10/29/2026
🏃♂️ Meet the Athlete: Darius Parker 🏔️
Our “Meet the Athlete” series is back, shining a light on the athletes who make this community so inspiring!
This time it’s Darius Parker, who was the top male Vermonter at the 2026 M&T Bank Vermont City Marathon! 🙌
But Darius wasn’t done there. Just two weeks later, the UVM Cross Country standout raced the Sunapee Scramble and earned a spot on Team USA for the Mountain Running World Cup in Quebec, where he finished an incredible 4th in his age group.
Next up: representing UVM at the America East Championships in just a couple of weeks!
We caught up with Darius to talk about his whirlwind season, making the jump from roads to mountains, and why a strong support crew matters so much:
"I was really into trail running, but I also wanted to work on getting faster, and potentially race a road marathon. I had done one trail 50k. On top of marathon training, I was also doing a fair bit of vert because two weeks after the marathon was the Sunapee Scramble, which is the race that I qualified for the US team on. And so I was simultaneously trying to train for trail stuff as well."
“What I’ve learned over the past couple of years is that people are capable of so much more than they realize. Having a community around you that helps you dream bigger than you could alone, and being that support for others, whether chasing a fast time or completing a new distance, is huge.”
Drop a 💚 below to cheer Darius on at America East! Let’s go, Darius!
