I started at 3:51 a.m. at the ferry terminal in Seattle. I immediately had to break my plan of not having any punchy wattage outputs getting through the city to the mountain of sound trail. I encountered maybe a dozen reroutes going through Mercer Island that were not clearly signed and also in factoria which was very demoralizing and also caused several minutes of checking the map to to get back to the most logical access point to the trail. There are two options, basically from factoria, either going north side of the highway or the south side. In my lucky case both sides were under construction. I ended up taking the South side and trying to get on the roads because the trails were so rerouted they didn't make sense. Eventually I got onto the Preston Issaquah trail and then my headlamp started to fail because of the cold even though it was fully charged which caused me to ride off the trail once because it was indiscernible because of fall foliage. Once I got to the end of the Preston Issaquah, The logical trail also is closed due to a damaged bridge which has been that way for about 2 years now, leaving me to go over the closed bridge or ride the roads up past Snoqualmie falls or ride a little further for a lesser gradient on the gravel trail. I ended up just riding up the road past Snoqualmie falls, taking the steeper option to avoid more trail issues and have better lighting. Then I made it to my house which is essentially located on the trail. I made myself four shots of espresso, had a spam musubi and changed my socks. This first portion was extremely demoralizing due to all of the reroutes and all of the steep hills putting me in a deficit from my planned time, although my power numbers were good. Once I got back on the bike I basically was in the Flow state for the remainder of the riding I don't really remember anything going up to the Snoqualmie tunnel, although I was above the clouds, but exiting the tunnel. I remember that they had just laid fresh gravel so I was riding on about 4 in of non compacted gravel which was very squirrely and slow. I was able to find single bike tire " Lanes" where it had been slightly more compacted. I was making up all of my lost time at this point. Then I hit a final closure which forced me on to i90 for about 10 miles. The road was covered in obvious glass and I was certain that I was going to flat but somehow escaped mostly because I was running massive tires. I stopped in Roslyn at a convenience store and slammed a Red Bull and got some water as I had run out. Soon I hit the final gravel road which was in rough shape due to all the fire Forest service work done throughout the summer. This was the only portion of the ride that I had never done. There was a lot of break jack and potholes and the trail consistently goes up and down which prevents good average speed. I finally made it to the trailhead after about 8:36 after I started, including my breaks. I think minus all of the route finding and the stop at my house the actual ride time was just under 8 hours. My wife and some friends had decided to do mt Daniel in order to cheer me on and hike out with me and take my bike. My wife left a can of coke and 2 liters of water at the trailhead for me. I ended my bike time on my watch and according to Strava start stop times. I had my watch off for about 10 minutes before I started the next activity. I secured my bike put on my shoes and poles that I had carried the whole way refilled my water, ate a bunch of candy, chugged the coke, and took off my bibs and changed some layers that I also had been carrying the entire time. I had not communicated with my friends at all and they were just expecting to see me within a 3-hour window we had agreed upon. My legs felt surprisingly fine on the PCT climb, although I could feel that if I trended towards higher output they started to feel crampy so I limited my output. My wife and her friend were cheering for me above Peggy's pond. She gave me a kiss and a small Rice krispie treat. I didn't see them again until the next day because they decided to hike out, I didn't stop. I kept going on the ridge route And eventually saw a person in a red jacket near the col and assumed that that was my other friends. We passed each other not far before the main false summit we spoke a few sentences but I did not stop moving and received nothing from them. I kept going and made the summit in a little over 12 and 1/2 hours after starting. I stopped my watch at this point for the sea to summit fkt And then started the descent. They waited for me at Peggy's pond and I had a mountain House dessert pack. The rest of The descent was long but uneventful and then they gave me a ride home.
All in all my average power was about 71% of my FTP about 8 and 1/2 hours which is in the realm of elite ironman performance who Target about 75 to 80%, but for about 5 hours. I carried all of my equipment from start to finish. The water and breakfast resupply at my house can easily be replicated at arete coffee which is less than a mile from my house and also at the QFC, also not even a quarter mile off of the trail. You could technically also avoid having the water resupply at the trailhead if you wanted to filter and or carry a large capacity of water from Roslyn at the final convenience store. Besides all of the reroutes and common issues that can be expected in urban riding, I was very pleased with the performance and everything went the best that it could have from a execution standpoint. I had been unable to do this for 3 years because of injury, wildfire closures and early snow. I used a trek checkpoint with massive 2.35 inch tires and tt bars.