Athlete Profile: Chris Hartshorn

Native New Zealander at home in the front of the pack

by Barry Henck

While he has only been running in the Capital District about two years, it didn’t take Chris Hartshorn long to rise to the top. One of the few who can finish a 5K race in under 15 minutes, he is the reigning champion of Schenectady’s Stockade-athon 15K and Albany’s Corporate Challenge.

Chris, who lives in Schenectady, grew up half a world away from upstate New York. While other local runners were trying out for the cross country or track team in high school, the lean-framed athlete was playing basketball in New Zealand. He continued this sport into college and later played on a semi-professional team while earning his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Canterbury. It wasn’t until he arrived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for a post-doctoral fellowship that Chris exchanged his high-tops for running shoes.

“I was looking for a way to keep in shape. I was also looking to do everything to an excess without gaining too much weight or jeopardizing my health,” he said. Running had more practical uses as well. He would run home from the campus if the wait for the bus was too long. This 4.5-mile trek became Chris’ first regular running distance, and it didn’t take him long to graduate to marathons.

When his sister-in-law in Boston was due to have a baby, Chris planned a trip to Boston. The arrival date was right before the Boston Marathon and Chris thought he would try his luck at America’s most famous race. His brother then reminded him that he would need to qualify first, so Chris put together a quick training schedule, entered the Richmond Marathon, and finished in a very respectable 2:52. His time in Boston was even faster.

“Marathon runs were a personal challenge for me but not a flat-out competitive thing,” he said. “I was what I would call a reasonably quick jogger but I was not in a real training program.”

That changed when he moved to Schenectady, and in September 2002 he finished his first 5K race in a blistering 14:58. His per-mile pace was 4:49. “That came completely out of the blue,” Chris said. “No one at all expected that — least of all me.”

Chris then joined the Willow Street Athletic Club running team, a group of the most competitive runners in the Albany area. Zach Yannone, Peter Flynn and Nick Conway founded the team as a way to assemble a group of top, experienced runners and take a team on the road. The men’s coach, Kevin Williams, also wanted the Albany area to earn a name for itself in the world of running.

He runs with Willow Street at least once each week. “It’s competitive but it has a social aspect too. Fortunately we all get along pretty well. We’re all Type A personalities, as athletes tend to be,” he says. “To run competitively, there is a certain mentality you have to have to push yourself to that extra level.” The team, sponsored by Newkirk Products, had a good showing at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia earlier this year where Chris ran his personal best for the 5K distance (14:38). The next team event is the Mayor’s Cup Cross Country race in Boston on October 26.

Chris is part of another local team. His General Electric team won the men’s open category in the GHI Corporate Challenge this spring. Chris Molaison, Nathan Hoffman, and Mike Mahoney joined Chris to bring home the gold. As an individual, Chris trimmed 56 seconds off last year’s finishing time for the 3.5-mile course through Albany’s downtown.

Through training with co-workers from General Electric and teammates from the Willow Street team, he gets in about 70 to 80 miles per week. He enters about 18 races per year. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to work,” Chris said. “I have a lot of respect for the top athletes who hold down a full-time job.”

As a product developer for the plastics division of General Electric in Selkirk, his job provides a challenge that spurs him to run faster.

“Running has really become a way of staying sane. My job can be intellectually intense. Without letting a bit of steam out of the system, I’d probably be less happy. Sometimes my best training runs are after a particularly aggressive conference call,” Chris said. “My job helps me to mentally train harder. The better I train, the better I work and vice versa.”

The first half of 2003 was highlighted with successes. He started by winning Green Island’s four-mile “Runnin’ of the Green (Island)” on March 8 with a time of 19:36. He named the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia on May 4 as the year’s best so far. He was the fourth person to complete the ten-mile course with his time of 49:11. In a field of some 9,000 runners he had managed to stay at the front of the pack and in the company of some world class runners. But an Achilles tendon injury suffered in July has held him back slightly during the peak of fall 5K season. He is building his legs back up gradually while restricting his speed.

When asked about his strategy for the upcoming Gazette Stockade-athon 15K, a favorite of local runners, he admitted that it depends on who shows up. In the past he has stayed with whoever was leading and then tried to “turn it into a 5K in the end.” But Chris said he is wary of Nick Conway this year, a local speedster known for his finishing kick.

“For me it depends on who’s there,” Chris said, “I feel I’m not sure of my own pacing sometimes. It’s a combination of saying ‘this is who’s here’ and ‘this is how I’m going to run this.’”

While he has been able to bust the tape at local races between 5 and 15 kilometers, he’s not sure of his best distance and is not done with marathons. “Eventually I will get back to the marathon. I have no idea about my marathon time now. What I mean is that I will do what I can to be the best runner I can be, but I would love to get back to my home town and win that one, Chris said, referring to the Christchurch Marathon, the big running event in the city where he was raised. He said that winning times have been between 2:20 and 2:23 in the past.

“Winning that marathon is an aggressive target but not too pretentious,” Chris said. “That’s a dream to go and run in your hometown.”

While he did not grow up racing competitively, he was always competitive in sports with his three older brothers. He may have also inherited athletic abilities from his father, a skilled squash and racquetball player, and his mother who used to play hockey.

Chris also took full advantage of the recreational offerings of New Zealand’s South Island: “New Zealand is a fantastic place, you are always within a one-hour drive from the nearest coastline and an hour from the ski slopes in the winter.” He continued, “Sport is a way of life there — I don’t mean watching, I mean doing.”

Barry Henck (catskillian@hotmail.com) lives with his wife in Catskill where he works as a writer and editor. He enjoys bicycling and trail running and is active in the Onteora Runners Club.