For those who’re a path runner or ultrarunner in New England, there’s a very good likelihood you’ve learn the area’s ultrarunning race recaps on the local people information website MassUltra, essentially the most centralized and complete operating publication for the world to this point. Or maybe you’ve stumbled upon the location’s race calendars for regional occasions which can be aggregated for readers.
Both method, it’s exhausting 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 photographs courtesy of Chris Wristen.
Wristen launched MassUltra eight years in the past, motivated by a curiosity to study what was on the time his new yard and the path runners who stay 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 priceless useful resource to assist of us keep linked and concerned in occasions and volunteer work.
As a artistic philanthropic undertaking, the publication’s function is not any completely 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 crew 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 pupil athletes. “He made you consider you would do greater than you thought you would. And, , I at all times discovered that at all times had stayed with me as I received older,” mentioned Wristen, who went to compete on the state championships in observe his junior and senior years and carried the varsity report for the lengthy leap. His 4 x 100-meter relay crew additionally set the varsity report.
By the shut of highschool, Wristen earned the “Most Inspirational” award because the crew 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 College
Pursuing his childhood dream of changing 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 coated 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 completely 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, and so they 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 replica.
“We each had that itch to enter journalism. And my mother and father have 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 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 folks on Saturday morning might flip open their pc and examine what occurred in final evening’s sport whereas having breakfast,” mentioned Wristen. Working 70-hour weeks, “I might attempt to be at principally all the pieces, 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 received turned onto ultrarunning in 2008 when he wrote a summer season 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 gaggle of buddies, and buddies of buddies, to fulfill 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 fulfill in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, after which take the connecting flight to Vancouver, British Columbia, and the three-hour bus experience to Whistler. Whereas touring, we spent many 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,” mentioned Wristen.
Two weeks prior, he’d paced a pal on the Leadville 100 Mile in Colorado, then he went again to Kansas Metropolis to tug an all-nighter at work after which flew to Canada. His system was run down, and eight miles into the race, his coronary heart price 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 way of with an ashen grey face. Inside a minute of ending, my legs began to buckle, and I began to break down.”
Thankfully, 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 he or she 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 experience to Vancouver for in a single day commentary of their emergency room as a result of the Whistler clinic isn’t open 24 hours a day,” he mentioned. In the end, he was recognized 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 curious about them. I lacked confidence and will give you any excuse to not observe by way of. On the three-hour ambulance experience in the midst of the evening, it gave me loads of time to assume — ‘She sort of saved your ass. For those who don’t name her now, when are you ever going to?’” So he referred to as her the following day. And so they talked day by 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 received engaged in 2017 on a coaching run on Mount Osceola in New Hampshire whereas coaching for CCC. They married in 2018, and right this moment, 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 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 revealed items in “UltraRunning Journal” and “Path Runner Journal.”
Having a writing position outdoors of the newspaper trade has helped Wristen handle his time, of which he dedicates a lot to a ardour undertaking: MassUltra, the neighborhood information website that he launched in 2016 to cowl the rising extremely neighborhood in Massachusetts.
Wristen mentioned that evidently MassUltra could be the primary and solely website devoted to masking 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 photographs 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 after I moved out right here in August 2015, I wished to study extra concerning the native scene. The extra I used to be round, I noticed: New England is fairly tight-knit. The area people spans six small states,” he mentioned. “We wish to rejoice everyone as a lot as we will, and it’s fairly particular what everyone does.”
The Earn Your Dust 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 fully free to readers.
Chris Wristen operating the 2022 TARCtic Frozen Yeti.
Writing a E-book: Path Animals Operating Membership
Wristen can be actively engaged on a ebook concerning the historical past of the Path Animals Operating Membership (TARC), a path operating membership centered across the Boston space. He began interviews with individuals related to the group in December 2020. In line 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 individuals 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 biggest path membership in New England and one of many largest within the nation.”
Final yr marked 30 years because the 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 area people in the previous few years. It’s actually exploded. Lots of people don’t actually know the historical past or don’t understand it properly.”
Wristen goals to have the manuscript completed by the tip of 2024.
Treasure Hunt-Type 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 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 received a bit redemption in thoughts this yr,” he mentioned.
In the end, Wristen has discovered a real sense of exploration and neighborhood by way of path operating. “I really like the neighborhood and the connections to individuals, the atmosphere, and the goodness of the folks that it’s introduced into my life. I’ve run with individuals who assume similar to me, or who’ve had fully completely different life experiences and completely different views on issues. However once you share loads of miles with someone 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 individuals round you,” he shared.
As for operating ultras? He sees it as a possibility in unknown territory, be it within the self, general expertise, or place. “You may run a race time and time once more and have wildly completely 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 to this point 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’ve gotten a map marked with completely different highlighters, and it’s a must to 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 pieces I really like about this sport with its old-school nature.”
“You may examine the course upfront, or get misplaced so much on race day along with your map and attempt to course-correct, or attempt to run the entire thing with someone who is aware of the place they’re going and make a pal alongside the way in which. I’ve had all of these experiences,” he mentioned.
He first ran the course with Brinkert in 2016, and so they coated 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 Checklist, 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 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 fundamental aim? To create recollections with different runners alongside the way in which. 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 fulfill 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?
