Gave my first FKT from December 2022 another go for a few reasons. Traveling southbound is advantageous for speed as there's much less climbing (1700 ft less vert on my watch) and I had gone north the first time. A rather substantial re-route had also been established since then (taking what was formerly the RFT Bypass trail off of Tower Rd instead) which trims over half a mile/200 ft climbing. Plus the trail is fun and I wanted to do better, duh.
Run had its low points but really happy with this time. Didn't have it in mind at all during the run but wound up running the OG route (start to the Notch/40 miles) in 6:26:50, 13 mins faster than that current FKT, which was an added satisfying surprise. There were a few short wrong turns/backtracks that wasted a couple minutes. Two filter stops.