on people's faces when a stranger knows their name at mile 22."
Kevin started doing this after his brother ran the marathon years ago. He's never stopped. "I'm not a marathon runner," he says. "But I'm part of this. You don't have to run 26.2 to be part of the community. You just have to show up."
What Vermont Running Actually Is
Listen to enough of these stories and a pattern emerges. Vermont's running community isn't built on speed or status or gear. It's built on showing up — on Monday nights and Saturday mornings, on rural back roads and crowded race courses, in blizzards and mud and golden October light.
The Vermont City Marathon is a race, yes. But it's also a gathering point for a community that runs together all year long, in every corner of this small, stubborn, beautiful state. The finish line is just where the story gets told out loud.
If you've been running alone, you don't have to. Vermont's got room for you.
