The Chris Jones story is a running saga of epic proportions.  Don't try this at home! (Photo - Leadville 100 Mile)

by David Prokop, Editor, Best Road Races

The 2013 Ujena Fit Club Male Runner of the Year is the iron-willed, indefatigable Chris Jones of San Francisco, Calif., who ran and posted so many races during the year, including a ton of marathons and ultra-marathons, it seems like something straight out of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

While Chris is not the fastest of runners (his best mile is 5:30), he is surely one of the most durable. A member of a group called the Marathon Maniacs, which encourages individuals to run a lot of races – maybe too many races, some would say – Chris ran and posted no fewer than 80 races on the Ujena Fit Club Website in 2013:  26 marathons, 26 ultra-marathons (seven of them being 100 miles or longer!), plus 15 half-marathons and 13 races over shorter distances. A truly staggering feat – and that’s not intended to be a pun in any way!

And if you think running 80 races last year was impressive, he ran even more races in 2012 -- about 100 (65 marathons and/or ultras, 25-30 half-marathons)! That was the year he first joined the Ujena Fit Club, but he didn’t bother to post his races on the Website that year.

Chris running the American River 50-Mile Race

It is difficult, if not impossible, to wrap your mind around the idea of anyone running that many long races in one year. Running seven races of 100 miles or more as he did in 2013 is incomprehensible in and of itself, let alone doing 26 marathons as well, more than a dozen 50-milers, etc. Wrestling with the reality of all this, and with what could possibly  motivate a runner to do that, you can’t help but wonder: What makes Chris Jones tick?

First of all, you have to understand that this 5’11”, 173-pound endurance runner has been in the Army all his adult life – now 42, he’s a Captain in the Army Reserves (“I’m a mid-level officer.”). By his own admission he’s something of an adventurer and outdoorsman.   Given his military background (he spent a year in Bosnia, another year in Iraq, expects to be deployed to Afghanistan soon and is looking forward to it – “I like the adventure. I’d like to go to Afghanistan. Not to get killed, but for the adventure.”), Chris Jones naturally brings a warrior mentality and background to extreme running and racing.

“I guess you could say that, sure,” he says, and one gets the feeling the “battle” of running the endless miles in these ultra races is not that different to what he’s endured and experienced in other ways as a soldier:  “It’s like a quick 24-hour battle,” he says good-naturedly of running an ultra race.

Chris with pacer Brian Marks in the Gold Rush 100K

So what does makes Chris Jones tick? Describing what he enjoys about running a 100-mile race, he says, “I like it when it’s like 2 in the morning, there’s no one else around, your legs have given out – they gave out at 40 or 50 miles – and now you have to figure out how you get to the finish line.”

If you can understand this mindset, you’ll have taken a big step to understanding Chris Jones. This is, clearly, no ordinary man, content to undertake ordinary challenges.

Yet he had a rather ordinary beginning as a runner. Chris was born and raised in Sonoma, Calif., about 45 miles north of San Francisco, and ran cross-country in high school (“I was a middle-of-the-pack runner,” he says).

When he couldn’t afford to attend the University of Colorado (he wanted to go there because of the mountains), he joined the U.S. Army instead. He was 18 years of age.

Running wasn’t a particular passion – not then! – although he says, “I always enjoyed running recreationally. I always enjoyed running on my own.”

Or with his dog! He adds somewhat wistfully, “Once my dog got old, I started racing because I couldn’t run with my dog anymore.”

Chris finishing the Dick Collins Firetrails 50 Miler

Before that happened, however, Chris spent many years in the Army, there were tours of duty in Bosnia and Iraq, ultimately he did attend the University of Colorado and graduated with a Bachelors degree in small business and entrepreneurship – and for good measure he also got a Masters degree in the same field from the University of San Francisco. Now he combines an Army career and a business career. When he isn’t racing or attending to his Army duties as a member of the Army Reserves, he runs his own e-commerce Website called Foggypaws.com, selling everything from sunglasses and CD’s to books and movies on line, mostly through Amazon and eBay.  

The transformation of Chris Jones from ordinary recreational runner to mega runner extraordinaire actually began in 2009. Chris had just returned from Iraq and by his own admission, his transition from military life to normal life was difficult – breaking up with a girlfriend, putting on weight, etc. 

“The reason I started getting into ultra-marathoning,” Chris says, “is there was this therapist in the Army just after I came back from Iraq. I needed therapy because of some back problems I had from lugging around equipment in Iraq, and this therapist (Carol Clark) was an ultra-runner. She started telling me about ultra-marathons. ‘But you’re not ready for that,’ she said, poking her forefinger into my stomach, ‘You’re fat!’”

I asked our editor David Prokop to speak with Chris Jones, our male runner of the year. These insights confirms how amazing a feat Chris pulled off. Congrats chris!!! Glad to see you are racing well again this year.
Bob Anderson 3/17/14 11:57 am

Chris, you're an example of hard work and dedication!
3/19/14 11:24 am

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Chris running the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 at the 15-mile mark

It was the biggest jolt of motivation he ever got in his life! He started entering half-marathons and as he puts it, “Got hooked.” Before long, Chris added marathons to his racing agenda.

Then a friend of his really dangled a challenge in front of him! By then Chris had heard about the Marathon Maniacs, which reserves its highest accolade, its croix de guerre as it were, to those stout-hearted members who can do 52 marathons in 52 weeks or 30 marathons in 30 different states during the year. Chris picks up the story: “So in 2012 my friend challenged me to do 52 marathons in 52 weeks. I thought that was crazy.”

All the more reason to do it, right?  So Chris began his racing journey into the improbable beyond – and ultimately achieved his goal!

“It’s more about personal recognition,” he says today about Marathon Maniacs and the extreme challenge he undertook. “No trophy, no award involved – just some credibility within the marathon community.”

By running more than 100 races in 2012 (65 marathons and/or ultras, 25-30 half-marathons, etc.), Chris became the 110^th runner out of 8000 members to achieve the titanium level in the Marathon Maniacs. He then continued in much the same vein in 2013.

Finish line of the NYC Marathon

Chris says, “In 2013, with no particular goals in sight, I wanted to qualify for Boston (which he did by running the St. George Marathon in Utah in 3:12:32) and become better at the 100 miles. I wanted to keep growing. I wanted to improve my marathon – the marathon is still my favorite distance. There are many ways to grow. The two ways for me are distance and speed. I wanted to get faster in the marathon and to be able to run longer.”

There’s an old Arabian proverb: “Take what you want in life and pay for it.” Awesome and courageous as Chris’s mega-racing and mega-mileage achievements have been, his heroics finally caught up with him on New Year’s Day of this year. 

Chris says, with utter candor, “I like the longer races because of the torture involved. I like to look at the abyss and see how deep it goes. And just recently I found out how deep that is.”

In a 24-hour race in San Francisco on New Year’s Day of this year, Chris started losing blood from his stomach – the blood was coming out of his anus. This was the first time this had ever happened to him -- and obviously it was one time too many.

In his next race, the aptly named Hurt 100, run over very hilly terrain in Hawaii, he had trouble breathing, was losing even more blood and finally had to drop out of the race.

Pacing Meredith at Badwater 135-mile race

“Due to the blood loss, I didn’t have enough red blood cells to carry oxygen to my muscles and it was very difficult to climb the hills in the race – to the point where it was taking up to 30 minutes a mile going uphill. I decided to stop at the 100K mark. At that point there were 33 miles left, which was certainly do-able under normal circumstances, but it was just pointless to go on. I was done.”

It turns out Chris had done serious damage to the lining of his stomach and colon (“The lining of my stomach and colon were gone”) through excessive use of Advil starting in October 2012 and continuing through 2013. He used the Advil to keep himself going in races despite several foot injuries, which included a broken pinkie toe and a condition called cuboid syndrome, in which a cube-shaped bone in the middle of the foot gets pushed down and creates a painful bump in the arch. How was he able to endlessly keep putting one foot in front of the other in 100-mile races while dealing with these injuries? He would take four Advil tablets every 25 miles, with the result (and it was something he never expected, of course) that he damaged the lining of his stomach and colon.

Chris in the Gold Rush 100k

One may well wonder now, given the severity of his situation, was it worth it – to put himself and his body through this? “Yes, it was worth it,” Chris says. “You learn from your mistakes. I wouldn’t even call it a mistake, because I didn’t realize using Advil could damage your stomach and colon in this way, but a lot of people were telling me, ‘Oh, Chris, you’re going to break down.’ Well, ultimately I stretched myself to my limits and I did break down. But I accomplished a lot these last two years, I developed a lot of self-confidence, had a lot of interesting experiences. I learned a lot from it, now I’ve got to re-tool. Since this happened, I’ve seen a lot of doctors, had extensive blood work done, and I’m on the road to recovery. It takes about three months to rebuild the lining of your stomach, stop the bleeding and return your blood cell count and iron back to normal levels. I expect to be back to normal in April.”

In the meantime, perhaps Chris’s biggest regret at having run aground physically in this way, in addition to the temporary crimp it puts in his racing schedule, is that for the first time in years, this confirmed vegetarian now has had to start eating fish to help rebuild his red blood cell count.

Going forward, Chris plans on easing his way into the 2014 running season due to his medical condition. He intends to run and race less and cross-train more. He adds, “At the same time, by racing less, I have the opportunity to volunteer, crew, and pace runners at running events. Helping runners achieve their goals and/or helping a race director pull off a well-executed event can be just as rewarding as running the race itself. For me, 2012 and 2013 were incredible years, but the best is yet to come. I am looking forward to 2014 and beyond.”