2008 Multi-Day Wrap-Up

Marshall Ulrich just finished running across the United States in record time, ending in NYC the evening of Election Day.  His massive 52-day effort wraps up a great season of multi-day record runs!  

First summarized on this blog back in June, this was a big year for multi-day running.  While clearly a fringe activity, multi-day runs do capture the imagination; besides the obvious extreme aspect, their real allure might be how they arouse our yearning to “be a runner” instead of “going for a run”; to live the life of a self-propelled person fully and wholly.  Our re-cap follows; this list includes only record-attempts (non-record runs are wonderful but are not included here), and all but Marshall’s are off pavement.

Adventure Running Article

I am honored to have been asked by the Northwest Mountaineering Journal (NWMJ) to write a feature article about my adventure running in the Cascade and Olympic Mountains. It was interesting to write about myself. The article was just published so check it out!

http://www.mountaineers.org/nwmj/08/081_Pantilat.html

From the journal website:

“The mission of the Northwest Mountaineering Journal is to be an edited, permanent, annual record of mountaineering in the Pacific Northwest. The journal documents the events, people, history and spirit of climbing and other mountain sports in this region. The journal is published by volunteers from the mountaineering community in collaboration with The Mountaineers.”

Also, check out the rest of this year’s edition for great photography and awesome mountaineering trips. For more info and photos on my adventure running, visit my website.

Karl Meltzer – AT

Karl is on his 37th day on the Appalachian Trail. A few of the big questions have been answered:

Q: Will he break the record?
A: No. A very rainy New England summer meant wet feet which led to bad blisters which caused him to favor one leg which contributed to an Anterior Tibialus injury which necessitated a 4 day layoff to let it heal. This is not a soft record; one can no more take a 4 day break and still get it than one can stop and eat a watermelon during a Marathon and still win.

Q: Will he quit if he can’t get the record?
A: No again. Pre-attempt speculation arose on this point, because experienced multi-day runners knew how hard it would be to nail this the first try, and since Karl is a very successful ultrarunner, would he bag it and get out of sight at first sign of failure? Karl is soldiering on, putting his head down, respecting and honoring the sport and the Trail.

Q: Is Karl tough enough?
A: You’d better believe it.

 

Where’s Karl?

Karl Meltzer has let go of his AT Record attempt (for now) and is waiting for his injured shin to heal before continuing. I received this update from him this morning:

Well Buzz we have some issues. My Tendentious is coming around, and I hope to get back on the trail by Saturday or Sunday. This (trip) really is intense, nothing like going every day all day. It’s my next new step into the world of adventure running. I’m chalking this one up to a learning experience and it’s important to get it done no matter how long it takes, mostly to learn logistics for the 2009 assault number 2. I’m excited to start over next year already.

AT Record – Day 7

 

Here’s the update at Day 7 of Karl’s attempt to break the AT record. 

The going has been tough.  A summer of torrential rain has left the trails sloppy and slow, and it’s been raining on them since they started.  A veteran New Englander told me:  ”2008 is going to be a very tough year to break any record out here”.

However, Karl is in good spirits, continues to move well, and has great support.  His current crew chief, Marit from backcountry.com told me:

“Yesterday was the hardest day so far.  The boys got 47 miles, with almost 14,000′ of vert, and the last 13 miles were in a torrential downpour.  They got in the miles but it took 2.5 hours longer than expected.  The conditions are super horrible.  Last night was the first night Karl couldn’t smile. He’s looking gnarly.  He has on huge blister, as his feet haven’t been dry for 7 days.”

“Matt is going to stay with him thru Maine.  It’s better to have someone out there.  They are using every second of daylight, like you suggested.”

They are only 18 miles behind schedule, all from Day 4 when they didn’t take a ferry across the Kennebunk River; this is nothing considering the conditions, and Karl’s timetable thru the White Mountains was quick to begin with.  If the conditions dry out further south, 18 miles will not be a problem.

The whereskarl.com website is state-of-the-art, and the excellent blog Marit is doing includes photos, video, and more.

Karl is carrying a SPOT locater beacon that pings every 10 minutes, and is then plotted on the same website.  To find the tracking map, click “On the Trail” from the menu on the bottom left.  The forest cover is quite dense, which may have explained why the early days were not tracking well; the company sent the crew a new unit via Overnight Delivery last Thursday to make sure the problem wasn’t with the device.

A very good local story, worth reading, can be found here. 

The best background/overview of the AT Record attempt is found here.

Extra Mile Endurathon

 

     The “Extra Mile Endurathon” is sort of a bizarre event.  There’s one taking place in Boulder right now,  I just checked it out, so thought I’d share – - -

     A group of people start walking.  The group must stay together, walk at the same speed, and at pre-determined intervals they all stop together for a 10 minute break.  This goes on for DAYS, until only one person is left standing, and he or she must walk one more mile (thus the name), and is declared the winner.