34might meet an ultra-running
friend at midnight on a Friday
(that is, Saturday morning) and
run nonstop through the night
until 5 a.m. on the Appalachian
Trail with a headlamp and flash-
light. How does that after-hours
duty go down with Patty? “She’s
fine with it,” says Chris.Running five hours through the
night adds to Rice’s reservoir oftoughness, which he considers
his calling card. Since 1999, he
has done almost 200 ultras and
adventure events—averaging
about one a month—specializ-
ing in events of 100 miles and
up and multiday races. Rice’s
prolific achievements fly in the
face of recovery-time doctrine,
defying what the body goes
through when taken to the
limit.Even the best ultra-runners
need a break. How does Rice,
who’s won a number of major
events, deal with the body’s
inevitable breakdown in a 100
miler when he’s got another
100, or maybe a 72-hour adven-
ture contest, coming up only a
month later?“I ignore it,” Rice says of
whatever cry emerges fromhis ravaged body. He adds, in
defense of the non-scientific
method, “I don’t do V02 max.
I don’t pay attention to what
I’m eating during races. I don’t
carry fluids. Other people might
out-science me, but I try to out-
tough them.”Rice’s next opportunity to test
his toughness will be on June 17
in the Great New York 100 Milehris Rice, 6’1” and 188
pounds, is the kind of
guy you might meet sipping
his morning coffee and read-
ing The Wall Street Journal on
the 6:22 commuter train from
Suffern, N.Y., for the hour-plus
trip to a banking institution in
Manhattan, where he’s a devel-
opment manager in technology.
But Rice doesn’t take the train.
Instead, he parks near the
George Washington Bridge and
runs 10 miles most mornings
to his office—or, rather, to a
gym, where he stores 10 busi-
ness suits and gets his running
laundry done.Rice’s logistical weekday wiz-
ardry—he actually has two
offices, one in Jersey City,
and uses two gyms—involves
multiple clothing changes,
running through rush-hour
traffic, bicycling, and CrossFit
workouts along with swimming
and full-court basketball, and
an occasional subway ride for
connections. Somewhere in
that byzantine schedule, Rice
does another 10 miles of run-
ning per week, so that from
Monday to Friday, he logs about
60 miles, adding another 15 or
so on weekends.In mastering this system, Rice,
43, can usually be home for din-
ner with his wife, Patty, and their
three sons— Peyton, 16 ; Teague,
14; and Asher,9—and try to be a
regular dad who barbecues in the
burbs on weekends.“It goes family first, then work,
then athletics,” says Rice. “If I
have a conflict between work
and running, work wins. But
sleep might suffer.”If work wins and Rice can’t get
in all his weekday mileage, heRunning Exposition, which
starts and finishes in Times
Square and travels through
just about every park and eth-
nic neighborhood in the outer
boroughs. Rice placed fourth
in 2013 and fifth in 2014. Only
a few competitors complete
the route in less than 20 hours.
Rice hopes to better his time of
19:44:34 in 2014.As usual, Rice will take the
line at 5 a.m. with no elaborate
fuel-replacement strategy, no
tinkered-with running shoes,
no mind-body practice to guide
him, no coaching wisdom or
biblical mantras, and feel quite
chipper despite a serious lack
of sleep.Rice relies on a high pain thresh-
old, which he feels comes from
his father, a West Point man
who saw action in Vietnam.
“Success,” says Rice, “depends
on two things—a high level of
patience and high level of pain
tolerance. The older I get, the
more pain I can endure.”In his adventures, Rice savors
both the pain and rhapsody that
he longs to experience again
and again. “As soon as I finish
one race,” he says, “it’s like an
addiction. I need to have the
next one coming up.”Rice can’t let go because he feels
there’s too much at stake: the
opportunity to accomplish
something few people can and,
as he puts it, “cannot be taken
away. I’ve done it. It’s mine.”Just about anyone can run a
marathon—these days it’s as
much of a happening as a sport.
Why join the masses running 26
miles when you can link with
like-minded people running photos: Daniel weissCM0617_FEAT_CHRISRICE.indd 34 5/11/17 4:24 PM