Chris Ralph starts her day at 4:00 am. She puts in a full day's work as a newly licensed massage practitioner, then heads out for her two hour daily training regime. She and her training partner like to vary their regime between weight training, running and pulling tires. The last is a somewhat unusual, but absolutely essential ingredient in training for her annual Iditasport run, a 100-mile, 60 hour race towing a 50-60 lb. sled across the frozen wastes of Alaska in February. This is the sixth year that Chris and her racing partner, Tom, have entered this competition. They hope to complete the course in 40 - 48 hours. Sure it's tough, but Chris insists that it is a case of "mind over matter".
Chris was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1978, but explains that she had had numbness, optic neuritis and other symptoms for six years prior to the diagnosis. "When the doctor said 'MS' I said 'Yeah, right'. "But after her first major exacerbation put her in the hospital, unable to move her limbs or even speak, she decided to approach her MS in her own way. After a course of Prednisone steroids she was released from the hospital. When she got home she decided to tackle the woodpile. "We had a bunch of huge madrona logs that needed splitting. So I dragged a maul and an axe out back to the woodpile and started in." Chris explains, "I was determined to finish splitting that wood - no matter how long it took me." Chris fought her way back to health with willpower, determination and her positive outlook. She strongly believes that repetitive motion, such as chopping wood or running, helps to retrain the body and teaches it new ways of doing old things.
A slender and wiry 5' 2", Chris doesn't immediately strike you as an ultramarathon runner, or even someone who recently celebrated their 50th birthday. But her vivacity, energy and exuberance for life leaves you wondering not why she runs marathons, but rather why you aren't running them as well.
Chris was not always a marathon runner. She didn't run her first marathon until 1988, ten years after her diagnosis. "There were these two guys I worked with who ran the Seattle Marathon. They both smoked and drank and were a bit overweight. So I figured - if they can do that, so can I." And she did. She gave up smoking that year in order to train. Next year she gave up alcohol. "I didn't really miss them at all", she explained. "I had my priorities and they weren't part of it." Chris ran the Emerald City Marathon in 1988, and proceeded to run 5 more marathons that year. "No one ever told me to run only one marathon a year, so I just kept going."
Since then, Chris has run marathons and ultramarathons all over the country and even abroad. In April of 1999, Chris and Tom flew to Morocco to take part in a seven day, 150-mile ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert. "It was over 124° the first day" she grinned. "At night it was in the 80's and we slept on pieces of carpet and flattened cardboard boxes in group tents. The Sahara is very rocky and it was hard to get comfortable", she remembers, "but what was really great was the sense of camaraderie there. Everybody shared whatever there was."
Chris trained for a year to be able to bear up under the heat of the desert. "I got up at 3:00 o'clock every day and spent an hour in the sauna, sweating and drinking lots of water", she explains. "I also am a vegetarian. I drink a protein powder mix every morning and take a ton of supplements. I try very hard to keep my cholesterol down and find that flax seed oil is helpful for that." She adds, "you have to take care of your body if you want it to work for you." And there is no question that her dedication, diet and hard work have paid off for her.
"I know that not everyone with MS is going to be running marathons", she explains, "but exercise of any kind is better than none." Chris's belief is borne out by medical research into the benefits of exercise for people with MS. Yoga and water exercise classes, Tai Chi and Chi Gung - whatever level of activity that can be achieved, even if it is just getting a massage, or physical therapy for bed-bound patients, can aid in physical, mental, emotional and psychological well being.
When Chris decided to run her first Iditasport in 1996, neither she nor Tom had the equipment, skills or training necessary for an ultramarathon in Alaska in the dead of winter. "We did everything on a shoestring", she recalls. "We had $12 sleds with belts that Tom put together from weightlifting belts and bungee cords and pvc. We wore our regular running shoes - no boots, no overboots. If we had to cross 'overflow' we would wrap plastic bags around our shoes. We had no cleats to cross ice with. Cheap raingear. Coolers that weighed 11 pounds empty."
"But we did just fine", she smiled, "and our sleds probably weighed less than they do now."
Chris and Tom start training for the Iditasport in November, but do general training all year round for the multiple races that they enter. One of Chris's goals is to run a marathon in each of the 50 states. "I have 32 so far", she explains, "but it's difficult to collect more because you tend to go back and run the marathons you have done previously. You get attached to them."
Chris's husband Harry, while not sharing her athletic inclinations, supports her in her goals. He also supported her decision to quit her job at Pemco and go back to school to become a massage therapist. "It took me 13 years to make that decision", she says, "and massage school was the hardest thing I ever did. But I love helping people - and I love massage because it gives me the opportunity to do that every day."
Chris is planning a trip to Hawaii in the spring to learn "Lomi Lomi" Hawaiian massage. She also hopes someday to travel to Virginia to a special school there that teaches horse massage. And her long term plans? "Antarctica. I've had this dream for a long time of crossing Antarctica with my sled."
In addition to her massage practice and her training, Chris is also the president of the Cascade Running Club. "We put on three races a year", she explains, "and organizing and running these races can be very stressful. "This stress, she believes, brought on another exacerbation in 1997. "I was running on too much stress, not enough sleep and not enough taking care of myself."
"Now", she explains, "we still put on the races, but I try harder not to get stressed."
"I still get numbness and dizziness sometimes", she says, "but I believe that the constant training that I do keeps my body from succumbing to the effects of the MS." She adds, "I can't speak for anyone else with this disease - I don't know that what has worked for me will work for anyone else; but I do know that I have to keep going. I have to keep racing." She smiles, "I plan to still be running marathons when I am 100".
8/06: Chris Ralph still runs the Cascade Running Club: http://www.cascaderunningclub.com/. If you would like to reach her, you can contact her through their contact page.
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