Today’s run was inspired by Michael Wardian, when I saw he established this fkt in August. it’s near my inlaws’ house, and although I visited them just a couple weeks after it was established, it was way too hot to want to run it then. So I came back and gave it a crack during much nicer running weather (mid-30s vs low-100s), but also when I’m pretty out of shape. And to put it mildly, Wardian set the bar very low, clearly jogging, and included a 10-min stop at Royal Farms - which made his run self-supported, while mine was unsupported.
Anyway, regardless of the low bar set, my usual lack of fitness this time of year meant a sub-Wardian wasn’t a sure thing. I felt okay on the way out, surprising myself in 71 min for a 7:50 avg pace, and 2:30 behind the ghost of Michael. But I passed that ghost while it re-fueled at Royal Farms. I thought I could probably run sub-70 min on the way back, so I gradually increased the tempo for the next 9 miles, fueled by Michael’s voice getting fainter and fainter. I came back in 66:30, for a nice little 4:30 negative split (30 sec/mi), and 11:11 ahead of Michael’s ghost. So while I now hold the unsupported and overall FKT, fear not, as Michael still holds the self-supported FKT. And I imagine the next time he’s in DE, he’ll rightfully take back his FKT. But for now, I thank him for creating the route, and agree with his assessment that miles 7.75-10.25 weren’t very fun.
As for today’s fueling, I snacked on 9 Trader Joe’s Scandinavian Swimmers (20 cal each) and 3 York peppermint patties – 2 regular and 1 Christmas tree (50 calories each) for a total of 330 calories, and drank about 15 oz of triberry nuun. And I was very pleasantly surprised by my out of shape body. I know that lifetime fitness/miles play a big role in longer runs (much more so than short stuff), and it’s fun to see that in real time. This would be a fun route to go for sub-2 when fit and with good weather.
Also, the route distance on its FKT page is mislabeled as 17.98 km - it should be 17.98 miles.