This was my third attempt at the 100-mile distance. The greenway is a great training ground because stocking supplies along the route is fairly easy. I placed small dropboxes of protein shakes, snacks and extra water in Washington, Pitcher Mountain, Nelson and at the Dublin trail head. I also kept a battery pack and headlight at Monadnock for running through the night. Friday I was very lucky, I stayed in Sunapee with a friend who was housesitting, woke up and drove 15 minutes to the base where I parked my car for the trip. I walked up the ski trail on the four-wheeler tracks rather than taking the hiking path thinking that I would save some time and add it to the total mileage of the trip. I ended up just closing the activity at the top and starting my activity at the true summit. So much for that idea!
The day was hot but very windy which kept me cool, to be honest, the day was very quiet. I almost punted a porcupine coming around a corner in Pillsbury because the bushes were high but otherwise saw no animals through or people through Washington, Stoddard or Nelson and only a single deer past the farm with all the cows, Seaver road. I mixed up one turn on my way down right before route 9 where the trail veers to the right through tall grass and ended up on route 9, going around to the left of the pond instead of down Nye road. This added .35 miles but after reaching the highway it made sense to reconnect to the trail on the other side instead of back tracking up the hill.
After continuing past Nelson and getting to Monadnock, it was still light. I was able to resupply with my headlight, batteries and mace in my pocket and summit Monadnock, the winds were still high and I descended shortly after making it.
There had a been a massive bear on route 9 so I wanted to stay prepared with mace. Night came, I passed Nelson with slight knee pain and put on my copper brace which was almost immediate relief to my surprise. Coming through Stoddard I did encounter a bear right as I was turning up towards Parker hill, but ran off with no issues. This really powered my miles back to Pitcher mountain, running from the bears I kept seeing in every stump!
Resupply at Pitcher mountain went smooth and knew I was going to finish at that point. I had felt different on my other attempts at the same point on the trail, and this time I felt fresh for being so far in. I paced myself through the Andorra forest, slogged down the declines into Washington, stopped for a 15 minute nap and a protein shake and started the trek to Lovewell.
After that summit and decent down to Martin road, I was getting into a big calorie deficit. I dropped any gear I could. My bladder that had no water, extra bug spray, an empty coke bottle. I kept two disposable water bottles, one with Liquid IV and tailwind and one plain, half a protein shake and some oreos. The whole trek to Lucia's was just a fever dream, Saturday was so hot and after Lucia's I could see the end but started to bonk. My legs threw themselves on the ledges a few times, but I dry scooped a liquid IV packet and swallowed the last of my water and got through the last 3 miles. After summitting Sunapee, I walked around the top for a few minutes because I didn't want to waste the opportunity to hit a hundred miles for the first time. That's all! First attempt at any "FKT", thank you to Dan for setting the mark for a long effort.