The water rose up to my mid-thigh as I trudged through the Maitland river right after sun down. I knew that I'd be in trouble if I got my shorts wet. I had been running for over 16 hours, the temperatures were starting to drop and I was already starting to shiver. Luckily, I remembered the advice that I got from Jeremiah Sommer, the supported FKT holder of the G2G trail.
I started my unsupported FKT attempt of the G2G trail at 4:19am on Saturday, May 29. I was excited to attempt my first unsupported FKT and I carried two Salomon filter bottles for water, and all of the food that I needed for the day. I had two goals, I wanted to set the unsupported FKT for the G2G trail and I wanted to see if I could beat the supported FKT as well, set by Jeremiah Sommer on October 5th, 2019.
My running felt great for the first 8 hours of the run. I found water easily from rivers and healthy looking streams. After 8 hours, my pace started to lag and I had a hard time finding water. I needed to go off trail to fill up my bottles and decided to walk away from a few sketchy looking water sources.
I was very relieved when I reached the Maitland river crossing as this meant that I only had around 13 km into Goderich. The only thing was that the river was huge, around 30 meters across. I took some time to find the crossing area that Jeremiah had told me about. It took a few attempts of walking into the river and getting water up to my knees, until I found the right crossing. Finally across the river and still warm, I picked up the pace on the last stretch of the G2G trail.
I arrived at the end of the G2G trail at 11:45pm to cheers from my family and from Jeremiah Sommer and his son. In the end, I set the fastest known time for an unsupported completion of the G2G trail. I fell short of beating the supported FKT however I'm still pleased with my results. I didn't have any help along the way, no pacers joined me, I didn't buy any food and I filtered all of my water from rivers and streams along the way.
More information can be found on my web site - jordanwickett.com.