I ran the IPA back & forth unsupported between Sunday July 26th 2026 starting 15:20 to Tue (July 28th) back at the sky station at 10:54, for a total elapsed time of 43h33.
CONTEXT
This run was actually part of training and preparation for a larger objective that I have in a month, which is to beat the current unsupported FKT on a longer route, the GR A1 (the Quebec portion of the Appalachian trail). As such, I started the run with the full gear that I plan to use on the GR A1, which included 2 days worth of food for about 3300 kCal per 24 hours, a hammock with a light foam matt as a sleep system, set of clothes for possible weather on the course, base electronics (phone, garmin watch, headlamp, power bank...). Needless to say, more than actually needed for this one!
Because this was a dry run for the GR A1, for which I plan just under 2 weeks, I also carried 7 liters of extra water that I did not use, in order to mimic the expected weight & bulk of the food I'll need for that longer trail. In total I had with me 40 lbs of total "stuff", all included. I didn't weight just the pack weight, but exclude stuff I was wearing this would likely have been ~35lbs (e.g. since shoes, watch, clothes were on me and not in the pack). The primary goal for me here wasn't pace. Rather, it was to discover at what pace I could run such a trail so that this feels repeatable. This meant that the 2nd day wasn't suppose to feel too much harder than the first.
I had actually run this course as the IPA fun run itself last June as a back & forth, also as part of prep & training. However I didn't have added weight beyond the necessities for this ~100km. It was supported then and wasn't fast enough for the supported FKT established by Jean-Pierre & Mike. Just a hair under 22 hours for this course as an out & back is actually very fast, even considering aid stations.
I fully adhered to the unsupported style & guideline. I had with me at the beginning and kept all the gear that I used, food included, and took nothing on the way. I refilled water at some of the numerous creeks and lakes and treated the water with Pristine pills.
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How it went
Pretty well overall. I'm writing this the day after I finished, and while I can feel softer legs than usual, I am not particularly sore. The physical aspect was similar or perhaps slightly better than I had hoped.
That being said, I found that by far, the hardest part was mentally. I did have a somewhat deep and very long low for about half the 2nd day, with occasional but somewhat short-lived highs throughout. I think the sleep deprivation was the main culprit. For the GR A1, I am planning to sleep "opportunistically", e.g. as the environment and necessity arises and I plan on taking only the hammock (debating on the tart or not). I didn't have a tarp this time, nor a mosquito net. While flies shouldn't be out by went I go to Gaspesia, they certainly were out in Lanaudière! I doubled up layers and tried to cover as best I could, but it was hardly perfect. I was also unfortunate with weather. While I could "navigate" between periods of rain in order to setup for sleep, sometimes trees would still be dripping and without a tarp this woke me up sometimes. While the time between the strava activities linked above show ~11 hours stopped, that includes some faffing around (getting water, managing food & clothing, setup & tear down of hammock setup), and even then, I estimate I might have had closer to 3 hours of actual sleep.
I had good weather the 1st day and night. I setup camp earlier than I had hope on sunday, because forecast was calling for possible storm late in the night. Those didn't materialise, but I think I wasn't quite tired enough to actually sleep well when I stopped (~23h on Sunday). I slept better when I stopped again later, aroud 7am on Monday, even though I was day by then.
The weather worsened quite a bit on Monday, culminating with a solid rain in the evening. Afterward, the rain stopped but the vegetation was very wet for the reminder, along with quite a heavy fog. That made the section I covered during the night on Monday by far the slowest, ~22 min/mk compared to ~17 min/km for pretty everything else. Fog at night was particularly problematic, since it made it harder to see trail markings.
The trail itself is fairly technical, almost exclusively single-track except for very short sections on the ski slopes at Val Saint-Come. The part closer to Notre-Dame (where we turn around) are wetter and more swampy, while the parts closer to Val Saint-Côme felt rockier but overall drier. I think I preferred the later, as wet feet are always a pain to manage on longer outings. I didn't get any blisters, but my feet were getting very sensitive in the last quarter of the trail or so.