Simplify.
That was one of Henry David Thoreau’s definitive pieces of advice about living. It’s also a good motto for one of the oldest and most wonderful running events in western Massachusetts, the annual Ron Hebert Memorial Road Race. It’s eight miles from Florence, up through and Haydenville and back down to Florence via North Farms Road, as straightforward and simple as you please. This year’s Hebert race will take place on Saturday, March 28, starting and finishing at JFK Middle School.
In its own quiet way, this is a hardcore race. Ron Hebert, who coached wrestling and running at Northampton High School and later coached cross-country at Williston and at Turners Falls, created this race on one of his own favorite running routes, more than 50 years ago. In an era when new 5-kilometer races keep popping up everywhere, the race now named for him is not just longer than most casual joggers want to run; it features some long, grinding hills, and usually it attracts some seriously strong runners.
Not to disparage 5Ks. Five kilometers (3.1 miles) is a friendly distance, something that the average person, including people who don’t think of themselves as regular runners, can complete. Races of this length have done a lot to promote fitness for the general public. Look no further than the annual Hot Chocolate Run in downtown Northampton. You want crowds, that December race has them. Furthermore, it brings the community together for a good cause, Safe Passage, which protects and assists victims of domestic violence.
No such ambition infuses the Hebert Race. It rarely attracts as many as a hundred runners. There’s no pressure to register early before the race reaches capacity, no big corporate sponsorship, no parade or pasta dinner or post-race party, and — this is the really telling element — no T-shirt. As ultramarathoner Donna Utakis of Amherst once observed of it, “You run this race because you like to run, not because you want the shirt and stuff.” If you need a commemorative road race T-shirt, run a race somewhere else.
The Hebert race does, however, offer one piece of swag. Every finisher gets a pair of Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club running socks. Note: every finisher. As Ron Hebert once remarked, anyone can sign up for a race; finishing it is the challenge.
For a long time, the socks seemed like a smart alternative to T-shirts. Every runner has too many T-shirts; every runner also wears out socks faster than shirts. Even so, it now appears that the Hebert race socks of yesteryear (by which I mean 2025) have lost some of their sheen (if they ever had sheen in the first place). According to John Reino, now the race’s director, after hearing people say things about Ron Hebert socks like “I have too many of them” or “They’re too bright for wear at weddings,” the race organizers (i.e. Reino and whoever volunteers to help him) decided to release a new model.
Instead of being a bright Sugarloaf yellow, these new socks are black compression socks, decorated in pale yellow letters with the race’s initials, “RHM,” plus pictures of runners and an outline of the course. If you ran the Covered Bridge Classic in Conway last October, you may have seen similar socks there. As Reino declares, “RHM socks will fix all your problems. And if you’re ever lost on course, you can remove your shoe and consult your sock for a course map.”
Here’s another charming detail in the history of the greatest race in Florence, Massachusetts. In 2013, the race got a lot of attention from New England Runner magazine. Soon, the New England office of USA Track & Field proposed designating this obviously challenging race as the eight-mile event in the New England running grand prix series of races.
Did this mean long overdue recognition of the greatest road race in Florence, Massachusetts? Well, maybe – but Ron Hebert declined the invitation. As he explained at the time, making the race an official event in a major regional series would mean, well, a great deal of work. The race director would have to do more by way of arranging insurance, official certification of the course, logistics for officials, parking for many more cars, answering endless phone calls, and so on. And all that fuss would compromise the race’s identity. See above reference to Thoreau.
Starting time on the 28th is 10 a.m. in front of the middle school. Register online by March 27 at https://www.runreg.com/ronhebertrace or on race day after 8:30 a.m.
John Stifler has taught writing in economics at UMass and has written extensively for running magazines and newspapers. He can be reached at jstifler@umass.edu.