Virginia Capital Trail Fastest Known Time (FKT) 51.2 miles, 6:22:12 (7/29/Mile)-Michael Wardian
2:45 AM wake up, 4:09 am start time from Richmond. Mile 51.2 to Williamsburg, Virginia
Temps were perfect, high 40s with a misty light rain.
The Virginia Capital Trail (VCT) was incredibly well marked and very runnable. I arrived with my buddy, Kyle and his friend Ryan. Took a quick picture and I headed out.
I turned on my headlamp and I started easy and worked into the pace.
My goal was to run between 6-7 hours for the 51 miles, which would shatter the current FKT of 7:14 by a wide margin.
I felt super strong coming off doing 7 50ks in 7 days on 7 continents where I broke the Guinness World Record by over 4:30 mins and last weekend I ran 50k in blue jeans for fun in 3:44. So I knew I had good fitness but wanted to test it over a longer distance.
One of the biggest climbs is coming out of Richmond and I grinded up the hill feeling the power coursing through my body and just knew instinctively it was going to be an incredible day.
This is a dangerous moment for any athlete where you can push a little too hard early and give everything back later especially if the temperature kicked up, so I toggled my effort a bit to stay “in control” but also “riding the edge”.
I love this part of any adventure where you have to keep making split second decisions that can have catastrophic consequences.
I put on some music, I planned to listen to a book (Morning Star by Pierce Brown) but AC/DC Thunder Stuck was needed and then Metallica followed by Zach Bryan and some Americana.
I felt pretty great the entire run just really strong. I had some people that jumped in to make the run even more special.
Huge 🙏 to Ryan for pacing me for a few miles, David for biking with me for 15 miles and Jeremy for bringing me home the last 7 miles.
My buddy Kyle, was crewing me and hooked me up with food and a place to stay
I loved the VCT and highly recommend it for any runner. It has a lot of character and history.
Huge 🙏 to everyone that followed along and my sponsors for allowing me to keep chasing dreams.