For those who’re a path runner or ultrarunner in New England, there’s a superb likelihood you’ve learn the area’s ultrarunning race recaps on the local people information web site MassUltra, essentially the most centralized and complete operating publication for the realm thus far. Or maybe you’ve stumbled upon the positioning’s race calendars for regional occasions which might be aggregated for readers.
Both method, it’s arduous to consider that the publication is totally operated by a sole journalist, Chris Wristen, a longtime path ultrarunner, lifelong runner, and sports activities reporter.
Chris Wristen has been a part of the ultrarunning and path operating scene in New England, as a author and runner, since 2010. All images courtesy of Chris Wristen.
Wristen launched MassUltra eight years in the past, motivated by a curiosity to find out about what was on the time his new yard and the path runners who dwell there. He has saved the publishing calendar pages turning ever since. His articles assist elevate the names that create the neighborhood, present an area for athletes to really feel seen and celebrated, and function a helpful useful resource to assist of us keep linked and concerned in occasions and volunteer work.
As a inventive philanthropic challenge, the publication’s function isn’t any totally different from Wristen’s dedication to being a public servant and chief all through his journalism and reporting profession.
“Most Inspirational” Award
Wristen grew up in Leawood, Kansas, within the Kansas Metropolis metropolitan space, collaborating in each sport as a child: soccer, soccer, baseball, and monitor. He shared that in highschool, “I performed basketball and soccer for a yr and ran monitor for 4 years as a sprinter for the 4 x 100-meter relay and lengthy jumper, ran cross nation for 2 years, after which was the latter’s staff supervisor as a senior.”
His cross-country coach, Greg Wilson, was “legendary” at Saint Thomas Aquinas Excessive Faculty, the place about 15% of the highschool ran cross nation, which was round 183 pupil athletes. “He made you consider you might do greater than you thought you might. And, you already know, I at all times discovered that at all times had stayed with me as I acquired older,” stated Wristen, who went to compete on the state championships in monitor his junior and senior years and carried the varsity report for the lengthy leap. His 4 x 100-meter relay staff additionally set the varsity report.
By the shut of highschool, Wristen earned the “Most Inspirational” award because the staff supervisor. “I helped a lady who handed out through the first race of the yr. It was actually scorching. She’d sprained her ankle and had it taped too tight after which overheated. She ended up throwing up throughout me,” he laughed.
Journalism Faculty
Pursuing his childhood dream of turning into a sports activities author, Wristen attended the College of Kansas. He joined the scholar newspaper his freshman yr and wrote for the sports activities web page of the “Kansan” all 4 years. His sister, who was two years older, was additionally a journalism pupil and on the newspaper employees. He additionally lined sports activities for the “Topeka Capital-Journal,” the day by day paper in Topeka, Kansas.
Chris Wristen at all times wished to be a journalist and was a sports activities reporter for a number of totally different newspapers.
Whereas rising up, Wristen and his sister liked making a mock neighborhood newspaper with their grandma, who’d been the editor of her highschool newspaper within the Thirties. Dubbed “The Leawood Information,” it had a hand-drawn cowl, they usually typed up tales about their stuffed animals utilizing their grandma’s outdated typewriter. Comics and film postings have been pasted contained in the pages, too. Wristen nonetheless has a duplicate.
“We each had that itch to enter journalism. And my dad and mom have been avid readers of the newspaper. Each morning, the newspaper was out on the desk,” he stated.
After receiving his undergraduate diploma, he jumped into incomes a grasp’s diploma in sports activities administration on the College of Kansas. In September 2003, whereas learning, he transitioned to working as a part-time sports activities author for the “Lawrence Journal-World.” He lined highschool sports activities 38 hours every week whereas additionally working a full-time 40-hour-a-week job at a pal’s workplace provide firm.
When the paper launched a brand new neighborhood weekly newspaper in Lansing, Wristen was employed to get it off the bottom. The paper ran from October 2004 to 2008. “I’d cowl Friday-night soccer and work till about 3:30 a.m. writing the story, working up a photograph gallery, and placing video highlights collectively so that individuals on Saturday morning might flip open their laptop and examine what occurred in final night time’s sport whereas having breakfast,” stated Wristen. Working 70-hour weeks, “I’d attempt to be at principally every thing, in every single place, on a regular basis. I ran myself into the bottom with it.” Wristen provides concerning the expertise, “I used to be fortunate.”
When the paper shuttered, he shifted to the corporate’s different neighborhood papers in Shawnee, Bonner Springs, and Basehor.
Entrance to Ultrarunning, Ambulance Rides, and Love
Wristen acquired turned onto ultrarunning in 2008 when he wrote a summer time function story on the native path operating scene, and he began operating trails in the summertime of 2010.
Chris Wristen’s first article about path operating in 2008 when the spark was lit.
After listening to concerning the launch of the Meet Your Maker 50 Mile in Whistler, British Columbia, in 2012, he rallied a bunch of mates, and mates of mates, to satisfy up for the 2013 race. The seven-person group included his now-wife, Alex Brinkert.
“Alex and I simply form of hit issues off. We’d all coordinated our flights to satisfy in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, after which take the connecting flight to Vancouver, British Columbia, and the three-hour bus trip to Whistler. Whereas touring, we spent a lot of the journey hanging out and speaking. It was my second 50 miler, and it was going to be her first. She had a very good race — I had a very, actually poor race,” stated Wristen.
Two weeks prior, he’d paced a pal on the Leadville 100 Mile in Colorado, then he went again to Kansas Metropolis to drag an all-nighter at work after which flew to Canada. His system was run down, and eight miles into the race, his coronary heart charge spiked. He stated he “stubbornly” handed the medical tent at mile 38, “and promptly puked my guts out sitting on logs. I ended up ending. Alex had completed about an hour and a half earlier than me. She was consuming pizza and sitting there recovering. I got here via with an ashen grey face. Inside a minute of ending, my legs began to buckle, and I began to break down.”
Happily, Brinkert was a nurse getting her grasp’s diploma in public well being. She took cost, getting his legs elevated on a bench whereas the opposite medics came to visit.
“I ended up going to the emergency room on the native clinic, and she or he was within the room with me as a result of she was a nurse and speaks the language. The final time I noticed her was after they have been wheeling me out to place me in an ambulance for a three-hour trip to Vancouver for in a single day remark of their emergency room as a result of the Whistler clinic isn’t open 24 hours a day,” he stated. In the end, he was identified with an irregular heartbeat attributable to extreme dehydration.
The following day, Brinkert flew again to Boston, Massachusetts. “I had at all times been afraid or uncomfortable speaking to women if I used to be focused on them. I lacked confidence and will give you any excuse to not comply with via. On the three-hour ambulance trip in the midst of the night time, it gave me a whole lot of time to assume — ‘She form of saved your ass. For those who don’t name her now, when are you ever going to?’” So he known as her the following day. They usually talked each day after that.
“As my brother-in-law likes to name it, I faked a coronary heart assault to get a lady’s quantity,” he laughed.
Faking a coronary heart assault to get a lady’s cellphone quantity on the 2013 Meet Your Maker 50 Mile. Alex Brinkert, Chris’s future spouse, is on backside left.
That November, Wristen flew to Boston for Thanksgiving with Brinkert and her household. For almost two years, each 5 to 6 weeks, they’d journey forwards and backwards to see one another or journey collectively whereas Brinkert completed graduate faculty.
They acquired engaged in 2017 on a coaching run on Mount Osceola in New Hampshire whereas coaching for CCC. They married in 2018, and immediately, they’ve a six-month-old pet named Toasty, whose coat seems to be like a toasted marshmallow. She’s a mixture of 9 breeds, together with Pit Bull or Staffordshire Terrier, Labrador, and Husky. “The Husky appears to be the dominant of her character — she has the blue eyes, whine, and sheds like a Husky,” Wristen stated.
Chris Wristen with Toasty.
Launching MassUltra
Wristen left the newspaper enterprise in January 2012 and is now the Senior Advertising and Proposal Specialist at CDM Smith.
“I write and edit enterprise pursuits, engineering proposals, to assist the agency win work,” he defined. He leads the event writing concerning the Northeast area’s municipal water, wastewater, transportation, and environmental pursuits. He’s additionally dabbled in freelancing, with printed items in “UltraRunning Journal” and “Path Runner Journal.”
Having a writing position exterior of the newspaper trade has helped Wristen handle his time, of which he dedicates a lot to a ardour challenge: MassUltra, the neighborhood information web site that he launched in 2016 to cowl the rising extremely neighborhood in Massachusetts.
Wristen stated that evidently MassUltra may be the primary and solely web site devoted to protecting the game on a smaller, localized scale.
Wristen publishes a weekly roundup of race recaps with outcomes from every extremely occasion within the state. If he can attend, he’ll additionally seize pictures for a photograph gallery. To arrange, he trolls the entrant lists on UltraSignup on Wednesday and Thursday of every week to fish out each runner from the area.
“My spouse is from Massachusetts, and after I moved out right here in August 2015, I wished to be taught extra concerning the native scene. The extra I used to be round, I spotted: New England is fairly tight-knit. The area people spans six small states,” he stated. “We need to rejoice all people as a lot as we are able to, and it’s fairly particular what all people does.”
The Earn Your Grime column outlines path work alternatives, and there’s a Massachusetts race calendar. The location additionally has a race calendar for New England.
Often, native runner Jennifer Rizzo has offered options, however in any other case, Wristen has been the only real operator. The location utterly free to readers.
Chris Wristen operating the 2022 TARCtic Frozen Yeti.
Writing a Ebook: Path Animals Working Membership
Wristen can also be actively engaged on a guide concerning the historical past of the Path Animals Working Membership (TARC), a path operating membership centered across the Boston space. He began interviews with folks related to the group in December 2020. In keeping with Wristen:
“The membership began in 1994 and was lively for a few years. The Don’t Run Boston 50k was their first race, which was began in 1997. Shortly after, the membership was mothballed for 9 years, however the race occurred yearly throughout that point. It was what saved folks linked. Bob Crowley — who served because the president of ITRA [International Trail Running Association] in 2020 and 2021 — helped revive TARC in 2006, and constructed it into the most important path membership in New England and one of many largest within the nation.”
Final yr marked 30 years because the membership’s founding. Wristen stated, “I need to seize and doc the story of the early years of how the membership began and the way it got here to be as a result of so many individuals have come into this sport in our local people in the previous couple of years. It’s actually exploded. Lots of people don’t actually know the historical past or don’t understand it nicely.”
Wristen goals to have the manuscript completed by the top of 2024.
Treasure Hunt-Model Racing
Wristen and his spouse have saved up with ultrarunning all through strikes, marriage, profession shifts, and pet parenting.
In November 2023, Brinkert ran the Hamsterwheel, a six-hour race in New Hampshire, and logged 40 miles. Wristen did the G.A.C. Fats Ass 50k in January of this yr, which is a historic New England occasion. He additionally raced the TARCtic Frozen Yeti, the place he ran 30 miles, and the Chesterfield Gorge Extremely 50k. He’s coaching for a 100 miler in July that’s hosted by the Berkshire Extremely Working Neighborhood for Service on a 1.7-mile cross-country ski loop. Wristen ran the occasion final yr, straining his hamstring at mile 76 and dropping. “I’ve acquired a bit redemption in thoughts this yr,” he stated.
In the end, Wristen has discovered a real sense of exploration and neighborhood via path operating. “I like the neighborhood and the connections to folks, the surroundings, and the goodness of the those who it’s introduced into my life. I’ve run with individuals who assume similar to me, or who’ve had utterly totally different life experiences and totally different views on issues. However while you share a whole lot of miles with anyone on a path, I really feel such as you take away any of the noise from an equation and may simply acquire an actual sense of the humanity of the folks round you,” he shared.
As for operating ultras? He sees it as a possibility in unknown territory, be it within the self, total expertise, or place. “You possibly can run a race time and time once more and have wildly totally different experiences,” he stated.
Working the Don’t Run Boston 50k includes many challenges, together with routefinding on an unmarked course.
Wristen’s favourite and most frequented race thus far is the Don’t Run Boston 50k, the unique Path Animals Working Membership extremely on the Blue Hills Reservation in Massachusetts. He defined, “It’s free with an unmarked course. You could have a map marked with totally different highlighters, and you must determine it out, like a treasure hunt.” He runs it yearly, as does his spouse, and it’s turn out to be a practice that he stated, “embodies every thing I like about this sport with its old-school nature.”
“You possibly can examine the course upfront, or get misplaced loads on race day along with your map and attempt to course-correct, or attempt to run the entire thing with anyone who is aware of the place they’re going and make a pal alongside the best way. I’ve had all of these experiences,” he stated.
He first ran the course with Brinkert in 2016, they usually lined 34 miles, with loads of bonus miles concerned, in almost 9 hours. The second time, in 2017, the couple ran each step with race veteran Jeff Record, a 10-time Hardrock 100 finisher. “He at all times used it as a Hardrock coaching day, and we nearly killed ourselves hanging on to Jeff. He knew the course by coronary heart, and we didn’t let him out of our sights,” stated Wristen. They have been coaching for the CCC that yr and completed in 6.5 hours. Now, Wristen has completed the route six instances and studied the route phase by phase to grasp the run.
However his principal purpose? To create reminiscences with different runners alongside the best way. It’s not a couple of end time.
Chris Wristen and his spouse, Alex Brinkert, ending the 2017 CCC.
Name for Feedback
- Have you ever had an opportunity to satisfy or run with Chris Wristen? What’s your favourite story that includes him?
- Massachusetts, New England, and past runners, do you learn the MassUltra web site to get your native operating information repair?
