December | 2013 | The Ultimate Direction Buzz

“Let your instincts guide your steps … he’ll take you where you most love.” – Kilian Jornet

For several years I have maintained a simple website dedicated to recording and documenting Fastest Known Time (FKT) efforts on various trails, routes and mountains. “Fastest Known Time” essentially means the same thing as “Speed Record”, while acknowledging it is the fastest time that we know about, as some may have been forgotten or not reported. By making this information much easier to share, the Internet (with help from my site), has probably made possible the explosion of FKT-style efforts over the last few years.

2013 was huge for FKT attempts, and may represent the start of new era for this niche activity within the overall sport of mountain, ultra, and trail running. We now are now seeing elite runners make FKT efforts a central focus; they are putting as much effort into an FKT as they would for a race. This has, of course, resulted in some impressive times on some classic routes!

What follows, in no particular order, are my picks for the Top 10 FKTs of 2013. Links are all to pages on my FKT site, which will direct you to further information about these remarkable trips. What are YOUR top picks?

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By Sage Canaday

I’ve been training and racing year-round for 15 years. In the last year and a half I’ve been competing as a professional Mountain-Ultra-Trail Runner, and in that short time have become fascinated with the culture, community and history of this sport. I’ve already learned a great deal from long-time ambassadors such as Buzz Burrell and Scott McCoubrey, whose trail running roots go back to before I was even born. Guys like these, as well as super-star ultra runners like Scott Jurek (amongst many others) have helped pave the way for what the sport is today. I greatly respect and appreciate these individuals’ contributions to US ultra-trail running, and their stories of the past have provided me with context to understand how the sport is evolving now.

I believe that the sport has recently undergone some dynamic changes. A new kind of runner has emerged … a type of runner that will break course records, compete internationally, and rely heavily on support from sponsors as well as prize money from races. This is what I call “the rise of the MUT Runner”. What is this person’s background, and what are the concerns and benefits of this development?