it's mid-fall in the northeast and there are lots of leaves on the ground already - so too risky to hit the technical trails for a while. but a perfect time of year to hit the rail trails! this trail has a good mix of surfaces - a couple paved miles, a lot of packed fine gravel which was great, some coarse gravel, and some dirt/grass sections near the southern terminus - and often covered in a layer of leaves. i wasn't sure what kind of shoes to wear - ended up going with an old pair of hoka carbon x shoes which were mostly suitable except for the loose gravel sections. not sure what the ideal pair of shoes is for this trail, if someone figures it out please let me know!
weather conditions were decent - started out in the low 40s and rose to upper 50s - a bit humid especially towards midday.
started off slower, took a few miles to warm up, then tried to lock in near 7 minute mile pace on the way out. i slowed or stopped a couple times on the way out when nature called and near the terminus when i switched out a bottle. stopped for a few seconds at the terminus to stretch. out time was 2:34:12
i was planning to go a little faster on the return, to try to hit the 1-way record, so i tried to dial into a roughly 6:50 pace, but had some lazy miles and realized with a few miles to go i was probably going to miss the 5 hour mark. tried to up the pace but that last mile or so killed me, the trail there is pretty rough and has some vertical gain (ok it's a rail trail, how bad could it be right?) - anyways i didn't quite hit 5 hours but it was a good motivational tool and saved me a couple extra minutes of slogging to the end. back time was 2:26:11
ran unsupported - carried 1.5L of tailwind which is probably not enough but it's a delicate balance of travel light vs. getting dehydrated. i seem to notice the pack weight a lot more on this sort of effort. note i did not see any signs of water worth filtering on the entire route - i had my filter just in case but the few sources i saw were either too far off trail or really foul - a lot of the trail is adjacent to farm land or swamp. there might have been a few water spigots at the rest areas/bathrooms along the way, but if you want to run this unsupported i recommend carrying everything you need.