Chuckanut 50km

Chuckanut 50km was one of my bucket-list races. I've known about Chuckanut for as long as I've been running trail races (over 22 years, now), but for some reason never made it to the race before this year. My last few official races last year were a bit of a suffer-fest. I had been working on the mental aspect of racing over the past few years, but all that went out the door for several months. This winter, as I tried to ramp up my training, I seriously banged up my knee after a few bad falls within one week, was later hit with some nagging chronic injuries, then we got a blast of snow and ice that persisted an insane amount of time.  I knew Chuckanut would be a competitive race, so, especially with how the previous few months had been, I had no delusions about finishing on the podium, but I really wanted to have fun. 

After getting to the starting area early enough to make multiple bathroom stops and nervously wonder how late I could wait before taking off my warm cloths and putting them in the gear check area, I finally found myself at the starting line .... with around 400 other runners! (there were 442 who finished, but a decent sized group took the early start).

For the first 10km, Chuckanut heads south on the interurban trail - it's fairly pretty, wide enough for all us to sort ourselves out, and relatively flat. ...perhaps a bit too flat. I may have been a little too far up front, but I could not believe how many people flew past me.  My feet were actually pretty numb, so it would have been hard to run much faster if I'd wanted to, but I really didn't want to ... I knew better than to think I could "bank" time by running super fast at the beginning. A cautious approach seemed confirmed as the wise choice when I passed a man walking about 8km in, lamenting about blowing up a bit from going out too fast.  I had a bit of trail butter about 45 minutes in, then fueled up well at the aid station with coke, an oreo, and some peanut butter filled pretzels.

The middle 30km of Chuckanut is a bit of blur ... a beautiful, blissfull, happy blur. The trail wound through a beautiful forest, and more than once, I yelled out "it's sooo pretty!!!!" as I came to an opening in the woods to a view of the snowcapped Olympics over the Puget Sound under a sunny, blue sky.  I came into the aid station to discover that in addition to the normal aid station fare, they were making smoked salmon sushi rolls - OMG they tasted sooo good! I left happing chewing on my roll and drinking another cup of coke.

Snow on Cleater Rd. Picture credit: Chuckanut50km

Most of the next section was on Cleator Road. I'm sure under normal conditions (or if I were Hayden Hawks - he finished in 3 hr 33 min this year!), it would have been a nice fast section, but most of the road was covered with a few inches of uneven, slushy snow. I was happy, though, with the amount of traction I was able to get, and steadily made my way up to the ridge. 

Although it's pretty, the ridge was the worst section for me. I'm not good at technical trails, and I just really did not want to fall! Seriously, my knees don't need any more scar tissue. I just tried to relax, enjoy myself and take some solace that I was otherwise running well.

Turning onto North Lost Lake, we once again hit some snow.  I took the time to put my nanospikes on for this section. Although they're fairly easy to put on, it still too me longer than I'd have liked, and I had to stop to adjust them a few times as they started to shift out of place. So I'm not sure if they were worth putting on ... but then again I passed quite a few people on the section where I wore them, so maybe they were? At least I didn't feel like I'd carried them for 31 miles for nothing.

When I turned onto South Lost Lake, I fumbled a bit for some food - I knew I needed something, but was reluctant to open a gel - and ended up not pulling anything out. I rationalized waiting longer (really something I shouldn't let myself do) with telling myself I'd fuel up well at the next aid station. As I approached AS4, I could swear I smelled hot dogs ... then I got to the table to find that it was no hallucination - they really did have freshly cooked hotdogs - even veggie dogs! and ketchup and mustard to dip them in! I grabbed a piece, dipped it in as much ketchup as reasonable without making a huge mess, and thought I may have a new favorite race food. Pretty much every other runner who was at the aid station seemed to be having a similar reaction. With only a tiny bit of reservation from concerns about everything coming back up in the near future, I grabbed another piece of hot dog (again covered with as much ketchup as possible), grabbed a cup of coke, and quite happily headed up towards Chinscraper. 

Heading up Chinscraper

While Chinscraper lived up to its name I happily passed quite a few people on the way up. Givenhow little I'd been able to train for climbing in the past few months, thanks to late snow and ice, I was both surprised and happy with how strong I felt on the uphills. Soon enough we were headed back downhill - where more than one of the people I'd passed going up passed me back. 

I grabbed a last Oreo (covered in peanut butter) and cup of coke at the last aid station then was off for the last 10km back on the Interurban trail. I really wanted to finish under 6 hours, and looking at my watch it was probably not going to happen ... but might? If I ran really really hard? I decided to give it a shot. I could tell my legs weren't moving normally as I could hear my right foot slapping the ground a bit, but I was happily able to pick up some speed. I ran close to 8 minutes per mile for a few miles (!), but a slight hill brought my pace down, and I wasn't able to quite recover it for the the final few miles in. 

I crossed the line in 6 hours, 3 minutes, and 38 seconds, 42nd woman out of 164 and 5th in my age group, so not bad. Most importantly -- I had so much fun! I really did achieve my goal of having fun and enjoying the race. Every time I felt myself start furrow my brow, I reminded myself to smile and relax, and I'm confident that helped me have a better race. 

Thanks Krissy and all the volunteers for putting on an awesome race, The Queen for great coaching, and Squirrel's Nut Butter for keep me chafe free (no more yelps!).