Caleb Larsen and myself established a new FKT for the run across Panama (Or the trans-continent as I like to call it… or trans-oceanic as Caleb likes to call it ;-) We ran from the statue of Jesus in the juvendid park on the Atlantic Ocean to the statue of Morelos at Panama Viejo on the Pacific Ocean. The route was just over 50 miles long with 3,300’ elevation gain. Total time was 14 hours, 12 minutes and 48 seconds
This is a brutal route. It’s almost exclusively urban streets and highways. The temperatures were in the 90’s with nearly 100% humidity. It was really cool to get to see so much of the country on foot. From little old ladies washing their laundry taking time to spray us down with cold water to the laborer who stretched my calf while I cramped up in the countryside.
We ran self-supported and purchased copious amounts of water and Gatorade at stores along the way. Caleb ran almost entirely self-supported but did get ice along the way. It was so hot and humid that you couldn’t drink enough. There were a few points with beautiful forest/jungle views but route is just a ton of road running, city traffic and road noise. It’s a really cool thing to do with some redeeming factors that make this FKT worth pursuing even if it is very different than a typical “trail” FKT.
My Garmin watch died 41 minutes before we reached the Pacific. I’ve included my SPOT tracker as well as the garmin data (2 miles short). Caleb’s data is good for the full distance and both Suunto and Strava data are posted as well. We also put up our GPS file for the route we did too since SPOT data goes away after a week.