Morrison

Annual pre-turkey day beer mile

Commute

Cheluna

Denver Orbital Trail (DOT) is a route that circles around the Denver metro area and has little bit of everything - steep technical trail, gorgeous singletrack, gravel paths, and paved bike paths. When saw it listed on the FKT website (https://fastestknowntime.com/route/denver-orbital-trail-co), the logistical challenge of the route appealed to me. Different sections of the trail are maintained by different organizations and have different opening/closing hours. Often, these hours are based on sunrise or sunset which makes a strictly legal FKT on this route a bit tricky to pull off.

Last year, I needed a project to look forward to after Run Rabbit Run. This caught my eye, especially the logistical challenge tickled my nerd brain. So I looked up all the opening/closing hours of each of the different sections and wrote a python script to see what times are possible for different parameters like pace, elevation, dates, starting location, and direction of a continuous FKT attempt. Of course, it is possible to do the route in any random discontinuous order, but a clean continuous order appealed to me more. I figured closer to 60 hours (elapsed) is possible for me if I do it in August or September. Black Bear and Hildebrand are closed Feb-Jul each year for raptor nesting season, so doing the attempt during longest daylight days (Jun-Jul) is not possible. Deer Creek being closed last season due to forest fire damage made the dates for the FKT attempt uncertain. When Jeffco announced that it will be open on Aug-1, that helped me decide on Aug 1-3 as the dates of my attempt. 

I floated the idea of an FKT attempt to some friends over the last several months and was able to recruit several of them as crew. I mapped out the segments and set the starting location and direction to give me the best chance of making it through each of the sections during their official opening hours. The crew of almost 30 people really rallied around the plan and I set off at 6:00:08 AM on Aug-1 from York Street Pavilion and went clockwise. The first day felt steady and I was able to keep ahead of my target pace throughout. We got a little drizzles a couple of times and some thunder too, but nothing major. In fact, it helped keep the temps a lot more manageable. I ended the day near Ken Caryl Ave around 9:43 PM. There were a couple of trail construction detours in the first half and a Red Rocks show which meant I had to take some detours that added about mile or so more than I had anticipated. So far so good, everything is on schedule - sections 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 1, 2, 3, 4 are done. 

Continued on day 2 activity write-up...

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Theja Putta

DOT - Day 1

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Morrison

Morrison

Annual pre-turkey day beer mile

Commute

Cheluna

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