In the summer of 2009, Spanish ultra/mountain running phenom Kilian Jornet announced that he would attempt to break the record on the John Muir Trail. However, his permit request was refused because "the administration doesn't want the JMT to become a performance playground" (according to Jean-Yves Couput of Salomon), so he switched to taking on the TRT record. Jornet ran the 165-mile loop in 38h32m, taking over 6 hours off Tim Twietmeyer's already outstanding time. Jornet's trip was fully supported & paced. The Tahoe Daily Tribune has a brief account of Jornet's run. Jornet ran the loop clockwise starting in Tahoe City, as did Twietmeyer. He slept about 2 hours, and lost about an hour - and ran an extra 5 miles - due to getting lost. A 3-minute YouTube video shows Jornet running well after 120 km. Some slick videos of the run are on Salomon's website, complete with helicopter footage of the TRT, and a telephone interview with Twietmeyer. Jornet, who is sponsored by Salomon, exploded onto the European mountain running scene in 2007, at age 19, winning every race he entered and the World Series. In 2008 he again won every race he ran, including the 165 km Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) in course record time (he repeated the UTMB win in 2009). Jornet also holds the FKT for the GR20 in Corsica, and many mountain running records (Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, Mt Olympus, etc.)
“Kilian’s goal is to inspire people to experience the joy of the trails and the great outdoors -- and in the process he is reinventing the sport of trail running.” -- Jean-Yves Couput, Director of Marketing for Salomon USA