FKT: Jonathan Lowe - Göta Kanal: Mem - Motala (Sweden) - 2024-08-03

I wouldn’t say I’m a professional runner but I have increased my training over the last few months in order to undertake FKT challenges. My idea is to inspire other people to lead a fit and healthier life. Hopefully by reading my detailed FKT report others may be able to pick up on some of the bits I slowed down on and look to make the run and improve on my time. I’d like to say thank you to Markus for putting together what was a beautiful and challenging run; definitely more challenging than I thought it would be. My biggest words of advice would be to try and run the FKT when it isn’t so hot. I notice that all three of the record holders have done it in July/August and we all suffered from the heat. I would say perhaps May or September may be better months to attempt it.

A friend of mine, Marc, kindly agreed to crew my first FKT attempt. We left home at 0430 and had a pit stop in Norrköping to grab a coffee and toilet break. We arrived at Mem and parked up near to Söderköping lighthouse. I got ready with my vest and running shoes together with my Tailwind Endurance solution. We walked over to the lighthouse and took a few photos. We tried to get a live track working on my Garmin but I couldn’t manage to do it and so at 0736 I set off having started the GPX course I downloaded from the FKT website and started to record my run on my Garmin Forerunner 245 Music. I wore Icebug Pytho 6 trail running shoes.

It was a nice quiet run along Göta Kanal to start with, getting a little busy at Söderköping. It was flat as you can imagine. I had to wait half a minute when crossing the road at 7.1km otherwise I had a good run up to my first meeting point with Marc. The bridge at Snövelstorp that I had to cross had been up just as I was getting to it as there was a long queue of cars either side. Luckily as soon as I got to the bridge the barriers lifted and I could continue running.

I had been intrigued to see whether I could run up the hill after the bridge, but when I got there I realised this wasn’t doable (for me anyway). I walked up to Luddingsbovägen and then started running again. At some point the road turned into track, which for me was better on the feet. At 21km I turned right and all was going well until I hit a house which was in the middle of the track and I couldn’t go through. I spent a minute looking around for a route and ended up running through some trees and found a track to the right which led me back onto the original track. My adrenaline was pumping at this point and I continued on the tracks which were nice in the forest.

At 24.1km I turned left and headed down to the canal. I ran 5 minute 2 seconds for this kilometre which was far faster than I had been wanting to run so slowed the pace but still not the pace I wanted. I hit the canal, crossed over it, and ran along the canal for approximately 6km running under the E4 motorway which I’ve so many times crossed over in my car with the family.

I crossed the canal via a bridge just before Norsholms and met Marc in a layby at around 31.8km. I spent around 12 minutes changing over my 2 litre bladder with the same Tailwind Endurance solution. I took my shoes off as my feet felt a little swollen and also took my vest off. Used my sweat towel a lot to take the sweat away. I drank about 400ml of water. I had wanted to change my tshirt but forgot. All in all I felt good at this point but knew I had set off a little too fast. I brushed my teeth before setting off – which was a trick I learnt earlier in the year to make myself feel refreshed.

I set off being about 20 minutes ahead of my target. I ran a little up the road and realised that I had forgotten my homemade banana pancakes I had made. I didn’t want to put an extra 400m into the run just for the pancakes and had two left over from the first leg so ended up just eating the 2 pancakes slowly. I had envisaged trying to eat one small pancake every 30 minutes and drink 500ml of Tailwind Endurance solution every hour throughout the run but due to the heat I ended up needing more liquid.

I took a wrong turn over a bridge within 200m of my first pit stop but my Garmin quickly told me I was off course. This added approximately 100m to 200m onto my run. This part of the run (35km) was the longest stretch for me, as I was meeting Marc at 65.9km in Berg. I found the road pretty hard to run on and the hills slowed me down as I walked most of the uphills. I was running between 1030 and around 1430 so the heat of the day was getting to me and I ran out of liquid 10km from Berg. Luckily it started raining for 30 minutes around 52km which cooled me down and allowed me to run a little better. There were no brilliant views along the way although it was relatively quiet on the roads and surrounded by trees or sporadic fields. It seemed quite monotonous. The last 10km without liquid was hard and I started feeling dizzy.

I had been communicating with Marc via whatsapp voice messaging and asked him to buy me a protein shake and coke zero from the ICA in Berg for when I got there. I really wanted something cold and thought as I didn’t have many pancakes the protein shake would be good.

I got to Berg around 1430 which meant the time I made up on the first leg was lost on the second leg. I felt dizzy and tired when I got to the car and the temperature must have still been around 24 degrees. I drank a can of coke zero, 500ml bottle of coke zero, bottle of protein shake, cup of cold coffee, about 800ml of cold water and ate a banana. I took my shoes and socks off as my feet were aching on the bottom and felt swollen. I noticed I had a few blisters which I attended to by putting plasters on. I changed my tshirt and talked to Marc for a bit. I had aimed for a 10 minute break which ended up being closer to 70 minutes due to me needing to make sure I was physically ok to carry on running and I wanted to make sure I was able to finish the run.

I brushed my teeth again and set off walking to the zebra crossing in front of the bridge. I brought with me 2 litres of Tailwind Endurance solution together with 500ml of water, and a bag of pancakes! I ran along the canal which was a welcome change to the roads and hills I had done for the last 35km. The canal path was gravel. People were swimming in the canal and there were lots of boats. Quite a few cyclists about but not too many runners. Once I got quite a bit past Berg there were a lot of cattle grids which weren’t too hard to cross over. I had a plan to run 5km at around 6m/km pace then walk for as long as it took to eat a pancake and drink some water which tended to be for about 300m. I did this for 15km then the last 5km was difficult.

I tried to send Marc a message coming into Borensberg to let him know I was coming in as he was going to meet me 3km from the end to run with me to help motivate me. I realised something was wrong with my phone as I couldn’t get the message to him. I felt so dehydrated and tired I couldn’t be bothered trying to work out what was wrong at the time. I stopped off at a café to buy a coke zero, exotic fanta and raspberry ice cream – not what I wanted but there wasn’t much choice. As the drinks were in cans I felt it would be a good idea to walk and finish the liquids before running. I walked for 2km and had the refreshments – circa 10minute/km pace. Kept the cans for pant but put the ice cream packaging in a bin. When walking I managed to find out the issue with my phone was I’d accidently knocked the mobile data off so I turned this back on and told Marc I was 19km from the end. The hills on the last part of the trip were not big but partly as I knew the FKT record was not going to be hard to achieve at this stage together with my head not talking to my legs very well I felt I would walk on the hills and where I could run. I ended up running mostly downhill and most flats. This was a beautiful part of the run with large open fields which great views and the sun was starting to set in the sky. I took a Nu gel (which was meant for an emergency) about an hour from the end which I think really helped me spur on. I met Marc about 4km before the end just after I came out of some woods where I was running along the boardwalk which was nice.

I had thought I would run when meeting Marc but he gave me some water, which was welcome and then I did a fast walk with him through Motala. My watch was playing up a bit at this point, not giving directions so I had to get my phone out and follow the map a little so thought it best to take the rest of the journey easy so I didn’t get lost. We ended up going on the wrong side of the canal coming to the end but this didn't reduce the distance. We ran for the last 500m.

It was tempting to jump into the canal when we were walking back to the car but I wanted to get home to bed as soon as possible and with a 3 hour drive ahead of us we went back to the car. Picked up a pizza for Marc on the way out of Motala and I had a 500ml bottle of coke zero and headed home.