Started after work on a Friday to simulate some race formats that start in the evening...though primarily I just wanted to ensure that I would be running the hardest parts of this route in the daylight (IMO this is up and over Coliseum and Vicar Ridge). Will say that even though I thought I knew HSCT like the back of my hand, it was still hard to navigate parts of it in the dark. Spent almost the entirely run with my shoes filled with water and squelching as I went. It didn't rain on me at any point, but the rain from the day before and then all the condensation/morning dew that sticks around in the shadier bushy sections drenched me over and over and over and over throughout the bulk of the adventure. Got a bit tired of this (and technical terrain) approaching the end of Vicar Ridge! I do really appreciate how much gnarly terrain makes you appreciate simpler trails and road running through - Millstream, Demo, and then BP at the end were all very welcome breaks from the mind-bending obstacle course bookending all of those bits.
Followed James' iteration of Ken Legg's original Cove to Cove with a few modifications: Ken Legg I'm pretty sure intended for BP to be used to link HSCT to the base of Grouse Mountain, so I took BP through Hollyburn (even though I've no doubt this added a good chunk of time, especially in the dark). The original route goes up BCMC rather than the Grouse Grind, so I did this as well (again, even though this is usually 5-10 mins longer than the GG). I actually didn't realise that Ken's original route goes up Grouse rather than Crown, so I followed James' route and tagged Crown before dropping down into Hanes. True to both routes (I believe), I tagged Coliseum and Paton before heading over to Vicar Ridge. Andy Aitch did Elsay rather than Seymour for his iteration of C2C, but I decided to err on the side of more and tagged both Elsay and Seymour (the latter of which is in Ken's original route). I don't believe either Andy or Ken included Tim Jones or Pump, but I still wanted this to tag all the key points in James' route, so I tagged those and Brockton Point before following the established (and seemingly well agreed upon) descent down around Goldie Lake area to Perimeter, down Three Chop, to BP around QR to the water in Panorama Park in Deep Cove. I was getting a bit delirious by the time I reached Elsay so I took some...meandering paths up Elsay, Seymour, and Pump. (Fortunately Tim Jones is harder to mess up.)
Massive thanks to my parents for helping me arrange a car drop at Cleveland Dam so that doing this self-supported was possible! My mom in particular had heard about the recent tragic death of an incredible local skyrunner on an FKT and was pretty wary of me chasing them, and wanted to be involved the next time I attempted one, so I had her track me by satellite for this one in hopes that she might worry a little bit less. :-)