FKT: Liz Lierman - Mount Toby Loop (MA) - 2020-12-13

Athletes
Route variation
Standard route
Multi-sport
No
Gender category
Female
Style
Unsupported
Finish date
Total time
2h 56m 11s
GPS track(s)
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Temperature was perfect, but footing/conditions not great - rained yesterday so it was pretty wet, plus there were still some frost and ice patches. Also quite a few big trees down on the trail - especially on the RFT for the first few miles after Tower Road.

I found the route challenging to follow as others have mentioned. I live in the area and know these trails pretty well, and I used navigation the whole way on this run, and still had two trouble points - ended up down at the road after Bull Hill and had to be careful to backtrack and re-enter the correct course at the same point. My nav was also not clear on which trail to take at an unmarked split shortly after that point - the two trails come back together pretty quickly so either way might be fine, but I ran both of them to be sure I had done the correct one. Lost a good 10 minutes surveying everything and making sure I did the right thing at that point.

I echo Dan's comments about the two corrections needed to the written directions - it's a left onto the Link Trail from Middle Mountain, and the route follows Sugar Farms to the RFT (not Bridle Path). Today was slower than I hoped given the 10-15 minutes of route-finding plus the extra distance added by the two places mentioned, but I'm glad to have stayed on course and I guess the pursuit of a faster time is just a great reason to get out there again next season, right? Thanks for setting a route at Mt. Toby, it's a great spot for a day on the trails!