A Season of Record Attempts

With good weather comes the increase of practicing of all outdoor sports (at least those not practiced on snow). But, besides the increase of training runs and the holding of most competitions, there are athletes who take advantage of the weather to set their mind on new challenges and marks. Trail/ultra running is not an exception and this year there are quite some attempts, already finished, undergoing or scheduled. Here you have a few of them (it does not pretend to be a thorough list of all of them. For this, I totally recommend FKT, Peter Bakwin’s website):

Corsica GR20: Catalan athlete Kilian Jornet overcame his first challenge out of the official competitions. At his 20-year-old, Jornet has an impressive track record, being the 2007 and 2008 World Skyrunner Series champion and having smashed last year’s UTMB course record. In mid June he beat Corsica’s GR20 record (until then, in the hands of Pierrot Santucci), one of the toughest mountain courses in Europe in a total 32:54:24. Details on this, in the article “New Record on Corsica’s GR20 for Kilian Jornet“.

South Beyond 6000: Ultrarunners (and members of Team Inov-8) Rebekah Trittipoe, Jenny Anderson and Anne Lundblad challenged themselves with the summiting of 40 North Carolina peaks that stand in excess of 6000 feet in elevation. The three women reached the last summit on June 16th, totaling 6 days, 13 hours, and 31 minutes and 261.6 miles. Their fantastic accomplishment is well documented on the dedicated blog and a ton of great pictures can be found here.

Colorado Trail: David Horton is currently on his way to break the CT supported speed record! The attempt to beat Paul Pomeroy’s current time of 8d12h14m (July 2008) started on July 4th and so today is day 6 for him. Horton, 59, is running east-to-west supported by former CT record holder, Jonathan Basham in his entire attempt. Despite some stomach issues and a deep blister Horton is doing great, is on schedule (he plans to better the mark by 2 hours) and reporting everyday the latest developments. Clark Zealand is doing a great job providing info on the attempt, with daily roundups on eco-xsports.blogspot.com (audio and pics) and frequent updates on twitter.

John Muir Trail: two different assaults to the JMT are ahead in the upcoming months. First, Michael Popov, who set the current unsupported record in 2007, will try again after having to quit last year’s attempt to better Sue Johnston’s supported record. His challenge will start on August 3-5 time frame.
Then it will be Kilian Jornet’s time to face the JMT. This second effort on what Salomon (his sponsor) has called Killian’s Quest will start in late September.