Recap of day 9 on our Appalachian Trail FKT
Recap of day 9 during our Appalachian trail fastest known time attempt. Includes short videos and photos taken by me on trail. Plus full stats at bottom of post.
The day ended by camping alone on trail. I always found these nights to be exciting, filling me with adventure. Just before leaving the crew that night a young thru hiker asked me… “Why are you going for an FKT”? As I was focused on preparing my camp out gear I suggested he either sick around and the crew who would answer questions or join me and I could respond to his questions as we were on the move.
He seemed upset at both options and said “I’m in a rush so cannot wait, I need to get to the shelter”. I felt upset I could not acomodate him.
After a short time I was loaded with an overnight pack and set off (shout out to @zpacks). Soon enough I caught up with the young hiker and said “Hey man about your question…” ready to go into my reasoning behind the attempt. He turned around, looked me straight in the face making eye contact. His cheeks were super red and he looked totally flushed. Also he was seriously moving fast. He turned away from me and blazed ahead without saying a word and proceeded as if we were racing each other.
By this point I’d covered almost 50 miles since I started at 3:52am that morning, and there’s no way I’m racing this dude. So I continued at my own pace (we were going uphill) and the hill was steep enough to use hiking over running.
Every now and then as he turned a switchback he would look to see where I was with a determined look, dude was straight up racing me and did not want to be caught.
Without trying and just going my own pace I started to gain on him. As soon as we hit the top ridge I started to jog again.
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Every now and then as he turned at a switchback he would look to see where I was with a determined look on his face, just dude was straight up racing me and did not want to be caught.
Without trying and just going my pace I started to gain on him. As soon as we hit the top of the ridge I started to jog again. Pretty quickly I was approaching him from behind and said “Hey man just going to pass by”. He stepped to the left of the trail and turned to say “I think what your doing is great”, “Thanks. I really appreciate that” and with that said I continued along the trail in the direction of the shelter.
My plan was to camp in my tent just after the shelter. I slept for just over 5 hrs. Waking I ate a Backpackers pantry breakfast and set off down the trail. Decending into Damascus was spectacular. Two years prior I had made this same decent only to arrive at the bottom with a tear in my right quad muscle, now I was arriving in the same place healing from pretty much the same type of injury. I felt ahead of myself and filled with a sense of success.
In Dmascus a young runner joined me who had seen a post on Facebook from John Kelly about the record attempt. He ran with me and proved to be excellent company, this helped time pass by without noticing. Our conversations included his time at the Barkley marathons, my experience pacing Karel Sabbe and many other interesting topics.
I had been training on the trail past Damascus prior to starting and it was so cool to already after only nine days be back, my only regret was not stopping at the distillery to have a shot of rye whiskey (joke). Ahead I could see Gun Section, Ice man and Lone Wolf hanging out on trail with a bunch of goodies. We stopped and I resupplied for the next section witch I would run with the young chap and then go ahead alone.
I found out that Christopher Mcdougall was about to complete a 40 mile run and was just ahead of me. His wife had told the crew and my crew told her he was welcome to run with me for a while. I never saw him.
Day - 8
Start time - 3:52 am
End time - 7:20 pm
Total time - 15 hours 28 mins
Average speed - 3.5 mph
Total distance - 492.8 miles
Day distance- 53.9 miles
Elevation gain - 11,507 feet
Elevation loss - 9,908 feet
Daily distance lead - 2.2 miles
Total distance lead - 20.8 miles
