Chuckanut 50k

The following Blog comment spurred the idea to post about Chuckanut 50k:

Krissy, it's great to read about your continued running adventures. Very inspiring! Your Hellgate experience sounds scary. I wonder if you could give any advice to a person running their first 50k in March (Chuckanut). Training mileage leading to the race and maybe some pointers on how to attack the course, I used to run parts of it when I lived in Bellingham. I ran my first trail marathon in Auburn, Ca. In October, and ran it in a time of 4hrs 24min, although I think I could have been around 4:15 had I not had the stomach flu the day before. Hope that gives you an idea of where I'm at. My goal is under 5 hrs. Thanks, and keep up the great updates.

The Chuckanut 50k is March 17, 2007. This will be my fifth year as race director and it takes place on St. Patricks Day so I’m hoping to have a few extra special touches. One being chip timing – this is more as a saving grace to my volunteers than anything. I have called in numerous favors to friends and family the last 4 years to help me put on this race. Time keeping and the kitchen are probably the two most difficult tasks – this year I hope I’ve remedied one by bringing in a timing system. Enough plugging for my race.

Training:
1) See the course – there are maps & descriptions on the GBRC website that dictate the course. Also there are plenty of local runners that train on the course that you could easily join.
2) Practice for race day – what ever you are thinking about racing in/with (clothes, shoes, hydration pack or bottles, music) and using during the race (energy gels, food, drinks) you should try out in training and be comfortable with it before race day.
3) If you are curious about mileage and a correct way of building your mileage it might be a good idea to consider getting a coach to help you outline a program.
4) Some training tips that I use include back to back long runs, cross training (elliptical, bike, yoga) and weight lifting.

The race filled in about two weeks this year. I’m excited for the event and hope you might consider volunteering if you are not running.