My First FKT : An Initiation in Fire and Blood
I had planned to start the Womble Trail at 5:30 am on October 16, 2024. I got to the Bluebell Diner on the corner of Hwy 27 and Hwy 298 to meet up with my shuttle, at 4:30 am after a 2 am wakeup at my dad’s house in Benton. She was running a little late because of the overwhelming abundance of deer on the backroads of Arkansas and the nearly full moon lighting the sky. When she arrived, we left immediately, but then took a wrong turn to drop off my vehicle and got a little tour of some extra dirt roads.
By the time we arrived at the North Fork Lake Trailhead at the SW end of the Womble, it was nearly 6:30, and the faintest hint of light colored the sky to the East. I started my Garmin Forerunner at 6:25 am and took off into the woods. Temps in the last week had been over 90, but this morning I could see clouds of my breath in the beam of my headlamp. The first few miles were cruisy– I tried to remind myself that I had a long way to go, and not to rush the pace, especially in the dark where rocks can seem to pop out of nowhere right in front of your toes. I’d run a few segments of the trail in the last couple weeks to scope out water sources (Arkansas is in a terrible drought this year), but this terrain was new to me. The Womble was built with mountain biking in mind: all smooth curves and short gentle grades coated in a layer of dry, crunchy pine needles. It’s almost too nice for trailrunning.
I needed my headlamp for a little less than an hour. Once daylight broke, I picked up the pace and put down a few really fun miles. About 6 miles in I started smelling smoke. Having done so much hiking, running, and living out west, I know that smoke can travel great distances, and having lived in Arkansas for many years, I know that people in rural communities burn stuff. I wondered where and what might be burning, and whether this should concern me or not as I ran through a tinderbox of pine needles and narrow, dry, very flammable trees.
Around 7.5 miles in, I came around a corner and saw a wildfire burning unchecked. The trail was quiet but for the snickering of flames through the ground cover. Through the cloud of white smoke, I couldn’t tell how far the fire extended, but the visible line of flames was quite small and somehow the trail itself had not burned, though either side was thoroughly blackened.
I stood for a moment trying to decide what to do. The flames were slowly creeping toward me, so if I turned around, they would be following me. If I could get to the other side, I would likely be safer if the fire spread. I walked cautiously down the uncharred trail, seeing a few larger trees burning amidst tendrils of smoke rising from the blackened earth. Around another corner, the smoke blowing across the trail became too thick to see through—I didn’t know how deep it was, or if I’d be able to reach the other side. I retreated back to the front edge of the fire, and dialed 911. I told the dispatcher my GPS coordinates, and she let me know that the fire department was on its way. She asked for me to stay on the line while they worked through the dispatching process. I noticed that the wind was shifting just enough that I thought I could see clear air just beyond the wall of smoke that had turned me back. I told her that I was going to try to walk through the fire and out the other side.
With my phone in one hand, and my other arm over my mouth and nose, I entered the cloud of smoke. One burning tree to the right of the trail radiated heat as I passed, and another tree lay down across the path. It seemed untouched by fire— perhaps it had fallen before the fire, or maybe the fire had only destabilized its roots, allowing it to topple. I crouched down and crawled under its suspended trunk, breaking small branches to create an opening, and catching the sleeve of my ultralight woven fleece in the tangle. As I tried to stand, the tree pulled me back down. I turned and twisted to free myself, my eyes burning from the smoke.
When I reached the other side of the fire, I turned back to see the line of flames which had created the wall of smoke. It was not much larger than the first I had seen, but burning much more intensely. Soon after, I crossed Forest Service Road 922. I was happy to have a large dirt division between the fire and me.
From there, I continued through the Ouachita Mountains, hoping not to feel the effects of smoke inhalation, as I still had nearly 30 miles to go. I stopped for water in mile 11 at one of a series of small creek crossings, and again in mile 19 at the Redneck RV Park. Water collection was a bit slower/more tedious than I would have liked, so I didn’t drink as much as I should have. I hadn’t realized until the day before that my in-bottle filter was missing, and so was using a Sawyer Squeeze filter and bag to refill my hand flask and the bladder in my vest. Luckily temps were mild—water would have been much more problematic in the heat. I saw one mountain biker near the Hwy 298 trailhead and told him about the fire (he would be the only person I met all day).
By mile 20, I was patting myself on the back for keeping paces consistent, feeling strong, and managing nutrition and hydration well. Then I felt the tell-tale arrival of my period. I’d spent the four days leading up to my attempt first hoping that it would come earlier rather than later, so the heaviest bleeding would be past before I was on trail, then hoping it would wait to start until that day or later. I had packed tampons in the back of my vest, but decided to hold off on dealing with it until I needed to stop for something else. I had already stopped so recently for water and didn’t want to mess up my movement flow when things were feeling good.
The miles ticked by. After crossing Hwy 27, I ran on a lovely ridgeline overlooking the Ouachita River, probably the only true “views” by traditional standard that the Womble Trail has to offer— and it brought a huge smile to my face. I had been thoroughly enjoying the trail, winding its way through forest, but here the river sparkled up from below, and I was reminded of the beauty of this place that has captured me over the last few years, and why I keep coming back here when I could be running anywhere in the country. Lost in thought, I nearly missed the (unmarked) hairpin turn around mile 27, but the trail had been so clear all day that it only took a moment to realize my mistake.
By the time I reached the spur trail to the parking lot for Hwy 88, with 7 and a half miles left to go, the tree’s shadows were lengthening once again. The next five miles were familiar to me, so I knew that I’d be reaching a water source soon. I nearly ran over a tarantula blending into the path while listening to a playlist of music and encouraging messages from friends that had been compiled before my first FKT attempt on the Ouachita Trail in 2022. I considered the significance of completing the Womble at its junction with the Ouachita Trail, which still loomed, unfinished, on my goals list nearly two years later.
At mile 32, I stopped to filter water at Deer Creek. My pace was starting to lag and some of the steepest climbing on the trail lies in that last 5.5 miles. I tried to doctor myself up with some caffeinated gummies and a pep talk. When I reached Forest Service Road 605, only 0.1 miles from the end of the trail, and the junction with the Ouachita Trail— I remembered someone at the Womble Trail workday I had recently attended asking, “why are you going that direction? You’ll have to climb up that big hill right at the end.”
Having now seen the trail in its entirety, it does seem silly to do the only real climbing (short though it may be) at the very end of the day. Alas, I pushed myself up the hill and stopped my watch and Garmin InReach at 4:57 pm at the junction sign.
There I sat for a few minutes. The last time I cried on trail was the day I quit my Ouachita Trail FKT attempt in 2022. That day I was broken—I had wanted to prove that somebody with POTS/dysautonomia could do hard things, and that hard thing was going to be setting an FKT. And I had failed. My chronically ill body had not been up to the task, and I hadn’t proven anybody wrong. I’d only proven that my sick body really wasn’t able. Today I sat at the midpoint of the OT crying for another reason entirely. I had finally, after nearly three years of training, set my first FKT. My time on the Womble Trail is significantly longer than the standing men’s record. I feel fully confident that there are tons of women out there who could take it from me— and I hope they do! But I had set out hoping to finish the trail in 12 hours, and had come in well under. I’d had a really solid day, felt strong, faced unexpected challenges, and managed my body with all the knowledge I’ve gained in the past few years.