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Post by Michael Popov on Oct 21, 2011 4:21:10 GMT -5
I have at least two officially established trail systems/continuous trails on my radar to go for unsupported/supported record attempts. I've run on these trail for years as a part of my training, and would like to see if:
(1) Paved trail systems are accepted by FKT.
(2) If the official paved trail can be considered for an FKT record if it's less than 8 miles.
(3) If not, why (please explain (1) and (2)?
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Oct 21, 2011 15:34:50 GMT -5
I have at least two officially established trail systems/continuous trails on my radar to go for unsupported/supported record attempts. I've run on these trail for years as a part of my training, and would like to see if: (1) Paved trail systems are accepted by FKT. (2) If the official paved trail can be considered for an FKT record if it's less than 8 miles. (3) If not, why (please explain (1) and (2)? While most of our FKTs are for trails and off-road routes, paved routes are welcome. One thing to note about paved routes, of course, is that they will tend to be on more moderate terrain with easy footing, and therefore are more comparable to other paved routes of the same distance elsewhere. For example, I think a lot of people who run the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim would wonder what's the fastest time it's been done. But, if your 8 mile bike path is just an 8 mile path somewhere, people are likely to say "Well, I can run 8 miles of rolling pavement in X minutes". So, in that sense, depending on what the route is, it might not be that interesting to people. Depends on the route. In general this site is dedicated to recording FKTs for routes that make sense. That includes FKTs for running an entire established trail (like, say the Tahoe Rim Trail, or Boulder's Mesa Trail), established or otherwise "classic" routes (for example, the Four Passes Loop near Aspen, CO), and also mountaineering routes such as summit ascents & round trip (car-to-car) runs or ridge traverses. With regard to mountaineering, I'd like to keep the site to more or less non-technical routes - technical routes are considered speed climbing, which is the interest of a generally different community. There can be a fine line between a "classic" route (which warrants and FKT) and a contrived one (which does not). We certainly don't want this site cluttered up with a bunch of obscure routes that are basically just someone's particular daily running route. But, I know there are cool routes that are paved! Thanks for bringing up the question! |
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Post by Art on Oct 24, 2011 18:05:36 GMT -5
ok I understand and agree with the non technical mountain route preference for this site.
but as always ... one man's technical is another man's Not.
where would you say technical begins for this site ?
I'm sure you don't want to give a hard fast rule, but ...
roped climbing is way to vague.
Class 3
Class 4
sporadic class 5 moves ?
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Post by Art on Oct 24, 2011 18:28:05 GMT -5
paved routes tend to be pretty generic most of the time.
I agree a paved route needs to have something unique and interesting about it to be included.
the shorter the route the more unique and interesting it needs to be.
Whitney Portal Rd, up and down ? maybe the beginning of interesting enough.
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Oct 25, 2011 17:24:54 GMT -5
ok I understand and agree with the non technical mountain route preference for this site. but as always ... one man's technical is another man's Not. where would you say technical begins for this site ? I'm sure you don't want to give a hard fast rule, but ... roped climbing is way to vague. Class 3 Class 4 sporadic class 5 moves ? There is no hard & fast rule. If it looks more like a run/hike than a climb, then it fits here. Of course that depends on the person. Not needing a rope would be a start, but of course there are people who solo crazy stuff, so you can't make a rule out of that. We have the Calif 14ers on here, and that requires some pretty stiff climbing on the Palisades. I haven't put the Flatirons (Boulder) in here, but people do run up those. Jared's run of Mt Olympus near Salt Lake probably qualifies, or does it? www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCjaKhbHMk |
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Post by Michael Popov on Nov 10, 2011 20:59:10 GMT -5
Thanks for all the feedback! I do agree with the point of more or less establishment and visibility for the given route. For example, Skyline 50k is a nationally visible 50k trail race that takes place on the regional formal East Bay Skyline National Trail, or Ohlone Wilderness 50k, that follows the Ohlone Wilderness Regional Trail, more or less. There are also official paved trails, like Contra Costa Canal Regional Trail and Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail (with official termini) that see a number of organized road racing activities that probably gather more participants per race than trail runs. If there is more people that participate in road running on official trails than in trail running on the official trails, does it mean that these road trails are more popular and interesting to people who would like to know the fastest time on that trail or should we stick to wilderness? I know that I'm opening a can of worms here, and really would not like to dilute the pristine clarity and simpleness of FKT, but it's just an idea and it's interesting where the community stands on the topic. As far as climbing - that's a whole different spectrum, including free climbing. If we measure the distance effort in miles, how would you rate Alex Honnold's Half Dome/El Capitan linkage? In vertical distance/time, or conventional distance/time? And would that include his walking distance between the two? In less extreme terms, class 3 scrambling seems like the limiting factor for the conventional FKT entries. Otherwise, someone would have to invent a whole new FKT vertical chapter. Peter?  |
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Post by Michael Popov on Nov 10, 2011 21:19:09 GMT -5
Whitney Portal Rd, up and down ? maybe the beginning of interesting enough. That is an interesting idea, Art. One can go even further - Lone Pine to Whitney Summit or in reverse (or our and back), or Lone Pine to Mammoth Lakes (great 100 miler), or even the run across California (from Stateline to Golden Gate Bridge). Sarah Spelt has done one before, but unfortunately we don't see her accomplishment on FKT. |
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Nov 11, 2011 16:07:19 GMT -5
Whitney Portal Rd, up and down ? maybe the beginning of interesting enough. That is an interesting idea, Art. One can go even further - Lone Pine to Whitney Summit or in reverse (or our and back), or Lone Pine to Mammoth Lakes (great 100 miler), or even the run across California (from Stateline to Golden Gate Bridge). Sarah Spelt has done one before, but unfortunately we don't see her accomplishment on FKT. Again, there are no hard rules about this. But, we have tended not to get into the records for running across countries, continents, states or whatever. My feeling is that FKT is more about the route than linking points. The JMT is just a classic route that backpackers have used for decades. If you wanted to run the fastest time from Whitney to Yosemite you might use a different route. That gets a little fuzzier with summits, since often people care most about the car-to-car (or car-to-summit) time than the exact route. All that said, if Sarah wants to post her run-across-CA here that's fine with me. We certainly could get into recording records like that, it just hasn't been a focus here so far. |
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Post by Slow Runner on May 24, 2012 16:56:12 GMT -5
What was Sarah's time? route? Supported or Unsupported?
SR
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