FKT: Finn James - Rinconada, Little Falls, Big Falls (CA) - 2025-12-13

I Initially felt pretty good about my chances of setting the FKT until I realized that there is a Strava segment for the route, and the KOM, set by Brian Lucinda in May 2015. This narrowed my room for error, but I knew barring sore legs and bad trail quality, I should have a good shot at it. Unfortunately, I worked out a bit too hard on Thursday, so my legs, especially my lower calves and outer quads, were pretty sore. It was a higher priority for me to feel good and not dig myself into a training fatigue hole than to set the FKT, so I started out pretty slow, reaching the top of the Rinconada trail 2:16 slower than Brian’s split. I wasn’t too worried, because in my stalking of his run I knew that I could be faster in the last few miles than he was. If I could be within 2 minutes of his split heading into the final Rinconada descent, I thought I could get it. However, trail conditions had other plans for me, and it became clear pretty quickly on the little falls descent why there has only been one other effort on the Strava segment in the last 5 years. The trail was horribly overgrown; at many points I couldn’t even see the ground. I didn’t have too much trouble staying on route, but I still popped out at Upper Lopez Canyon Road 6:32 seconds behind Brian’s split, which was incredibly demoralizing. I pretty much gave up FKT hope. Nonetheless, I was able to pick up the pace going up the road, which featured very wet creek crossing and the discomfort of being barked at by many dogs in dog bark alley. I hit the Big Falls trail in a slightly better position, 5:09 behind Brian. I took a wrong turn partway up, dead ending at the base of a cliff which cost me about a minute, but overall was able to get into a pretty good rhythm and reached Hi Mountain Lookout Road 2:53 back of FKT pace. As a side note, I can’t believe Everett Werner biked down this trail, seems miserable and terrifying (very narrow with lots of very steep drops off the side). I locked in on the road and felt pretty good about my position, which turned out to be true when I began the final descent 2:02 AHEAD of FKT pace. My prediction of my descent ability turned out to be pretty accurate, because I shaved another 2:30 off on the descent, establishing the new FKT of 2:09:54 and lowering the KOM.