67 Miles, 11,000 Feet, and Every School Lunch That Made It Worth It

By Chris Hendrickson, Director of Communications at Balanced

At 3:30 in the morning on a Sunday in June, I crossed a finish line in Colorado Springs that, fourteen weeks earlier, I didn't know I would be crossing. Behind me were 67 miles of trail, well over the 100 kilometers the race promised, 11,000 feet of climbing, mountain lions, fighter jets, a black bear, more gunshots than I could count, and one very low moment in the dark where I'd already written my excuse for quitting.

Ahead of me was a much-needed shower, my family cheering, and the only number that mattered more than the distance: $3,161.46 raised for Balanced. 110% of our $3,000 goal.

This is the story of how both of those things happened. They're more connected than they look.

It started with a loose idea and a sign-up button

Back on January 1st, I was back in the gym, getting my cardio back up since I'd put on bulking through the end of last year, and somewhere in those early runs, an idea took hold: I wanted to run an ultra. I didn't know which one. I'd been "loosely training" for some undefined 100K since the start of the year, waiting for the thing to commit to.

Then I found the Ring the Springs ultramarathon 100K, 11,000 feet of elevation change, in the mountains above Colorado Springs. I signed up first and figured out the rest later.

The "rest" turned into a fourteen-week training block: easy runs Monday through Wednesday, elevation work on Thursday, my longest runs on Friday and Saturday, rest on Sunday. I logged around 900 kilometers of training across Fort Collins trails like Arthur's Rock, Horsetooth, and Reservoir Ridge plus treadmill miles in Toronto, city runs through Tokyo and Kyoto, and a stop in South Carolina. I never got injured, not once. By race week, I felt like a jack-in-the-box, wound up from tapering after months of long miles.

But from the very first training run, I knew this wasn't just going to be about me. At Arthur's Rock, I filmed my announcement video and built the fundraiser in from the start. If I was going to put my body through this, I wanted it to mean something beyond a finisher's plaque.

Why Balanced

If you know our work at Balanced, you know we're focused on transforming K–12 school meals, making them more fiber-rich, plant-forward, and genuinely nourishing for the kids who depend on them. For a lot of those kids, the meal they get at school is the most reliable meal of their day.

That's not abstract for me. My own connection to free and reduced school lunch programs is part of why I do this work at all. So a fundraiser tied to school meals wasn't a marketing angle bolted onto a race; it was the actual reason to run it.

Over twelve weeks of training, I solicited donations on social media, shared my goal on phone calls with friends, and got us to about 46% of the goal. Then, on the drive down to Colorado Springs the night before the race, I sent out the final, personal round of texts: Hey, I'm running 100K tomorrow. Can you help me reach my goal? By the time I reached the starting line at 6 a.m., we were at 86%!

I started the hardest physical day of my life already knowing the people in my corner had nearly carried us across the fundraising finish before I'd run a single mile.

The race: a marathon uphill, then everything else

I think only about 40 of the 46 registered runners showed up. At the start, they asked how many of us were running our first ultra, and our first 100K. I raised my hand for both. "Oh," the announcer said, "you chose a hard one." I'd later learn this race has roughly a 50% drop-out rate. Half the people standing at that starting line wouldn't finish.

The first stretch was pure joy. I ran with Bradley from North Dakota, then linked up with a guy named Zach from Minnesota, and we covered a lot of ground together, trading the lead, run-walking, swapping stories about our families and why we were out there. I told them about Balanced, about the kids, about the fundraiser.

Then came Mount Rosa.

The first half of this course is essentially a marathon straight uphill, about 5,000 feet of climbing over 26 miles. By the time I reached the top, I was the most nauseous I have ever been in my life, smiling and holding a sign and trying to keep it together.

And right there, in the middle of that climb, my phone buzzed with a notification: we'd hit 100% of our fundraising goal!

The most sick I'd ever felt and the most elated I'd ever felt, at the exact same moment, on top of Mount Rosa in El Paso County.

Coming down the other side, as the elevation cleared and the carbs I'd forced down finally kicked in, I started feeling human again and then I got emotional in a way I didn't expect. I thought about my sister, who passed away from cancer, and how she'll never get to experience anything again, and how I get to. I thought about every person who'd donated so that kids could get nutritious school meals. I sat with how much that mattered, and I cried, and I recorded a video about it right there on the trail.

The dark, and the decision

What followed was miles of beautiful, strange, relentless terrain: mountain views with literal fighter jets overhead from the Air Force Academy, then an eerie stretch where I heard no fewer than 500 gunshots from people shooting targets off the road.

At mile 39 I saw my family, a huge hug, a quick gear swap, and then, five minutes later, a black bear on the trail. I clacked my poles, shouted, and it ran off.

Then it got dark. And then it got hard in a different way.

Between miles 40 and 53, running alone in the night with a headlamp, my lungs aching from hours of breathing trail dust, dizzy, my watch dead, no cell service, no idea if the next aid station had even waited for me, I quietly convinced myself I was going to quit. I built the whole case. What I'd tell my family. What I'd tell everyone who'd donated. My lungs, the dizziness, the fear of one more climb. I had it all justified.

I limped into the mile 53 aid station fully intending to be done. Two volunteers, some soup with potatoes and carrots, a sweaty shirt I didn't want to keep wearing.

So I started asking questions. How far to the city pavement? Six miles. How big is the next climb? About 1,100 feet, the exact height of Arthur's Rock, which I'd trained on all spring and could do in 40 minutes. They mentioned a buff would help with the dust. I had one in my pocket the whole time.

And sitting there, I realized something I couldn't argue my way out of: I could convince other people I had to quit. But in my heart, I knew I couldn't convince myself. If I quit, it wouldn't be because something stopped me. It would be because I let myself.

So I took my sweaty shirt off because once it was off, I wasn't putting it back on. The moment I started changing into my finishing clothes, everything shifted. We're going for this. We're finishing!

I grabbed a PB&J and a bean wrap, thanked the volunteers, put on my mix, and told myself out loud: "You got this, Chris!" I crushed that climb like it was nothing. Buff over my face, dust where it belonged. I thought about the 900 kilometers, about Japan and Toronto and Fort Collins, about my family, about my sister, about every donor.

Wildly, there was still a mountain lion to get past! A pair of reflective eyes staring at me at two in the morning near Bear Creek, the final boss of the wilderness. I cranked my headlamp to full brightness, picked up the pace, and kept glancing over my shoulder until I made the gate. Then pavement. Then, one last brutal, steep climb back up the hill we'd started by running down. Then the city. Then, finally, the finish.

27 seconds, and a number that lasts

I came around the final corner and saw one other runner still on the course, walking it in. Something in me didn't want to finish last, even though just finishing is its own accomplishment, so I started running. I passed them with a "good job, keep it up," then crossed the line to my wife Hillary, my mom, and my daughter Lily cheering. The runner behind me finished 27 seconds later.

I got my finisher's plaque. I got a veggie dog. I ran the farthest I've ever run in my life, past my old record of 37 miles, past the 50-mile goal I'd failed to hit two years ago, all the way to 67 miles by the time I was done. I'm 37, and I'm the fittest I've ever been, at the exact age people assume the athletic chapter closes. Mine feels like it's just opening.

But here's the part I keep coming back to. My day didn't end with "I dropped out at mile 53 because I talked myself into a good excuse." It ended with "I finished a 100K and raised $3,161.46 for kids' school meals."

Those two outcomes were separated by one decision, made in the dark, by one tired person who decided not to let himself off the hook, partly because there were too many people counting on the reason he was out there.

Thank you

To everyone who donated, who sent an encouraging message, who followed my progress on the live tracker, who showed up: you pushed us to 110% of our goal, and that money goes directly toward the work we do at Balanced to get fiber-rich, nourishing meals in front of K–12 students who need them.

To my family, Hillary, my mom, Lily, thank you for the drop bags, the hugs at mile 39, and the cheering at 3:30 in the morning.

And to anyone sitting on a goal: train for it, plan it out, and go do it. Life isn't guaranteed past today. Whether it's a race, a business, a record, or just something you've been telling yourself you'll get to, just start!

Don't let anyone, including the voice in your own head at mile 53, talk you out of it.

You can do amazing things!

Want to support nourishing, fiber-rich school meals for K–12 students? Learn more about our work at Balanced.org.