If you happen to’re a path runner or ultrarunner in New England, there’s likelihood you’ve learn the area’s ultrarunning race recaps on the area people information web site MassUltra, essentially the most centralized and complete working publication for the world 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 laborious 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 working 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 reside there. He has stored the publishing calendar pages turning ever since. His articles assist elevate the names that create the group, present an area for athletes to really feel seen and celebrated, and function a priceless useful resource to assist people keep linked and concerned in occasions and volunteer work.
As a artistic philanthropic mission, the publication’s goal 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 observe. He shared that in highschool, “I performed basketball and soccer for a yr and ran observe 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 College, the place about 15% of the highschool ran cross nation, which was round 183 scholar athletes. “He made you consider you can do greater than you thought you can. And, you already know, I at all times discovered that at all times had stayed with me as I obtained older,” mentioned Wristen, who went to compete on the state championships in observe his junior and senior years and carried the college report for the lengthy leap. His 4 x 100-meter relay staff additionally set the college report.
By the shut of highschool, Wristen earned the “Most Inspirational” award because the staff supervisor. “I helped a lady who handed out in the course of the first race of the yr. It was actually sizzling. She’d sprained her ankle and had it taped too tight after which overheated. She ended up throwing up throughout me,” he laughed.
Journalism College
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 scholar and on the newspaper workers. He additionally coated sports activities for the “Topeka Capital-Journal,” the each 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 beloved making a mock neighborhood newspaper with their grandma, who’d been the editor of her highschool newspaper within the Nineteen 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 had 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 had been avid readers of the newspaper. Each morning, the newspaper was out on the desk,” he mentioned.
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 finding out, he transitioned to working as a part-time sports activities author for the “Lawrence Journal-World.” He coated highschool sports activities 38 hours per week whereas additionally working a full-time 40-hour-a-week job at a buddy’s workplace provide firm.
When the paper launched a brand new group 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 folks on Saturday morning may flip open their pc and examine what occurred in final evening’s recreation whereas having breakfast,” mentioned Wristen. Working 70-hour weeks, “I’d attempt to be at mainly all the things, all over the place, on a regular basis. I ran myself into the bottom with it.” Wristen provides in regards to the expertise, “I used to be fortunate.”
When the paper shuttered, he shifted to the corporate’s different group papers in Shawnee, Bonner Springs, and Basehor.
Entrance to Ultrarunning, Ambulance Rides, and Love
Wristen obtained turned onto ultrarunning in 2008 when he wrote a summer season characteristic story on the native path working scene, and he began working trails in the summertime of 2010.
Chris Wristen’s first article about path working in 2008 when the spark was lit.
After listening to in regards to the launch of the Meet Your Maker 50 Mile in Whistler, British Columbia, in 2012, he rallied a bunch of associates, and associates of associates, to satisfy up for the 2013 race. The seven-person group included his now-wife, Alex Brinkert.
“Alex and I simply sort 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 journey 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 extremely good race — I had a extremely, actually poor race,” mentioned Wristen.
Two weeks prior, he’d paced a buddy 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 mentioned 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 by means of 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 visiting.
“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 had been wheeling me out to place me in an ambulance for a three-hour journey to Vancouver for in a single day statement of their emergency room as a result of the Whistler clinic isn’t open 24 hours a day,” he mentioned. Finally, he was recognized with an irregular heartbeat brought on by extreme dehydration.
The subsequent day, Brinkert flew again to Boston, Massachusetts. “I had at all times been afraid or uncomfortable speaking to ladies if I used to be focused on them. I lacked confidence and will give you any excuse to not observe by means of. On the three-hour ambulance journey in the midst of the evening, it gave me plenty of time to assume — ‘She sort of saved your ass. If you happen to don’t name her now, when are you ever going to?’” So he referred to as her the subsequent day. And so they talked every single 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 telephone 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 practically two years, each 5 to 6 weeks, they’d journey backwards and forwards to see one another or journey collectively whereas Brinkert completed graduate college.
They obtained engaged in 2017 on a coaching run on Mount Osceola in New Hampshire whereas coaching for CCC. They married in 2018, and as we speak, 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 mentioned.
Chris Wristen with Toasty.
Launching MassUltra
Wristen left the newspaper enterprise in January 2012 and is now the Senior Advertising and marketing 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 outdoors of the newspaper business has helped Wristen handle his time, of which he dedicates a lot to a ardour mission: MassUltra, the group information web site that he launched in 2016 to cowl the rising extremely group in Massachusetts.
Wristen mentioned that it appears 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 organize, 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 once I moved out right here in August 2015, I wished to be taught extra in regards to the native scene. The extra I used to be round, I spotted: New England is fairly tight-knit. The local people spans six small states,” he mentioned. “We wish to have fun everyone as a lot as we are able to, and it’s fairly particular what everyone does.”
The Earn Your Filth 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 supplied options, however in any other case, Wristen has been the only operator. The location utterly free to readers.
Chris Wristen working the 2022 TARCtic Frozen Yeti.
Writing a E-book: Path Animals Operating Membership
Wristen can also be actively engaged on a e-book in regards to the historical past of the Path Animals Operating Membership (TARC), a path working membership centered across the Boston space. He began interviews with folks related to the group in December 2020. In accordance 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 stored 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 for the reason that membership’s founding. Wristen mentioned, “I wish 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 tip of 2024.
Treasure Hunt-Type Racing
Wristen and his spouse have stored 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 Operating 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 obtained slightly redemption in thoughts this yr,” he mentioned.
Finally, Wristen has discovered a real sense of exploration and group by means of path working. “I really like the group and the connections to folks, the setting, and the goodness of the people 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 plenty of miles with any person on a path, I really feel such as you take away any of the noise from an equation and might simply acquire an actual sense of the humanity of the folks round you,” he shared.
As for working 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 mentioned.
Operating 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 Operating Membership extremely on the Blue Hills Reservation in Massachusetts. He defined, “It’s free with an unmarked course. You might 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 into a practice that he mentioned, “embodies all the things I really like about this sport with its old-school nature.”
“You possibly can research the course prematurely, or get misplaced lots on race day along with your map and attempt to course-correct, or attempt to run the entire thing with any person who is aware of the place they’re going and make a buddy alongside the best way. I’ve had all of these experiences,” he mentioned.
He first ran the course with Brinkert in 2016, they usually coated 34 miles, with loads of bonus miles concerned, in practically 9 hours. The second time, in 2017, the couple ran each step with race veteran Jeff Listing, 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,” mentioned Wristen. They had been coaching for the CCC that yr and completed in 6.5 hours. Now, Wristen has completed the route six occasions and studied the route phase by phase to grasp the run.
However his predominant objective? To create reminiscences with different runners alongside the best way. It’s not a few 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 working information repair?