Chuckanut

It's hard to believe it's that time already, but Chuckanut is nearly here. It can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned. Training has been going really well. Now I just need to get some races under my belt. For me, I can't think of a better race to get on track with. Chuckanut was my first ultra, and over the years, I've run consistently well there. This year I'm going to have to run well just to crack the top ten by the looks of it. This year's race is absolutely stacked with plenty of well known names, and there's always someone who surprises as well. Last year that someone was Peter Ellis, running to a second place finish in his first ever ultra. He's back again along with last year's winner Bryan Dayton. I'm only going to mention those two, because if I try to run down the whole list I'll accidentally leave someone off and then they'll have an axe to grind with me on race day. Lord knows I don't need to give anyone a little extra motivation to run me down late in the race.

Yesterday capped off my biggest week of the year (87 miles), and I got a lot of trail mileage in there too. Friday marked my transition from Green Lake to Squak Mountain for my threshold workouts. That first one is always a bit of a shock to the system as I go from 7-8 miles flat at 5:50'ish pace to two 2000 foot ascents up Squak Mountain in just under 40 minutes each. On Saturday I was happy just to survive my 3 hour run on the Chuckanut course. The weather was hellacious and I finished soaked and frozen to the core. Sunday was another 2.5 hours in similar conditions, and again I was happy just to survive. With three days in the gym too, I felt like it was a pretty stellar week of training. I can't wait to get out and test my fitness next weekend.