At 3:10 am on February 8th I started in big cypress national preserve in south Florida and today on February 27th at 2:23pm central time I finished at fort Pickens in gulf islands national seashore all the way in the western panhandle. I averaged 57 miles of running and walking every single day for the last near 20 days.
Wow… What a JOURNEY. I’m tired, I’m speechless and really I’m so thankful for every person that helped me get here. Especially my crew chief, Scott Abshire. I could not have done this without him following me the entire way, feeding me, taking care of me and doing every little thing I needed to get me here. We laughed, we cried, we made the freaking most of it and had so much fun out there amongst the chaos. I love you buddy.
I went through swamps, prairies, pine flatwoods, beaches, ran along rivers and lakes and beautiful palm tree oak hammocks, not to mention historical railways and civil war battlefields. I saw snakes, spiders , deer, rabbits, crested cara Cara’s and SO MANY BIRDS, possums, raccoons, alligators, armadillos, pigs and so much more Im probably missing. The Florida trail offers so much natural beauty and rugged landscapes. The road sections were great for running (also some dangerous and seriously scary ) and the trail conditions varied to runnable and smooth to sandy, beat up, rooty and swampy.
You get what you get with the Florida trail. I got lucky with dry conditions up until 11 days in. After we got a really rainy day it filled up apalachicola national forest and bradwell bay up to belly button deep water. It was beyond gnarly. That was my longest day. It took 17 hours to knock out 55 miles in the swamp: I was determined to finish that forest though!
The first 9 days were extremely hot, in the mid to high 80’s with full sun exposure. I got heat rash every day for those first 9 days on my legs and feet by the end of the day. After then it started to cool off then we got some rain and a couple 30 degree mornings which were also brutal. I got about all types of weather possible for this experience.
The first 3 days were very painful. All of the pavement pounding and full sun and heat exposure were killing me. Day 3 was the hardest, going around Lake Okeechobee. By the end of that night I could barely walk and I thought to myself I had a LONG WAY to go still and I did t know how the heck I was gonna finish this thing. But I kept waking up every day at 3 am and giving it hell. Slowly things got better. On day 7 I thought I was getting injured because my right Achilles hurt that day so we KT taped it and then somehow the next day it was fine and never bothered me again.
After 7 days on the trail was when I knew I could really finish this. I started to feel better and stronger each day. My legs and feet hurt less, toes were swollen and throbbing less, however my stomach and appetite got more difficult to appease. I got sores on my tongue which burned with every bite of food or sip of drink. Eating was especially challenging but we crammed over 8,000 calories down every single day. By day 13 I started having Scott blend all of my meals because I could no longer chew food. So I ate things like fried rice , noodle dishes and mac n cheese all in a blender which sounds gross and weird but oddly was exactly what I needed. I still gagged to get it down though. I had to have him water everything down because it it was thicker than pudding I would gag. I threw up a total of 3 times on this journey.
On the “final day” aka morning after the final sleep we decided to do the last 114 miles in one push which was a silly idea. After only 5 hours of sleep the night before I knew it was about to be a rough 30+ hours. Personally I dislike 100 milers because I hate not sleeping and pushing through the night when I get tired. I took a ten minute trail nap which helped slightly then slept for 90 minutes at 2am. Woke up and still felt like crap but kept going and once the sun got up I started to feel slightly better but still had no energy. Once I got to the beach I knew it was go time so I pushed a little more because I was so excited to finish!! I’m glad I got to finish in the daylight and spend the rest of the day with friends and family and be on the beach and such.
You can’t cheat the florida trail. It will chew you up and spit you out. People think that just because it’s flat it must be “easy” and super runnable but that is just not true. The first 3 days are the real “make or break” because you are given over 140 miles of runnable pavement and gravel which will test you. It’s so inviting to run all out and blow yourself up but I stuck to the plan and knew what was ahead of me. It put me in a really good position. I’m proud of this performance because I stayed extremely consistent from start to finish. I did not dip below a 50
Mile day except on day 1 which was planned. It all unfolded how it was meant to.
Knowing the beta of this trail also helps to execute the perfect race. I’m thankful I had already done over 400 miles of the trail and knew what to expect in certain areas. It definitely gave me an advantage and also knew where not to get lost. This trail has a lot of strange areas that can be confusing or difficult to follow blaze.
This trail is life changing. My cup is so so full. I am beyond moved. My heart was all in on this but really I’m blown away at all of the support from friends and people coming out just to help me. “Crazy” is the only word I can think of right now .
Don’t be afraid to dream big and know that you can do anything that you set your mind to!!! We are stronger than our greatest fears.
*** There were a few trail closures and temporary reroutes that I ran into on the trail via signage or on the FTA website. Floridatrail.org has all information on these reroutes or closures that I followed. For everything else I followed true to the orange blaze and used FarOut app to navigate when needed. There were several areas that were confusing or got lost because the blazing was bad and also hurricane damage on the trail that made it slightly off or difficult. Email me with any issues. I also used a garmin inreach as backup tracking.