In 1972, UMass graduate Charlotte Lettis, then 22 years old and living in Amherst, became the first woman to win the Mt. Washington. A pioneer in the evolution of women’s long-distance running, from fitness jogging to hardcore sweat-and-purge sport, Lettis completed the extremely challenging 7.6-mile ascent to the windswept summit of the North’s highest peak -est in 1 hour 40 minutes and eight seconds. She placed 84th overall, 12 minutes ahead of Jennifer Taylor, the other woman in the field.
Over the next 51 years, women from New England, the Rockies and Canada, Europe, Africa and New Zealand won Mount Washington, but no woman from western Massachusetts won again – until last month, when 31 – senior Kayla Lampe of Shelburne Falls put her name on the winners trophy.
Lampe’s name is etched alongside that of world mountain running champion Joe Gray, who joined him on the podium in June. Gray won the Mt. Washington eight times, his first victory coming after back-to-back years in which he finished fourth, third and second. Lampe saw for the first time the road Mt. Washington.
“I had no expectations,” she said last week. “It was my first time running a mountain race. My strategy was to keep my heart rate under control. I knew I was somewhere near the front, but I was just running inside myself.”
In fact, beginners do well at Mt. Washington, precisely because they’ve heard of its harsh grade (12.5 percent average, with a steep 22 percent scale at the end) and are therefore wary of starting too fast. Then there is the often terrible mountain weather. As Lampe recalled, “There were some really difficult parts where I felt like I was hitting a wall of wind.”
A high school sports star from Downington, Penn., Lampe ran track and cross country at the University of South Carolina while majoring in nursing. “It’s not the easiest thing to balance caregiving with athletics,” she observed. “South Carolina appealed to me because it allowed me to do both.” She is now an emergency room nurse at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield.
In the meantime, she’s enjoying a change from the training she did to prepare for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando last February. After qualifying for the Trials in 2020 but then missing them due to injury, she qualified again this year and ran a marathon of 2 hours 43 minutes, a time she considers slightly slower than the best. “But my ultimate goal had been to qualify for the Trials. Now I can set new goals.”
What’s next? More hills, of course. Lampe can run the Loon Mountain race in Lincoln, NH – even more ridiculously steep than Mt. Washington, but shorter – and will be home in Shelburne Falls to run the Bridge of Flowers race on August 10th.
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Speaking of which: If you’re not already signed up for that splendid race (see last month’s column) you can still sign up, but if you want to make a bunch of friends and earn the eternal gratitude of the race committee without having to run a step, you become a volunteer. The race needs people to check in runners that morning, monitor the curse, hand out water and assist at the finish line. Google the race website and send a message to Amanda K., the volunteer coordinator, telling her how eager you are to help. For your efforts you’ll receive a t-shirt, free beer (if you’re over 21) and ice cream.
Don’t you need these? You will still receive ample thanks from organizers and sponsors and enjoy the quiet satisfaction of working behind the scenes.
You might enjoy it so much you’ll want to volunteer for another race. Try the New England Green River Marathon on August 25, a splendid race on country roads from Marlboro, Vt., to Greenfield, far from the mega-marathons of Boston, New York, London…. They need volunteers to monitor the course, help with aid stations, things like that. One job you’re late signing up for is being at Marlboro College at 5 a.m. on race day to greet arriving runners and direct them to parking lots. I already got that one. To sign up for a less crazy time slot, visit https://signup.com/go/yGnuOCm.
And two footnotes Mt. Washington: While no western Massachusetts woman has won that race between 1972 and 2024, Leverett’s Kim Nedeau has placed in the top 10 multiple times and won the Masters (over 40) division. In addition to Lampe, this year’s top five also included Amherst’s Jennifer Gigliotti.
John Stifler taught writing and economics at UMass and wrote extensively for magazines and newspapers. He can be reached at [emailprotected]
