The following installment in ATRA’s year-long series, Better Together, features athlete, coach, and mentor Chuck Tookey and was written by trail runner Sarah Barber.
Chuck Tookey is a guy who listens more than he speaks. When he opens his mouth, the words come out softly and well-chosen, usually with a speck of humor. An architect by profession, he also coached high school cross-country and track for nine seasons before stopping in 2018. Although it is not a paid side hustle anymore, Coach Chuck finds ways to keep sharing his expertise with anyone who gives him the opportunity. All it takes is a simple question.
“So I’m doing this 50K trail race in three months…What do you think I should do to be ready for it?”
“I want to break 19 minutes in a 5K. How many weeks do I train specifically for that?”
“I qualified for the World Snowshoe Championships. Help!”
That last one was me about a year ago. Chuck also qualified by placing third in the Masters division at the US National Snowshoe Championships in 2023, and his wife, Amber, was the runner-up in the women’s open race. Professional commitments and life circumstances prevented me from pursuing the World Championships as a goal race on snowshoes, but Chuck is now just days away from competing on an international stage in an unconventional sport that complements his trail running surprisingly well.
Better Together: Amber and Chuck Tookey on the trails.
Perfect match
At first blush, one could think this was a seasonal affair that would melt away by springtime, trail running leaving the snowshoe slog in the dust—literally. However, that conclusion would be a mistake. Instead, Chuck thinks that his snowshoe running has enhanced his trail running and vice-versa. The two are a match made in heaven, each contributing to success with the other. Put it this way: if snowshoe running is Travis Kelce (tight-end for recent Super Bowl victors, the Kansas City Chiefs), then trail running is its Taylor Swift (venerated singer-songwriter and girlfriend of Travis Kelce).
Doubting this pop culture analogy? Hear me out. In my experience (which was an excursion in the mountains every Sunday, all winter long), snowshoe running is a muscle-through-it, low-gear, high-torque version of trail running. Like the NFL, it’s good for a few months of entertainment. Snowshoe running is a niche sport, completely over-shadowed by its high visibility partner: trail running. Similarly, it’s thought that the reason NFL viewership surged by nearly 10% this year is because Kelce’s gal pal Swift was in attendance, offering fans extra opportunities for glimpses of her real-life escapades. When football season is over, Kelce lives in Swift’s shadow.
Trail running, like Swift, doesn’t know seasonality. It’s appealing and accessible year-round. It’s also a sport that allows the athlete to cover terrain much more quickly—more swiftly, in fact. See what I did there? Trail running is gaining in popularity with each passing day. Races are springing up everywhere, and they’re getting more competitive, stealing road and track athletes who have realized how much more fun they can have on the dirt.
On the trails with Chuck Tookey.
Train in harmony
Having established this parallel wherein two celebrities share a relationship that resembles snowshoe running and trail running, it might help to understand the nuances of why the harmony is so effective. Some of the best duos are born organically and effortlessly. Chuck agrees, taking no credit for inviting snowshoe running to join his existing commitment to trail running. “It was totally Amber’s idea,” he says, adding, “I enjoy the challenge and the variation of terrain.”
Chuck’s not kidding about the challenge and the variety found in snowshoe running. Just as resistance training recruits different muscles and neural firing patterns, snowshoe running does the same. This translates to engagement of more muscle fibers contributing to your running gait even after transitioning back onto dirt. And the more muscle fibers you have working for you, the longer it takes to fatigue the entire system—you can go faster for longer durations. Chuck is living proof of this, having set new personal bests at several trail races after two seasons of snowshoe running. Did I mention that he’s almost 56 years old? “They were lifetime PRs,” he says, “I’m not talking about year over year PRs or over age 50 PRs!”
Better together at the 2023 US Snowshoe Nationals.
Find a balance
Another aspect Chuck appreciates in the synthesis of snow and trail is the reduction in the impact running has on his body. He refers to snowshoe running as a “non-impact threshold workout,” doing all of his winter running intensity on snowshoes. As a masters athlete, Chuck is acutely aware that recovery needs to be a priority, and recovery from lower impact workouts happens faster than it does after pounding the pavement. He’s also more conservative with his training program in general. Although he added strength training with the help of a coach, he subtracted some of the hard efforts from his weekly routine, opting for intervals OR tempo in one week but not both.
The mental muscle involved in snowshoe running and trail running cannot be discounted. Snowshoe running is incredibly physically demanding even when you’re not moving very fast, and that sensation can be unnerving – much like having to power hike the steep hills in a trail race. Chuck thinks hilly trail runs have improved his ability to settle into an uncomfortable effort on snowshoes that’s not exactly speedy compared to racing around an oval in track spikes. Both trail runners and snowshoe runners have to let go of “minutes per mile” pacing and learn to let perceived exertion guide their output.
Gain an edge
At the end of last winter, I hung up my snowshoes after the National Championship race and was relieved to get back to long trail runs on the weekends. But when I asked Chuck if he could have snowy conditions for 365 days a year and snowshoe run throughout all four seasons, he had to pause and think about it. His initial response of “Heck no!” converted to “It depends…” within seconds of my asking the question.
Chuck is a born competitor, and now that he’s staring down the barrel of the World Championship race, he wonders if training on snowshoes year-round would improve his technique or otherwise give him an edge. Then again, perhaps a summer of dirt, dust, and rocks has given him more of an edge than he realizes.
Better Together with friends on snowshoes on the trails.
Be relentless
Spoiler alert: Chuck has a great shot at the masters podium in Spain this month. He acknowledges that he has no control over who else shows up to race, but his plan is simple: “Just be relentless.” He adds, “I want to cross the finish line knowing that I couldn’t have run harder and I gave it my best effort.” Are snowshoe running and trail running better together? It won’t take a certain result to convince Chuck or me—we already know that the answer is yes.
