White mountains hut traverse FKT plus a random out and back towards Zealand Road. Misread the sign. I almost had a mental breakdown shortly after. Went from 11 up to 1 up. May have cried.
Went really well overall. Definitely thinking longer distance is my strength. I haven’t raced over 25 since Pemi last October and over that since a 100K in December 2019 so my pacing was a little conservative. I think I could have come out harder to Zealand. The wrong turn at Zealand definitely lit a fire under my ass tho, I don’t think those splits would have dropped so hard without it. Wrong turn added ten minutes and 1.2 miles. Trail was very runnable there, blessing and a curse.
Shoutout to Big Daddy D aka Andrew Drummond for driving out and meeting me at 93 and running up with me, then driving me all around tarnation to pick up my shit.
Ran down from Carter with my overnight bag and swapped it for a vest at my truck at 16. Rolled with a liter of water up to Madison Hut. Filled at the huts and checked in with the hut croo at every hut, minus Greenleaf and Galehead when they weren’t around. Had water and food stashed in a bear hang near the Highland center. Only time I carried 1.5L was out of Zealand. Filled pretty much exclusively at the huts except in a stream at Mad Gulf and Garfield spring.
Ate 3550 calories in gels and another 300 in powder. I haven’t been eating enough on previous efforts and this one I made a concerted effort to average 400 per hour. I could have even had more. Ditched my vest and shirt at 93 on the way to Lonesome. Met Andrew Drummond about .2 up the LLT and ran with him to the hut. This level of accompaniment is consistent with other self supported efforts on this route and got the stamp of approval from Jeff Colt prior.