Pine Mountain Train FKT - Trip report
We (my bro and I) left from home Wednesday (4/1/20) got to the campsite at FDR state park at around 7pm, set up, ate, and went to bed.
Woke up Thursday morning at 7 and it was 38°. Did last minute set ups, got ready and hit the trail just after 8am. The first mile or two went by fairly quick and easy, then the next for or so were a struggle-there was a decent amount of climbing and some technical portions of the trail. Just after mile 6 my bro met me at a road crossing, and I took a second to refuel, pick up a handheld bottle and gel, and refocus. After that I felt much better, until I had a hiccup at around mile 8. I got confused at a turn and backtracked maybe 300m only to find out I had already been going the right way.
Then things started flowing smoothly. I was feeling alright and staying in the 8:30 range for a while, my bro ran 2-3 miles with me starting at mile 11. I met him at a road crossing at around 18, filled up my bottle and grabbed a gel. Mile 20 I ran my fastest split, but it was a lot of rocky downhills and it killed my legs and feet. Things started to fall apart the next 2 miles- I got lost for a second during mile 21 and I split like 11:30ish for those two. I was able to hang on to go 3:23:55 and beat the previous FKT by about 26 minutes.
Overall, really happy to get the FKT. The trail was more technical (super rocky) than I was expecting. I think if I had known the trail better and properly peaked for this I could have gone faster, but I was still happy with how things turned out today.