In previous episodes, we’ve chatted with some young runners who have taken on ultramarathons like the Leadville Trail 100, something that was unheard of in the ancient days when I began in the sport. While it’s become less rare to see this, it’s now been taken up a notch. Meet the Chisholm family of Salem, NH. Brothers Ben, Brody, Elliott, and Asher all play hockey, with the three eldest at one time playing on the same line together on their high school team. Led by their parents, the boys started off climbing in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, eventually summitting all of its 48 4000-foot peaks, which is no joke in difficulty. This evolved to the family next through-hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, then the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail, each of which are thousands of miles long and take months to complete, and definitely at times challenged the limits of family togetherness. While later hiking the Arizona Trail, they learned about this thing called ultramarathoning and on a whim entered the Elden Crest 38-miler, in which second-oldest son Brody led the family to the finish line in fifth-place overall. So the next logical step of course was to return to Arizona to run the 2024 Cocodona 250. Of course. Since races like this include large swaths of hiking, the family leaned heavily on their strong through-hiking skills, a theory that bore fruit. Brody, 17 at the time, boldly had his sights on setting a course record despite having had no prior ultra experience longer than 38 miles, but has 4:30 mile speed on the track, so he could add that running ability to the mix. He learned a lot of ultramarathoning lessons, especially regarding fueling, but still astoundingly finished 12th in 75:42:42, a pace of 18:11 per mile for more than 250 miles. Meanwhile, 18-year-old brother Ben finished 34th in 87:01:50 despite battling lack of sleep and hallucinations, and mom Jennie finished as well in 103:58:03 while overcoming tibial stress fractures. Round two for the family was this year as 16-year-old Elliott attempted to usurp Brody’s record as the youngest-ever Cocodona finisher, but a sickness felled his chance, and Brody also DNF’d. However, Jennie chopped more than 14 hours off of her previous time and placed as the 7th female finisher. So Elliott took on a new challenge the day before we recorded this and ran the Back Cove Backyard Ultra in Portland, ME, where he impressively ran 121 miles, running another 4.16-mile loop at the start of every hour for 29 hours, the third-most in the last-man-standing event. With Jennie and the three oldest boys of this super nice family all crammed onto a couch together for this really fun chat, we cover how they logistically pull all of this off with schoolwork and teen life in general, as well as dealing with those who have this idea that teenage boys shouldn’t take on epic challenges like they have. I think anyone who has doubts will walk away with other ideas after listening to them.

The family

Instagram @thefieldtrip_5

Jennie Chisholm

Instagram @_jenniechisholm

Ben Chisholm

Instagram @benchisholm_7

Brody Chisholm

Instagram @brody.chisholm

Elliott Chisholm

Instagram @elliott.chisholm

Bill Stahl
silly_billy@msn.com
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