Cataraqui Trail, ON

[ejmurphy]

"The Cataraqui Trail is a year-round, shared-use recreation trail running from Smith Falls in the east to Strathcona in the west.

In spring, summer and fall it welcomes everyone from hikers to cyclists. In winter it is open to snowmobilers bearing a current Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs trail permit. Cross-country skiers are welcome to share the trail."

www.cataraquitrail.ca/#!/rail-to-trail

A friend and I are excited to attempt to run The Cataraqui Trail from end to end, West to East, beginning Sunday December 6th, 2015. I am not aware of any current FKT for this trail and would be interested to hear from anyone who knows of one. If we successfully cover all 104km of the trail we will claim an FKT regardless of our time unless we have information to the contrary.

The Cataraqui Trail "follows a section of abandoned CN Railway running from Strathcona near Napanee to Smiths Falls. Train services along this line were discontinued in 1986, the ties and tracks were removed in 1989". As the trail is now almost 30 years old I find it hard to believe that no one has run this trail end to end before now and hope to get the ball rolling by setting a standard and that more FKT attempts will follow. 

This will be a supported FKT with one crew member meeting up with us at various road crossing along the way. We plan to record this run with my Suunto GPS Ambit 2 watch, pictures and data keeping by our crew.

Thank you to all of those hikers and runners who have inspired this end to end run.

Sincerely,

EJ Murphy

[ejmurphy]

Heather Mcnie, an ultra runner from Sydenham, Ontario has set a FKT running end to end on The Cataraqui Trail(West to East) in a time of 15 hours and 13 minutes. Heather set out at 5am on December 6th, 2015 with me(Eliza Murphy) from The Strathcona Paper Mill at mile marker 104km and finished in Smith Falls later that evening at the beginning of the trail at 8:13 pm. Heather ran the final 25km with Grant Sutherland who also crewed her through out the day. I greeted Heather and Grant as they finished and Heather celebrated with a Hot Chocolate. Congratulations Heather on a strong and steady run!!

[djspafford]

I have been asked many times if an FKT has been established for the Cataraqui Trail and am unaware of one. Congratulations Heather McNie on setting the standard.