“My first ever Turkey Trot”
Unsupported Ouachita Trail FKT
223 miles
2 days 22 hours 40 minutes
Finally.
This was my 15th attempt at setting the overall FKT on the Ouachita Trail. (It’s also the very first place I’ve ever attempted an FKT.) I’ve broken a foot out here, I’ve torn a quad out here, and I’ve puked so many times around Queen Wilhelmina State Park that I’ve renamed it to Queen Will-I-Throw-Up State Park. Most importantly, I’ve learned a lot out here.
I’ve always attempted going eastbound, to do the more technical portion of the trail on fresh legs—but this time I switched it up and went westbound to knock out as many fast easy miles as possible before slowing down in the tough stuff (Yes, thank you to everyone who has suggested I try the opposite direction. Sorry it took so long to listen.) In hindsight this strategy also likely worked as I had easier/less elevation gain while my pack was at its heaviest, and by the time I got to the Oklahoma side my pack was much lighter weight easing the burden on the difficult terrain.
Three day weather window with a low of 31 and a high of 55. Fall has more leaves obscuring the trail, but it’s less wet = drier feet and less humidity for the chafing monster.
Day 1:
- 11:42pm start on 11/25 (attempting to finish before the 2” of rain forecasted for the night of the 28th.)
- Nausea
- Chafe
- More chafe… (but I brought a 1lb anti chafe kit—including, but not limited to, Lidocaine.)
- 88 miles in 23 hours
- Slept for 4 hours
Day 2+ (final push, no sleep) *Thanksgiving
- 135 miles
- Mountain lion in the dark
- Attempted a 30 minute nap but couldn’t fall asleep
- Heavy rain for the final 8 miles. I wasn’t fast enough to beat the storm.
- End on 11/28 @ 10:22pm
Thanks to Katie for the inspiration to get it done since she broke the overall women’s record via self-supported on her first attempt.
Special thanks to Kristy. She saved me at the end. I was freezing cold, wet, shaking, thirsty and starving when she rolled up. (And now I’m lying down on her couch wearing her purple Unicorn Onesie as a set of dry clothes while I type this up.)
Thanks to Matt Pruitt for setting something stout to chase after.
Even more special thanks to Hannah for believing in me, encouraging me, and putting up with my seemingly endless FKT attempts out here. Now we can comfort camp the crap out of the OT in the slowest manner possible—maybe even take some zeros.