On November 27th at 4:00 am CST, I began my attempt to FKT Louisiana's Longest highway, LA Hwy 1 whose official mileage is 431.88 miles. We started at the Texarkana Three Corners Marker located just northwest of Rodessa, LA. I successfully completed the route on December 4th at 2:23 am for an elapsed time of 6 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes. The first 3 days went very well, other than falling twice on the first day. The falls caused some hip pain for days 2-4. By day 4 though my ankles began to swell up and become in tremendous pain. My body began to swell as well at the end of day 3 and we did what we could to get it under control on day 4 but we struggled to find a clear solution and just tried to manage it as best as possible for the remainder of the FKT.
At night I would develop these fever-like symptoms and would become drenched in sweat. While temperatures outside were ranging below 40 degrees, I would have the AC in the RV on 66 degrees and a box fan blowing on me and still I was burning up. This goes to say that sleep was minimal throughout the attempt.
I had people join up to run with me for various distances starting on day 3. Some would run alongside me for just a mile or two up to 20 miles and I had a friend death march the entire last day with me which was 69 miles. Most of my nutrition and water was housed in the RV which would stay ahead of me every 3-7 miles. If we needed to restock anything or pick up additional supplies we should do so at gas stations, walmarts, and or various grocery and shopping outlets along the route.
All in all this was the toughest challenge I have ever put myself through. The last 2 days my ankles were totally blown out and each step was blazing in pain. I pretty much death marched the entire last day at a 19 minute avg pace. I had just under 70 miles to go and I decided I was finishing it that day because I did not want to have to wake up another morning with the ankle pain knowing I had to run/walk another day. It took every bit of sheer willpower and determination to get to the dead end in Grand Isle, LA but I persevered and made it.
The word spread like wildfire about what I was doing and people were coming out of businesses to cheer me on, meeting me along the highway to take pictures and give me gifts, radio stations were broadcasting about it, news outlets were picking it up. I never would have imagined that people would be as interested in what I was doing as they were. It was surreal and I felt like the message I was trying to relay was able to get out to the public and impact the right people. It was the most rewarding accomplishment of my life.
A lot of media was shared to my social media accounts and most can be viewed there.
To see more pictures and videos for additional verification you can visit my social links at: Facebook & Instragram