Member Spotlight: Chris Prairie
Chris Prairie knows ultra running. Anyone in the sport in the Austin area knows his name as he has been involved in trail racing for over 12 years. As a high school cross country runner, he was no stranger to the trail, but he was really bitten by the trail running bug in 2012. Having recently moved to Austin and running with the Ship of Fools, he was invited to join in with a group that was going to camp out and race in the Rogue Trail Series at Reveille Peak Ranch. Completing his first ultra in 2015 (50k at Wild Hare) and first 100 miler in 2018 (Cactus Rose), he has now worked his way up to 250 mile+ races, proving that his ability to endure is truly impressive. As an athlete who contends with Type 1 Diabetes, he manages his nutrition and sugar levels with precision and care. A poorly planned race can mean hospitalization and long-term health problems for him. Chris came to Trail Roots in 2024 when he was looking for a group of dedicated and passionate trail folks to run with and has become a big part of the community. We wanted to get to know him better and ask him about his journey with trail running.
What inspired you to start trail running?
I’ve always been ‘outdoorsy’, having grown up in Scouting and even working as a summer camp staff member at a Scout camp through high school and college. I ran Cross Country in high school and always relished in particularly rough, hilly or muddy courses. I’ve done a handful of road marathons, but after a while all the road racing and training started to get monotonous. There’s just a lot more variety on the trails.
What do you love about running long distances?
A long time ago I realized I was never going to be able to impress anyone with how fast I could run, but I discovered I could keep going longer and longer distances, and maybe that could be impressive. When I started doing ultras, I met other people who liked running absurdly long events, even outside of racing. For instance, a few years ago I learned about the World’s Longest Turkey Trot, which is a group run that takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving and runs 100 miles between Chicago and Milwaukee. The route is mostly on neighborhood streets and back roads and runners are supported only by gas stations and fast food restaurants along the way. It goes through bad neighborhoods and it’s usually very cold and sometimes rainy. Even the organizer calls it “the stupidest event ever.” When I heard about it I basically said, “That sounds awful. I’m in.” These types of ultrarunners are definitely my tribe.
As an experienced ultra runner, what keeps bringing you back to races?
“I’ve been finding joy in other aspects of trail running, like building a new trail system in my neighborhood, volunteering/crewing/pacing at races and giving Erik all my opinions on how to grow Trail Roots races.”
We are in a Golden Age of trail and ultra races right now. Every year there are dozens of new races popping up all over the country, taking place in beautiful places and being organized by amazing and passionate people. I just want to do all the races everywhere every year. I am especially excited to be a part of putting on Trail Roots events, like Sky Island and Big Bend. Whether it’s competing in the race myself, pacing/crewing friends, manning an aid station, scouting and marking the course, or sweeping behind the runners, I just want to be out there.
How do you push past the pain and discomfort in 100+ mile races?
Everything in ultrarunning is fixable. You have to manage your hydration, calories, electrolytes, warmth/cooling, feet and sleep. If one of those becomes an issue, you have tools in your arsenal to address it. Eat something. Take some salt. Apply more TrailToes and put on fresh socks. Take a trail nap. Drink some coffee. Talk to your pacer. Start singing terrible 90s pop songs that you only remember a third of the lyrics to. Anything that keeps you moving forward.
How have you learned to manage diabetes with ultra racing?
It’s been a journey, for sure. The venn diagram of “Type 1 diabetics” and “ultrarunners” is two circles that barely touch, so there’s not a huge community out there to use as a resource. But rest assured, there are dozens of us! My doctors were usually all for it because exercise helps with T1D management, but couldn’t really offer any advice. Similarly, I’ve had coaches who were enthusiastic but didn’t have any real experience training a T1D athlete. So I’ve had to do a lot of careful experimentation over the years and come up with my own protocols. I feel like I could write a dissertation on the subject, but I have it down pretty well. At this point it’s just another factor to manage along with hydration, calories, salt, etc. You can hear more about his experience on a podcast episode he did with Where’s the Finish.
I will admit I did have to drop out of a race earlier this year due to diabetes, but that was more due to poor race execution. I was attempting the Southern States 200 without a crew or pacers, and my continuous glucose monitor sensor fell off around mile 31. Normally if I had a crew, they would have a spare sensor and I would be able to replace it at the next aid station and keep going. Unfortunately my only spare sensor was in my car at the finish line, and my backup finger-prick glucose meter was in my drop bag at mile 70. So I was faced with having to go 40 miles without knowing my blood sugar or how much insulin to take. By the time I was able to test my blood sugar, it was over 300 (very high) and not coming down as quickly as I needed it to. This meant I was at a real risk for developing ketoacidosis, which is a very serious condition requiring hospitalization. At this point I was also hypothermic from spending most of the night trudging across a ridgeline in cold windy rain. When I got to the mile 60 aid station the race medic and I agreed it was best that I not continue. If I had it to do over again, I would have put on my rain proof outer layer sooner and carried my backup glucose meter in my hydration vest from the start.
The silver lining was that I was able to pivot and crew/pace for a friend who was running his first 200, so I still got some value from the experience.
What’s your best mental tip for keeping moving when all you want to do is quit?
As I mentioned before, nearly everything is fixable. Some wisdom I picked up recently while training for a couple of 300+ mile “journey runs” is this: if you feel like you want to quit, eat a meal and take a nap first. It’s amazing what a little bit of sleep and some calories can do to bring you back to life. One thing I love about volunteering at trail races is seeing exhausted runners come back to life after eating a cheeseburger.
What do you think is your greatest accomplishment with trail running and what do you still hope to accomplish?
2024 was a hell of a year for me. I finished my first 250 miler at Cocodona and then went on to finish my first “graduate level” mountain race at Wyoming Range 100 after DNFing in 2023. I definitely like the long and difficult mountain races and hope to do as many of those as I can. I’m in the lotteries for Western States and Hardrock, so those are definitely in my sights, but they aren’t my be-all end-all goals for my trail running “career”. As I said before, there are so many amazing races popping up every year that I want to do. And I love being part of putting the races on too. I have some ideas for putting on my own 100 miler someday. It’s going to take a little while for the stars to align on that though. When I do it, I want to be able to give it the full attention to do it right.
This year you had a couple of 300+ mile races on the calendar but have been battling an injury, how do you stay positive when dealing with an injury?
It’s been frustrating for sure. I was signed up to run two “journey runs” where you have no course markings, aid stations, or support crew, just a map and whatever you can find along the way. The Last Annual Vol State road race (LAVS) is a 314 journey across Tennessee from Missouri to Georgia, and Heart Of The South (HOTS) is a 350-400 mile journey that finishes in the same place as LAVS, but changes course every year (the map is not provided until you get off the bus at the start). Unfortunately I have been dealing with a stress reaction in my left cuboid that has been bothering me off and on since January, and had to withdraw from both events. It’s a very frustrating injury in that it generally doesn’t hurt when I run, and only flares up occasionally. I was actually training through it until it flared up big time on a short recovery run in April. That pushed me to finally get an MRI, which revealed that it was likely to escalate to a full on stress fracture if I didn’t take some time off. I took a few weeks off and started physical therapy, which has been helping, but this kind of bone injury is slow to heal. I decided the right move was not to try and run 300-400 miles on it. My hope is that I can heal smartly and get back to doing big things this fall. And I really can’t complain after the banner year I had in 2024. Instead I’ve been finding joy in other aspects of trail running, like building a new trail system in my neighborhood, volunteering/crewing/pacing at races and giving Erik all my opinions on how to grow Trail Roots races.
“Trail Roots and the trail running community is the other end of that spectrum. You can have experienced athletes training 70+ mpw and regularly running sub-3:00 marathons and people just starting out with a goal of finishing their first 5k all meeting up together on a Saturday morning and no one excludes anyone else. We do our run and then all go eat breakfast together.”
Why did you join Trail Roots?
To be blunt, it was because Rogue shut down their trail group. We were a small but tight-knit group, though it was becoming obvious that Rogue was more focused on road racing. We got notice in January 2024 that they were discontinuing Team Rogue Trail and they actually recommended we join Trail Roots. Trail Roots invited all the Rogues to join in on a Saturday group run, and I logged on and officially signed up while we were eating breakfast together that day. It was an obvious choice for me, especially since I already had several friends in the group. Most of the former Rogue Trail folks ended up here, and we all have felt very welcome.
What do you think is special about Trail Roots and the trail running community?
It seems to me there’s a spectrum of seriousness (or more aptly, “douchiness”) along the endurance sports continuum. Early on when I moved to Austin, I explored a couple of cycling and triathlon groups and found that a lot of athletes wouldn’t even talk to you unless you had a $15,000 bike and dressed head-to-toe in branded lycra. This nudged me back toward running groups, which were much more welcoming and “chill.” Trail Roots and the trail running community is the other end of that spectrum. You can have experienced athletes training 70+ mpw and regularly running sub-3:00 marathons and people just starting out with a goal of finishing their first 5k all meeting up together on a Saturday morning and no one excludes anyone else. We do our run and then all go eat breakfast together. That social aspect extends to the group chat on slack. My goal is to bring the chaotic energy there whenever I have the chance.
What advice would you give people who are new to running and want to join a group?
Show up and talk to people! Trail runners are generally friendly and outgoing. You’ll almost certainly find someone with similar goals and pace. Just be careful. One day you show up to a group run and before you know it you’re flying across the country to crew and pace your new friends at an ultra!
You can follow along with Chris’ adventures and read his race reports on his website, prairie.gripe.