FKT: Lexi Jackson - Wantastiquet-Monadnock-Sunapee (NH) - 2026-06-01

Started nice and early hoping to get up and over Monadnock before potential thunderstorms. Weather was perfect, cool and cloudy and dry, until I was about to enter Gap Mountain Reservation. From there it rained off and on until I finished. The first section (Wantastisquet -> Pisgah) is pretty easy to follow. Technical single track. Wildly beautiful undercast from the viewpoints I fought hard not to go all the way out on as to not waste time. I was excited to get to Pisgah as I've run the race there a couple times and my husband was the RD for a couple years. Even with all the rain the day before this section was pretty dry. After Pisgah the trail gets pretty hairy until the bike path. Over grown, windy, not easy to follow. Well blazed, but even looking at the blazes you could barely tell which way the trail went. I was relieved to make it to the Cheshire Bike Path until I wasn't. 13 miles of slightly uphill dirt, sidewalks and running downtown. At one point the zipper on my pack came undo and all my food and gear went flying everywhere, embarrassing. As I got closer to Gap Mountain, it started to sprinkle. I sat in a ditch to filter water and prepared for what could be nasty weather up high. It must have downpoured before I got here, the summit of Gap Mountain and then up and down Monadnock was very wet. Flooded trails, a river at times, slick slabs of rock. Light rain and cold wind. Felt silly climbing up in my little Lulu shorts. Had the summit all to myself though. Got there in 11 h 54 m (FKT on the W-M section!). After a dance party on top, I crawled down. Literally. Slipped many times. Stopped to lube up and get ready for second half. Took caffeine for the first time, some ibuprofen cause my knee was starting to bug me, and put on music for the first time. The first half of the MSG was so runnable. The dirt roads were dreamy, made me miss my gravel bike. Rained off and on but I was mostly protected by the trees and happy in a t-shirt. Hands were cold but I didn't want to get my gloves wet. MSG was so easy to follow but on the dirt road sections I would fly by the turn offs back into the woods and have to go back which added on mileage. Didn't have to turn on my headlamp until 8:30 pm. Rain got harder at times and when it wasn't raining the wind was blowing so hard it felt like it was. Trails became a mess. Muddy, flooded, slippery. So tedious in the dark. I would be excited to be on a dirt road, but the hard surface hurt my body. But then being in the woods was miserable too. Slowly becomes uninterested in food and water. Just surviving. I had a 7-hour playlist and once that ran out I went to charge my phone to put on more music but it wouldn't charge because it somehow got wet even though I tried to be careful, so no more music the rest of trip. Just me in my head with the deer and mice. The fog made route following hard. When I got to the top of Pitcher it took me a few minutes to find the trail back down because it was so foggy. Grassy sections were so wet it made my feet hurt. I took more caffeine every 4 hours which only amounted to 300mg total, definitely not enough. My stomach turned on me so I pooping every 5 miles or so. I was falling apart. Right before sunrise I got extremely cold and finally put on a jacket. I thought sunrise would give me a second wind but it was so dark and raw. With 10 miles to go I tried to push hard to finish between 8:30 am-9:00 (27-27.5 hours). I ran hard for an hour and my pace was still so slow it was discouraging. It was cold, I didn't want to have to stop to filter water again so I stopped drinking water and only forced a gel here and there. The last 10 miles are almost all uphill. I've run at Sunapee before but the terrain felt way more technical. I had crying meltdown crossing wet slabs. A really loud one which I was thankful no one was around to hear. Somehow got to the top of Sunapee (took me 15 hours almost exactly to do the MSG) and then made my way down the ski slope. So tedious and slow slipping and sliding on the mud and wet grass. Made it down to my husband and dogs who were losing their shit. Got in the car and told my husband to get me far away from this mountain now. Overall I'm proud of my effort, although I really wanted sub 26 hours and felt pretty slow the whole time. My grandpa passed away a few months ago. His birthday was this weekend, he would have been 83, and this was my way of celebrating him. I had his ashes in my front pocket. He was with me out there for sure. This one is for Gramps.