I will summarize and say that it was an amazing day, with some high highs and some very deep lows. Got the record, and also fractured my wrist pretty bad with about 2 miles to go.
It was perfect conditions for an attempt. High 40s/low 50s in the morning at the start at 9 AM. Me and Will started together, he went with me for the first seven or so miles. Good thing he was there cause I almost took two wrong turns. He did a good job of trying to rein me in and not let me destroy myself too much in the first bit, as I was very excited and probably pushing a little bit too hard. We had hedges splits and were putting some time in on him throughout this whole first climb. After Will turned, I kept going to Gloucester gap, Justin cheered me on and ran with me for a little bit somewhere in there, and then I picked up Boone for the pilot Mountain climb. It felt like I was crawling up this and it definitely hurt me, but it turns out I was actually pushing it pretty hard and gained a bunch of time. Not a lot of excitement to report between the top of pilot and the parkway, except for the fact that Reese picked me up somewhere along the way there and was a great encourager while I was suffering. Generally felt nauseous and a little overheated more or less from the bottom of pilot until we started going downhill before the Narrows I was still trying to push tailwind and some gels as much as I could keep down during that time. Eventually, Reese handed me off to Canyon, who guided me down the last, and in my opinion, the worst part of the whole thing. At some point right before that I had rolled my ankle and it was hurting pretty bad at different parts of this descent. Canyon did a great job encouraging me in saying we are still very ahead of pace after we got through the narrows and then when we got to the technical but intermittently runnable single track, I started feeling better, the ankle kind of went away, and we started rolling. I was getting excited as we were getting closer and was trying to gain as much time as possible. That turned out to be a mistake, I slipped on a rock and fell really hard, fracturing my left wrist and putting a decent gash in my chin with about 2 miles to go. Thankfully, it didn’t smash my head open. I laid there for a little bit and was trying to make sure I was OK, and then after a quick triage saw an obvious left distal radius deformity, but figured I gotta get out of here somehow and I might as well keep rolling and try to get the time. I did take it very easy and just tried to make it out efficiently without falling for the last 2 miles, the wrist hurt pretty bad, but was still on some adrenaline ended up still getting the record by a little over eight minutes! Of course, it should be noted that David Hedges did this unsupported which I think is worth way more than eight minutes.
Very grateful to Boone Marois for being crew chief, and also taking me to the hospital and essentially spending his entire day doing things for me. I can’t credit Kayla Atkinson enough for watching the kids all day and being so supportive of my very time consuming and strange hobby. Also, super grateful for Wilson Kellar, Justin Riederer, Canyon Woodward, and Reese Wells for pacing and helping along the way! Not exactly the ending of the day I was hoping for, but I’m sure it will add to the epicness of the story in years to come. Reflecting on the FKT, I already know the coolest part was that I had so many friends who were willing to spend their day helping me with it. Grateful for them all.
2.5-3L fluid total
~400g carbs total, plan was more but couldn’t stomach it in the last couple hours