At exactly 7:23 am on Thursday, October 27th, I set out from the BCT's "START/FINISH" sign at the beach of Bay Farm in Kingston, about 1/4 mile from the southern terminus welcome marker, with the intention of breaking the previous FKT. I then proceeded to run clockwise along the BCT route variation indicated in my attached map, which involved utilizing the southern leg of the trail fork at Bay Farm, routing south through Kingston rather than north through Duxbury to reach the junction at Tubbs Meadow in Pembroke; it also utilized the eastern fork from down Wayland along the Central Rail Trail and up through Weston Town Forest to reach the junction point in Lincoln just north of the rail station. Dead-end legs through Bedford in the northwest and Hamilton in the northeast were not taken. Routing through Bridgewater and downtown Lowell, where no trail is designated, followed the most direct road routes (Rt 18 to High St in Bridgewater; Rt 110 to Rt 133 in Lowell). Since there are multiple endpoints described on the BCT's website (northern terminus sign at Parker River NWR Visitor's Center, point "B" on Map 1A; end of Plum Island Turnpike at Newbury Beach, point "A" on Map 1A; parking area at Plum Island State Reserve, the end of the dashed line indicating possible route on the BCT map), I chose to conclude at the pavement/sand cutover at Newbury Beach, similar to other BCT FKTers before me, where I crossed onto the sand at 3:36 am early Monday morning, Oct. 31, 2022, approximately 9 hours ahead of the previous record.
I stayed as true to the BCT's marked course points as possible, so in cases where the online map or Garmin-indicated map contradicted the trail markers/blazes, I followed the official marker points. The most notable deviations between markers and online indicated route occurred in Sherborn Town Forest near Brush Hill, in Ashland Town Forest, and along the Framingham/Southborough line, where a short and steep trail section was marked west of Pleasant St (Rt 30) and dumped out at the corner of Pine Hill Rd and Pleasant. This last noted trail section was marked with blazes but its exit point through a water department gate did not appear to be indicated as BCT, so it's possible this section may not be apparent to those traversing the BCT counter-clockwise. One short trail section beside Kingsbury Club in Medfield was partially inaccessible due to a recent construction site whose high fencing blocks the exit; pictures of this area are included, and I did my best to bushwhack around the perimeter of the site to rejoin the trail just past the Kingsbury Club parking lot.
My traverse covered 225.5 miles from the sand of Bay Farm to the sand of Newbury Beach, but approximately 1.5 miles of this was wrong/missed turns in which I needed to double back. I covered 55-56 miles per day, plus the extra Plum Island Turnpike miles to the finish point past the northern terminus. I had my crew (Misfits Running, Inc.) meeting me for aid/resupply about every 10 miles depending on terrain, and I utilized several pacers (Anton Lapt, Mat Ridley, Christopher Bessin, Alison Livingston, Ted Chan, Taylor Verville, Rick Fijalkowski Viktor Huszar, and Fernando Salcido) to support me during long or very technical trail sections for safety, so aid stations were also set up before and after each pacing section. I spent two of the nights at friends' houses near the trail and one night at a hotel. I carried a light pack with snacks and Tailwind+water and also utilized hiking poles for technical trail sections.
No injuries were sustained.