Central Sawtooth Wilderness Loop FKT

Boise Grand Slam FKT!

McGown Peak Circumnavigation FKT

Boise Grand Slam FKT

Evening Run

FKT recap
Toughest successful run I’ve had in a long time! For some reason, the whole day was just a bit “off” but I pushed through, stayed focused and on pace, and achieved what I set out to do. Of course, that short summary makes it sound waaaay easier than it was in the moment! There were probably a number of factors that worked against my body in the week leading up to the run: computer crashed at work on Monday and all the extra work to get that running again, the stress of election stuff, and a possible exposure to COVID two days beforehand that means I might have done that run while fighting the virus of the year!

Rolled out from the Jeep right about 7:45am. The first climb starts pretty much right away, and it’s nasty. I took it patiently, waiting for my body to wake up and settle into a groove. Problem is it never really did. I still managed to hit the top in 1:06.

The descent off of Heinen went soooo much better than it did this spring: additional scouting this fall, coupled with much clearer game trails (thank you hunters!), made it easy and quick to navigate the saddle to the southwest ridge. Once there, I took a new route (unscouted, but with plenty of topo map and OnX time beforehand to navigate around the one piece of private property in the area) that dropped off the ridge about halfway down to a forest road. Hit the Jeep at 2:25.

Took a few minutes to change shoes and ditch the pants I started the day in, then tackled the quick run to Cervidae. At this point I could tell I wasn’t settling into my groove like I wanted to, but I was staying on top of my nutrition, and I was slightly ahead of pace coming into Cervidae. Stopped briefly to refill water and grab my poles, then it was onto Cervidae!

I topped Cervidae in 3:45. I could see my dad and the Jeep down below where the trail connects to the highway: kinda puts in perspective just how steep that thing is!!! It’s a relatively slow descent on the west side of Cervidae because it’s so steep and the footing can be so treacherous. I was also trying to protect the quads a bit, so I stayed safe and in control. Another short stop at the Jeep to top off water, and then it was back on the road toward Lucky Peak. Traffic was much less than it was in March! I felt like the wheels were kinda coming off on that section: I was struggling to maintain the pace I thought I needed to hold, and my lungs just weren’t handling the effort. When I got to the Jeep at the Adelmann Mine trailhead, though, my dad said I was almost a half hour ahead of my projected time!

My buddy Braden joined me for the climb up Lucky Peak. I forced myself to walk the whole thing, just to be sure I wasn’t going too hard and would have a chance to reset the body and stay ahead of my fueling. Still climbed it in 1:00 from the trailhead to the top! Total time at that point was right around 6:00. Cruised down the downhill back to the highway with Braden, keeping the pace reasonable to protect my quads. Still wasn’t feeling like I had a groove, but I knew I was fine pace-wise and my fueling and hydration were still on track. I just couldn’t get comfortable with the pain. Braden had to head home at that point.

The road stretch from Lucky Peak to the dam is definitely the sketchiest traffic-wise: there’s a couple of spots with no shoulder at all, so I had to be careful! I knew I was still ok on pace, but I was starting to get a little worried about how I was feeling, and my quads were starting to complain. Once I got over the dam and headed to Bonneville Point, I really started to feel the quads. They weren’t bad to the point of slowing me down, but I knew the rest of the day would be a fight unless my quads suddenly decided to behave (spoiler: they didn’t).

I picked up two more crew at Bonneville! My mom and brother joined my dad (who’d been driving my supply Jeep all day). Dad paced me till the Kepros trailhead on his mountain bike. The road section from the Foothills Road intersection is probably the most deceptively tough section of the course: it’s a nasty uphill in its own right, but it doesn’t feel like it because it’s not enough of a climb to get you up above anything, and there are so many false flats! At this point it was a full-on battle. I was right at the pace where breaking the FKT would be possible, but not a given, and my quads were frequently doing their best to cramp. I was still fueling well and keeping up on hydration and salt, so I’m not sure what was going on.

I took off from the Kepros trailhead in the dark with my brother, JP, pacing me for the last push. Time at that point was about 10:15 total, so I had just over two and a half hours to finish under the FKT. My quads had pretty much locked up at that point: every step felt like a hot knife in each leg. I threw everything I had at the run out to Kepros mountain, thinking that if I didn’t make it to the top in less than 1:30, I’d know I was too slow and could take it easy heading back. When I hit the top at 11:30 elapsed time, it was a huge emotional boost: game on for the final charge back to the trailhead!

Calling the trail to Kepros a “climb” is actually a bit of a misnomer: it’s a ridge route with plenty of ups and downs both coming and going. Those ups on the way back were brutal, but I knew I was close and had to keep pushing.  About halfway back to the trailhead, I started believing that it was more than possible for me to break the FKT. I just had to stay moving at a good pace and I’d get it. The sound of my mom ringing cowbells as I descended the last part of the trail to the Jeep was such a wonderful thing! Total elapsed time was 12:34:47, for a 54.73 mile run (I guess my route-finding being on point this time made a difference)!

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Benjamin M

Boise Grand Slam FKT!

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Central Sawtooth Wilderness Loop FKT

Boise Grand Slam FKT!

McGown Peak Circumnavigation FKT

Boise Grand Slam FKT

Evening Run

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