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Post by Peter Bakwin on Sept 9, 2017 9:19:06 GMT -5
Karel, Congrats on your acknowledgement from Guinness. That's a neat recognition. But, I doubt that the Guinness people carefully consider the views of the PCT community, as reflected to an extent in the thread above. I feel that the way these records are presented here provides a reasonable reflection of the "consensus" view of people with intimate knowledge and appreciation of the PCT. That is, you have the fastest time for a version of the PCT including some fairly significant reroutes / alternative routes, while McConaughy has the fastest time for the PCT proper. A similar situation exists for the JMT southbound unsupported FKT. Good luck with the GR-20!
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Post by karelsabbe on Sept 11, 2017 16:09:28 GMT -5
Hi Peter, Some thoughts from my opinion again, I'll try to list them in a clear way. I hope you can reply your opinion for each as well, as I do have questions to you about every point. I'd also like to point out that I state all these questions just as a matter of clearing everything up, and not because I want arguments or be the annoying guy. In FKT's like these there is no money to be earned, just some "honour and respect", and when people partly take that away from you I do think it deserves some discussion (before I stop caring about this particular issue that I'm having with about 2 people, and I just enjoy my Guinness World Record and carry on). 1. I think it's pretty dangerous to say that "the Guinness people" do a less good job than "the community". I think the Guinness World Record people are professionally working with records all the time, leaving no room for doubts or things that do not seem 100% correct. They checked every GPX file, every statement I made, had many questions even though my proof of the run was already a 100 page long file (with pictures, hikers signing they saw me at particular places and times, video footage, media coverage, GPX data, police officer signings, etc). I would think it's better to leave record verifications to a neutral instance, as "the community" or other people in general are usually biased. I can't help but think that when "the community" (hereby not meaning the actual community but the few people who publicly state opinions on FKTs) decides: if it's an American running it's : he has the FKT until proven otherwise, if it's a foreigner or somebody not many people know it's: he doesn't have it until he proves otherwise. See also point 2. 2. The number one proof for an FKT (and that precedes any discussion on other aspects of the attempt) is GPS data. You state that McConaughy has the fastest time for the PCT proper. Do you have his GPS data proving this? Because the GPS data he sent me must be not the same as yours. I would love to get the data he sent you and check these out for detours, because you seem to be sure that he ran every meter on the PCT. The GPS data I got from McConaughy (which I asked to create a virtual race on my live tracking page) cover only about half of the PCT and they show parts that he wasn't running on the PCT but appears to be running a detour (just for the record: did anyone actually ever ASK McConaughy if he had to take detours? Because I haven't seen him make that statement anywhere?). I have included pictures of this to be sure you don't think I just make something up. If you have his correct data, you can ignore this point (but I would still like to have that data as well :-), I could still use this for some videos I'm making on my record run and then I can still make a virtual race animation). 3. You say that the "consensus" view of the people with intimate knowledge of the PCT is that I "ran the PCT with detours", yet that is not how I interpret the thoughts and ideas of people. What I read in this thread (and on other websites) seems people are doubting on this subject too but generally want to agree in the direction that one should follow the official detours on an FKT run, and that you can claim the FKT if they do not give you a clear advantage. With my run, as I showed earlier in this thread, the detours were actually not too big considering the extreme length of the PCT (2650 miles of which less than 100 miles were closed, which ended up leaving me running 5 miles more than the actual non-closed PCT). Also with other articles where the question was posed, hikers generally agreed that you just cannot expect people to run through closed sections or bushfires and breaking the law while doing so (while I was running the PCT, some of the closed sections had a 3000 and even 5000 dollar fine on them if they caught you on that section). If you run through these sections with a tracker I don't see what would keep the Forest Service from giving hou those fines.With the current climate change I don't think there will ever be a PCT without any ongoing fire. 4. Assuming that you have proof of McConaughy running every single mile on the PCT: You say that I have the PCT record with detours and McConaughy has the PCT record without detours. 2 of my detours were long standing ones (that McConaughy also faced two years before). One was a closed section because of a past fire. Hikers have to hire a taxi that drives them around this closure and that costs them a few hundred dollars. You assume and agree that Joe just ran through this so you agree that this is the correct way of approaching an FKT? To just not care about hiker ethics and go run your run and care about nothing? Another detour was for an endangered frog species that had been standing for years. Your opinion should then also be to run through this closure, not care about this ecological impact? To me I must say this does make no sense at all offcourse, but I have been working in National Parks the entire summer of 2009 and have learned a lot about this and how important it is that when they close something that you respect this. It's easy to say that "one should follow every single mile of PCT" but I would like to see to these specific situations that your opinion is still to run every single mile. On the picture below the red line is the "proper" PCT, the blue line is McConaughy's GPS data.  Same here: on the right in the red is the proper PCT, on the left is McConaughy's GPS data.  On the picture below is the long-closed section of the PCT that I mentioned above. This entire section is just missing from McConaughy's GPS data so from the data I got from him there is no way to tell if he ran the detour or if he didn't (Big Bear area).  Yet again, I want to emphasize that I am here with good intentions and that I just want to clarify the absurdity of the situation I am facing with you and the writer of the Trailrunnermag article from a year ago. If you have answers to the above questions and with these answers want to stick to the "an FKT is only an FKT if every single mile of the actual trail is run" I have nothing to look for anymore on this forum and will just carry on with my adventures. If not, this might have been the discussion needed to update general views on FKT's and then my points have had a good cause ;-). Karel |
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Sept 11, 2017 18:57:13 GMT -5
Hi Karel, Thanks for the discussion and detailed info. This is exactly what moves the "community" along - you are of course much more part of the PCT "community" than I am! I do not know exactly what Joe did. It appears from your track that he took detours, and therefore I'll need to make it clear that he did so, as I have made it clear in your case. In that case the FKT with no detours will still be held by Anderson or Williamson, I guess. Williamson was very clear about not taking detours. As to your other points, please understand that your nationality has nothing to do with it, in my mind. Also, I'm quite sure that no one has doubted what you actually did. You obviously proved that to the Guinness folks, and that's great that you had good enough records to do that. I'm sure they require quite solid information. Again, no one doubts what you did. It's only an issue of how to acknowledge the FKT on a trail where the route is being disrupted by fires, etc.? There are differences of option on this, and strongly held feelings on all sides. My intention is only to accurately record what people have done. Then the next person can decide if he/she wants to follow the exact, official PCT, or is willing to take reroutes. As you can imagine, it is difficult to do this in a way that is simple and clear. If I put a header on top of the page, people just read that and make their conclusions from there (especially media people). Really anyone who is interested in this stuff should read through the entire thread and find out what you and others have actually done.
So, when I get a chance, I'll try to change the list at the top in a way that reflects the new information you have provided to me.
Best, PB
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Post by Ralph Burgess on Sept 11, 2017 20:42:37 GMT -5
...I can't help but think that when "the community" (hereby not meaning the actual community but the few people who publicly state opinions on FKTs) decides: if it's an American running it's : he has the FKT until proven otherwise, if it's a foreigner or somebody not many people know it's: he doesn't have it until he proves otherwise... Karel, Throwing around unfounded accusations like this does not reflect well on you, and is a distraction from the other substantive issues that you have raised. It is always going to be the case that the local community is most familiar with the intricacies, history and established FKT conventions for any route, wherever it is in the world. You are suggesting that an international committee that is completely unfamiliar with a route is the best arbiter, because the overriding concern is racist bias? All I can say is that Peter's response showed remarkable restraint. Ralph |
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Post by karelsabbe on Sept 12, 2017 2:15:33 GMT -5
...I can't help but think that when "the community" (hereby not meaning the actual community but the few people who publicly state opinions on FKTs) decides: if it's an American running it's : he has the FKT until proven otherwise, if it's a foreigner or somebody not many people know it's: he doesn't have it until he proves otherwise... Karel, Throwing around unfounded accusations like this does not reflect well on you, and is a distraction from the other substantive issues that you have raised. It is always going to be the case that the local community is most familiar with the intricacies, history and established FKT conventions for any route, wherever it is in the world. You are suggesting that an international committee that is completely unfamiliar with a route is the best arbiter, because the overriding concern is racist bias? All I can say is that Peter's response showed remarkable restraint. Ralph Hi Ralph, I did not want to throw around an unfounded accusation, but I did not explain myself more as I was focussing on other issues in my post. Please do let me explain and nuance the statement I made because the last thing I want is to be making unfounded accusations or statements. I can just tell you what I have experienced or seen after my run of the P.C.T. regarding this biased opinion of some people (but very very few people, actually being two people only: the article writer of the article in Trailrunnermag that was posted after my record run, and then secondly an article writer on iRunFar that wrote on Joe's Appalachian Trail speed record run from last week). So here I am not "generally" accusing people of being biased, but I point out these two persons in particular. Unfortunately for me they write for big magazines or websites. 1. The trailrunnermag article states: A typical thru-hike of the PCT takes around five months. Sabbe thought he could get it done in under 53 days 6 hours 37 minutes—the standing FKT, set in 2014 by Joe McConaughy, then 23, of Seattle. Here he states that Joe holds the FKT while I : "Karel Sabbe shaved 22 hours from the previous FKT, but it's unclear whether a fire-altered course is valid" We both have had to run alternatives but yet he doesn't check or mind if Joe had to do them but just assumes he didn't, while I have done these thus he starts questioning if my run is valid. This is being biased in my opinion. Especially because he then also states this: "McConaughy, who is out of the country, has not responded to emailed questions as of this writing.", yet he never corrected his article or sent Joe the same questions again for him to answer when he got back from abroad. 2. There is a biased interpretation of an FKT press release or how some people make articles of it. When I send a press release of my FKT run last year, about half of the articles titles " Belgian man claims PCT FKT" or "Belgian claims PCT FKT". To me this is a big difference from the same websites who posted on Joe's record from two years before when they title "Seattle man crushes PCT FKT", "Joe McConaughy sets new PCT FKT". By their titles they already state that the person has the record. This is what I meant with my sentence in my post before that you quoted. I 'claim it until I can prove completely that I actually have it" and Joe 'has it, unless it would be proven later that he doesn't. You say what I mean to say by this is "racist bias" , but that is not what I mean. I do have the feeling there is a slight preferation of an American speed record holder (to these two article writers) to an unknown Belgian, in this case. This is partly understandable as the PCT is a real historic American trail. 3. The article writer of iRunFar was also biased in my opinion as this was his statement after Joe's new Appalachian Trail speed record: The 26-year-old ‘Stringbean,’ who also holds the current supported Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), started on July 17 in Georgia and ended atop Mount Katahdin in Maine on August 31. [Editor’s Note: Karel Sabbe did the PCT supported in the summer of 2016, finishing faster than Joe’s 2014 effort. However, Karel took several fire detours from the PCT proper.] Firstly: he only added the Editor's Note after I reminded him of my faster run, secondly he also just states that Joe is the FKT holder and that I am not. 4. This is the only point that I make that is not based on facts, but is something I am wondering about. Joe arrives at the Canadian border and sends out a press release and all articles, including this website, go: "Joe sets new FKT". Yet nobody seems to care that he lacks GPS data to prove this and that his data only covers about half of the PCT. Imagine (and this is a dangerous word to use in these kind of discussions offcourse) that I arrive at the Canadian border with the same GPS data, meaning only about half of the run backed by GPS data. Do you think it would be treated the same way like Joe's press release? I personally highly doubt this. But please leave this 4th point out of consideration as I do not want to end up in hypothetical discussions, but I just wanted to let people think of this just for a minute and hopefully they see that there has been applied a double standard. Peter, It was never my intention to discredit Joe's record run. From the first time I reached out to him he was super friendly and helped me out in every possible way to help me beat his own record. As I have told him after his A.T. run he just did he is the athlete I respect the most of the whole world. I know he is just a superhuman, physically and especially mentally. My intention was just to try to point out that there has been applied a double standard in both our record runs. My personal opinion is that FKT wise it should not state : Scott Williamsen has the FKT and Joe and Karel ran it faster in 2014 and 2016 having to take detours. A more logical way to describe this, but that is offcourse my biased opinion, would be to state: Joe and Karel set the new FKT in 2014 and 2016. Scott Williamsen still has the fastest completion of the PCT without fire alternates. But then again: he says he walked the entire proper PCT. We should not make the same 'mistake' to just assume this as well (in order to be fair towards me and Joe), and that this should be proven as well. If it's only half a mile of PCT he didn't walk we just have to reconsider PCT FKT standards alltogether. I do also believe that the PCT is different from for example the A.T. where there are hardly ever any closures. I do understand I am making this whole thread difficult (and it does not feel good doing so) and that I keep posing difficulties (like now asking for proof of Williamsons 'proper PCT hike'), but this is something I just want to have settled for once and for all, regardless of what the outcome is, for reasons I have mentioned before. I hope the things I write are still reasonable and that they make sense. Karel |
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Post by Ralph Burgess on Sept 12, 2017 15:00:10 GMT -5
Karel,
I think you raise some valid points here. I can quite understand how frustrating it must be to have completed such a remarkable athletic achievement and then feel that you have been held to a higher standard of proof, and perhaps a stricter route standard, than others. But I think to move the discussion forward, it would be more productive for you to stick to the factual issues of exactly what happened, and the specific points you have made about route deviations, and the level of proof that you have compared to some past efforts. Trying to discern biased motivations is something you can't possibly know for sure, and accusations like that are just likely to piss people off and make them more recalcitrant.
all the best
Ralph
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Sept 12, 2017 17:04:06 GMT -5
OK! I asked Joe and he very quickly confirmed that he took all the "official" detours that were in place at the time of his run. Karel, thanks for helping to clarify the situation. There are hundreds of trips reported on this site, and it is impossible for me personally to "validate" each one, or even look critically and objectively at the data for most of these trips. I rely on "the community" to bring forward these questions & to help clarify them. That's what has happened here. Sometimes it takes time - in this case over a year! My apologies for that. I've adjusted some of the language in the main post above to reflect my current understanding of this. LMK if anything looks amiss.
What I'd really hate to see is that the PCT record goes down by a few hours in a situation where the fire detours are "advantageous" for the runner. But, it does seem that these detours are more and more the norm, so I suppose this will be an on-going issue.
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Post by karelsabbe on Sept 13, 2017 14:07:39 GMT -5
Hi Peter,
Needless to say: I'm happy things got sorted out now. One of the reasons it took over a year is that there was only one article really questioning if I had the record because of my detours (as I said before it was unfortunate for me it was one of the most popular magazines/articles). The others, and also when I was invited for podcasts etc., made it clear I was the new FKT holder. It was only last week when I read the article on Joe's A.T. speed record run and when I read the author wrote: "So you're now record holder of both the P.C.T. and the A.T." that I was like: wait... what??
I really wanted to get this sorted out hence my increased activity on this forum ;-). On the go I did realise more that for you it's not easy, also as I started browsing around other FKT's and the difficulties they pose. But I'm glad it's sorted out now. Sorry if I've been a bit of nuisance lately.
As for future F.K.T. attempts: I don't think it is very likely to happen that people will get advantage from closures. It's very unlikely that a closure ends up in a shortcut (though coincidentally 2 of my closures were, but then 4 or 5 of them were detours which in total made me run 5 miles more than the actual PCT). Most detours mean getting off the crest/ridge all the way to the valley, run around and climb all the way up again. In my case (and probably Joe's as well) these detours were on more rugged trails than the well-maintained P.C.T.
Just out of interest I checked out the closures that are now on the P.C.T. and it seems there are a very big amount of closures, so I think Joe and I were actually pretty lucky (I remember a PCTA person confirming that the summer of 2016 was a low-fire/closure summer).
If my record will be broken by a few hours, I don't think one or a few closures will have made the difference, even though you could afterwards argue for instance if it's only a 2 hour difference that one particular closure or shortcut would have made the difference. But personally I would not consider this a reason not to accept the new FKT (you can save this quote ;-) ) unless it's like a 50+ mile PCT section that becomes a 50+ mile road detour or something like that. Actually I'm glad that before setting off I didn't realise that the closures could be one of the biggest reason not to make it. I thought it'd be injury, or the record just being too strong, or other things going wrong. But if I would consider to go for the FKT again I'd be very worried for a major fire or closure.
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Post by Scott Barnes on Sept 13, 2017 23:25:05 GMT -5
Perhaps this is a silly suggestion, but re trail reroutes and standardization, perhaps one could use a site such as CalTopo to establish a map drawn baseline such that the 'official' PCT is 'M' miles with 'G' feet of gain. Then if a reroute saves, for example, 4000 feet of gain and 1.5 miles, one could find an equivalent map drawn addition to make up the distance/gain -- such as walking up and down East Vidette twice from the PCT.
It's certainly not a perfect solution, even if single track skipped is replaced with single track added. Some trails are easier than others, but at least it's a baseline of sorts to allow for approximations after reroutes such that the total distance will be M miles and G feet of gain, with trail substituted for trail and road substituted for road.
True, that might push the arguments towards, "Well, making the mileage/distance up by doing repetitions of Forester Pass is easier/harder than repetition of Muir Pass." However, that seems a weaker argument than "Your way was X miles shorter and on a road to boot."
Perhaps by getting the distance/elevation gain/trail/road numbers equal at the end of various FKT attempts, the arguments will trend ever more towards nitpicking which can largely be ignored.
Attempts can never share a relationship of identity due to the large number of uncontrollable variables (e.g. weather), but setting a baseline to allow for rough approximation after reroutes might be an improvement when it comes to comparing attempts. This is one such way, though I'm sure there are better ways.
Best,
Scott
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Post by Matthias on Oct 5, 2017 5:30:40 GMT -5
Well..according to Joe´s gps data Karel provides on his website where you can clearly see (day8 or 9) that Joe went straight through the Yellow Mountain Frog closure on Islip Saddle where Karel took the official detour adding about 20mi to the trip which is there for years. It was also there in 2011 when I thru hiked.
So When he is saying that he "took all the official detours" which is stated in Peters post above (OK! I asked Joe and he very quickly confirmed that he took all the "official" detours that were in place at the time of his run) he obviously forgot to take the yellow frog detour...
My opinion is that all future FKT attempters should respect official detours stated by the forrest service the pcta or similar organizations. Why should a fkt attempter break the rules? That is just disrespectful.
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Post by pctcurious on Oct 15, 2017 13:18:16 GMT -5
I was wondering how people can do 40 or 50 mile days in the high Sierras, especially in years with significant snow. (I noticed there's no GPS or Strava track for the toughest of your Sierra days there Karel www.strava.com/activities/637799083) I would've guessed people would make less miles in the Sierras and make them up on the flat sections, but it doesn't seem to be what record breakers said they've done. |
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Post by Tyler U on Oct 16, 2017 9:11:28 GMT -5
The Yellow Mountain Frog closure mile (390.2) can be road walked along HWY 2 and cutting through the Buckhorn campground(Old PCT detour). It is roughly 1 mile longer than the PCT. I opted for this option in 2016 instead of the 20 mile reroute that Karel took. I’m not sure why they ever changed it but it appears they changed it back to the highway due to bad erosion on the alternative trail.
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Post by Guest2 on Oct 18, 2017 9:09:27 GMT -5
I was wondering how people can do 40 or 50 mile days in the high Sierras, especially in years with significant snow. (I noticed there's no GPS or Strava track for the toughest of your Sierra days there Karel www.strava.com/activities/637799083) I would've guessed people would make less miles in the Sierras and make them up on the flat sections, but it doesn't seem to be what record breakers said they've done. All data of Sabbe on one page live.karelsabbe.com/Klik the mapsymbol next to his name and all the blue dots are clickable with exact times |
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Post by karelsabbe on Oct 29, 2017 16:41:28 GMT -5
I was wondering how people can do 40 or 50 mile days in the high Sierras, especially in years with significant snow. (I noticed there's no GPS or Strava track for the toughest of your Sierra days there Karel www.strava.com/activities/637799083) I would've guessed people would make less miles in the Sierras and make them up on the flat sections, but it doesn't seem to be what record breakers said they've done. In years with significant snow runners would just have to start later or try another year. 50+ mile days in the Sierras is brutal but thats how I did it and it got me a one and a half day lead on Joe which I could keep until the end (losing about 12 hours ending up running it 22 hours faster than Joe ). Indeed I had 2 days not tracked on Strava as my supporting friend took a powerbank but forgot the micro usb cable making it impossible for me to charge my phone at night. I then slept in the Muir trail ranch but only found a cable there in the morning so I could only charge 20 minutes. I always had a backup tracker running though, saving (and live updating ) my location every 4 minutes (that battery worked for about 4 days without charging). There aren't really any flat sections that you can push on. I kept on expecting / hoping that would be Oregon but the terrain just remained really challenging for example by days with an endless amount of fallen trees on the trail. |
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Post by Helgi Olafson on Nov 7, 2017 22:09:07 GMT -5
Hello PCT Friends.
I’ve just finished Moab 240 in October. Not an impressive time, at 105 hours and 22 minutes, but I feel I have what it takes for what is stated below.
Attempting the FKT for PCT Self Supported in 2018. I have permits. Hoping for a milder winter.
Questions on how to verify:
1. Do I need to mail all of my drops, or can I enlist a friend to mail them as I go?
2. If I have to mail all of my drops, are there any specific locations where they only hold them for a certain period of time? If there is a time limit on those specific drops, what is the time limit?
3. Verification method: I will be using a Garmin INReach Explorer. I’ll keep it charged via solar and USB battery packs. Will this be sufficient?
4. I know the fires, especially those along the PCT corridor in Oregon and Washington, are compromised. If I have to veer from the “official PCT” in any way, will my attempt be null and void, even if I stayed on foot entirely?
I want to do this right. I know that this is a BIG undertaking and I want to do it by the book. Future goals of Triple Crown (CDT and AT). I also have the Triple Crown of 200s on my calendar for 2018 after I complete the PCT.
Oh. Another thing. I have Ankylosing Spondylitis, a degenerative autoimmune arthritis and I will be using this attempt to raise awareness for AS. Exercise is medicine. “
Endurance for Ankylosing Spondylitis “
Any advice is much appreciated.
Thank you Kindly.
Helgi Olafson
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