Uwharrie Trail Unsupported Out and Back
Been wanting to go after this FKT for a while, since it's the closest long trail to Raleigh. As a non-fast trail runner, I knew I was relegated to trying just for the out-and-back unsupported FKT, though. I went for it once, but the combination of a rainy day and a slow pace made me back off. I want to dedicate this run to my dog, Sadie who passed a year ago, and who I always think about whenever I’m in this national forest. We went on a hike one time in December 2023 and every time I’m in Uwharrie, I always stare at the places that we can’t and stop that.
Got a much later start on the hike because I slept in, starting it around 8:30 in the morning after camping basically at the trailhead, as I planned to maximize the amount of daylight. Never hiked the top portion of the trail, so I didn’t know what the first 10-ish miles were going to look like. With the help of some music by a common rider, I finished the 10 unfamiliar miles relatively quickly before settling into a 17-minute mile pace on the much more familiar, more-traveled part of the hike. I kept that going all the way until I got to the bottom part of the trail and the turnaround, when the sun started to set after sunset, it became much more of a long hike, and honestly, all of it was a blur. I wasn’t really that tired, and the caffeine pills kept me alert, but the hours just flew by as I followed, my head slowly eating my pizza that I packed out. I started with a whole large pizza from Domino’s and finished with no pizza and all of my snacks eaten. As the sun rose, I was about 3 miles away and finally got the energy to start jogging again once it became easy doing a 30-minute mile in the final mile to end it all.