What's new with Chris?

Over the past year, a lot has happened with me. In addition to graduating from the College of St. Scholastica with a degree in International Studies and Political Science I also got married to my wonderful fiance Meg (Pierce) Rubesch, started a new job in promotions and public education at a member-owned food co-op in Duluth Minnesota, and had a sucessful first season transition to ultra marathons.

Our Wedding

My first ultra season included a 4th place at the Trail Mix 50k in the Twin cities, a 4th place at the Voyagure 50 Miler, and a 3:38 PR at the Glacier Trail 50K as well. Although I had a slight knee injury during the middle of the 2009 racing season, I was able to come back for a great last race at the Glacier Trail 50K.

Racing to a 4th place at the Trail Mix 50K

As 2010 began I continued my work with the Superior Performance Elite team and my coach Jason Kask. I also added sponsorships from Honey Stinger and Rudy Project to my sponsorship from Mizuno. I did two snowshoe races early this year. I raced at the Midwest Snowshoe Championships where I placed 4th overall and 1st in my age group in the half marathon. I also raced in the Book Across the Bay where I finished 3rd overall.

My training volume right is cycling between 16 to 20 hours, and will continue to climb from there as the season progresses. I am also including a fair amount of threshold and strength work in my training to prepair all my systems.

Next up is the Ice Age Trail 50K in southern Wisconsin. Meg and I are both racing and hoping to be right in leaders mix.

June 2008 Training

June was a month of continued training focused on the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon. I trained hard at the beginning of the month with a long ANT workout and long 10K pace workout and long run each week. I was primed and ready to go. My best workouts in the build up to the half were an ANT session of 2x5 miles at ANT in 27:50 and 27:55 and a session of 24x 400m reps at 10k RP. During that workout I averaged about 1:13 per 400 and picked it up to 1:11, 1:10, and 1:05 for the last three.

The half marathon itself was great until mile 10. At that point I was right on pace, but really started to feel the past two days of work in my legs. I had to work with at the Duluth Running Company booth at the marathon expo and standing on my feet for 12 hours really took it's toll on me. I ended up running a 1:16, which is a PR, but not as fast as I wanted or was capable of.

As a result of this race I changed my fall race schedule to get one more crack at the half marathon distance this season. I will now be doing the Chicago distance classic half marathon the second week in August as well as the Twin Cities marathon in October.

The remainder of the month of June was filled with base work to rebuild for my fall marathon and half and to prepare for my next race - the Voyager half marathon.

Month Totals:
294 Miles
44 Hours

Year to date:
1554 Miles
258:30 Hours

May 2008 Training

The month of May saw the end of track season and a start of my ANT zone work before the Gary Bjorklund half marathon. I began to add bigger miles into my training again this month, though you can't really tell because of the trip to Europe and its impact on my training log. Overall a good month of work with some good workouts including a session of 4x2 mile reps at ANT pace (5:40 Pace) and a session of 2x3 mile reps in 16:50 and 16:51.

Month Total:
272 Miles
30:00 hours

Year to date:
1260 Miles
214:30 Hours