Chris Wristen

The memorial is so subtle that it’s easy to miss. In fact, we walked right past it two days prior during a self-guided walking tour of Munich and were completely oblivious to its existence.

But once it’s pointed out to you, it is hard to forget.

A few thoughts on Election Day:

Our town here in Massachusetts has a form of government known as Town Meeting. In a nutshell, it’s a legislative body of representatives from nine districts who gather when needed to vote on varying issues – primarily school and local government budget stuff, maybe a zoning issue, and approving funding for some specific projects. There’s Annual Town Meeting each May, when the biggest budget issues are approved or rejected, and then there are additional Special Town Meeting gatherings to address other matters throughout the year. There are around 200 members of Town Meeting, though often there are several vacant positions due to lack of sufficient interest.

Two years ago, I noticed that our District had the least representation of any, so I wrote myself in as a candidate for a 3-year term (2023-2025). Alex voted for me, too, and that was that. I was elected to Town Meeting with our 2 write-in votes.

WINDSOR, Mass. – The mistake was obvious in hindsight, and that made it all the more difficult to accept the outcome.

In 2023, I was committed to running 100 miles at the Notchview Ultra; more than that, I was committed to completing the distance in less than 30 hours. It was an overly ambitious goal for having not put in sufficient training to run that fast, not to mention having never completed the distance previously. It also wasn’t necessary. Notchview offers a 72-hour cutoff for its 100.7-mile race – the same allotment runners in the event’s longest time-based race receive. If I’d been patient, I most likely would have finished with plenty of time to spare, albeit not within 30 hours. 

I should have taken advantage of the generous time limit and enjoyed some rest along the way, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I took short breaks, snacked quickly and pushed onward with my eyes constantly on the clock. The goal should have been just to finish, not this foolishness.

I ran strong, and I ran well … until I didn’t. I strained my right hamstring about 67 miles and 19 hours in. Rather than taking a lengthy break to let it quiet down, I continued to push for a few more loops as the hamstring deteriorated. I hobbled to the 76-mile mark in 23:36; by then, the hamstring could barely bear weight. Notchview 2023 ended in disappointment with a DNF and more than 48 hours left on the clock.

The outcome quietly tormented me for most of the past year. Failure is part of the deal in this sport. You can do everything right and come up short, and sometimes you can do everything wrong and still succeed. But this outcome was most likely avoidable if I’d simply been smart. Instead, I’d been greedy and undisciplined, and I had 370 days to think about it, learn from it, and prepare to try again.

I returned to Notchview Reservation on July 12, 2024, for another crack at the 100.7-miler. I was determined to be disciplined and patient this time. I was resolved to finishing 53 loops of the 1.9-mile course no matter how long it took.

Still, within just a few hours of starting Notchview 2024, the ghosts of 2023 resurfaced and threatened to derail me once again.

WINDSOR, Mass. – The range of emotions I’ve experienced during nearly 12 years of running trail ultramarathons runs the gamut from elation to extreme exhaustion, optimism to dread, confident and determined, to concerned and a bit scared, to almost always ending with a sense of fulfillment.

If you’ve been in this sport long enough then you’ve likely had your own run-ins with all of these and more. Heck, you may have experienced them all if you’ve run a single ultra, depending on the course, the conditions, the distance and countless other factors.

Still, as I lay on a mattress in the back of the Subaru on Saturday afternoon, July 8, knowing my run at the Notchview Ultra was likely finished, I felt something that I’ve never felt before at an ultra: I felt empty.

June marked a two-pronged component of my build-up to the Notchview Ultra – 1) A big effort mid-month at the Mt. Washington Road Race (7.6 miles, 4,650 feet of climbing), and 2) the final weeks to beat up my legs and prepare them to run 53 laps – 100.7 miles – at Notchview.

After many weeks of coming close to a 50-mile week, May opened with a high point as I put up 50.5 miles and a 20+-mile day during the first six days of the month before taking the Sunday off to rest. I finally hit the 50-mile mark for a week, and my legs felt surprisingly good. I suppose that was a reflection of the base that I’ve built so far this year with so many weeks of mileage in the 40s and ultra finishes at the TARCtic Frozen Yeti in February and the “Don’t Run Boston” 50K in April.

The positive May momentum lasted for barely a week.

There’s something special about April. Sure, it’s my birthday month, but what I’ve really savored about it since moving to Massachusetts is that April – and my birthday weekend specifically – always align with DRB. That’s short for “Don’t Run Boston,” which is the Trail Animals Running Club’s inaugural event dating back to 1997.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made since I started running trails nearly 13 years ago was ignoring the pain in my left knee in the summer of 2018. What began as mild discomfort and then occasional sharp, stabbing pain on a random step once every couple miles transitioned over the course of a few months into a full-scale running shutdown.

The email caught me by surprise.

It popped into my inbox at 10:01 a.m. today.

Subject line: Notchview Ultra – 100.7 Miles – Registration Invitation

It started with some treadmill miles at a New Jersey hotel while on my first work trip since pre-covid, followed by a successful 30-mile finish at the TARCtic Frozen Yeti ultramarathon in sub-zero temperatures. My goal coming off of a 64-mile performance at the Hamsterwheel in November was to parlay that race into some serious base-building rather than several weeks of laziness. That set me up for success at the Frozen Yeti, and I took the same post-race approach so the Frozen Yeti could be a building block for the annual “Don’t Run Boston” 50K in April, and onward toward a hopeful 100-mile effort at Notchview in July (still sitting in second on the wait list).

The month of February began with such promise but closed out with a bit of frustration on the running front.