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White Mountains Direttissima FKT Attempt Day 5. Note: full description is very long and apparently can only be seen on the web interface.

This day is dedicated to the competition. When I moved to New Hampshire, I planned to go hike the Direttissima in about 7.5 days which would’ve been the fastest time. But Andrew Drummond  went out that summer before I got here and set the time just under 6 days! That time felt absolutely impossible. I’ve spent the intervening nearly 10 years thinking I would never be able to do that. I became a runner, got much better at pure running, and eventually translated some of that into being a better mountain runner as well. After a few big outings in the past few years I’ve started to think more about the idea again. Helping to pace John Kelly  and Will Peterson on their supported Long Trail FKTs, I’ve gotten to see a bit what it looks like to push hard for a long time, and it didn’t feel as unapproachable as I expected. Thanks to Will for encouraging me to go after it, even though it’d be his record I’d be aiming at! And again, thanks to Andrew Drummond, who I’ve been chasing through these mountains figuratively and sometimes literally (I’ve never beaten him in a race!).

I awoke with a start in the dark a little after 2:30 am, having stopped just after 9pm  the night before - a lot more than the no sleep planned for this night. I had just felt so wrecked by the heat and dehydration and low calories and cumulative sleep deprivation that I seemed unable to stop myself. I got myself going again, and slowly started up the steep climb up Wildcat D. It was both not as steep as I remembered, and also too steep for me to move at more than a crawling pace. I struggled to eat, but gradually felt more normally hydrated. Any breeze was welcome, but it wasn’t what I might’ve called “cool”. I struggled up the climb under 1 mph.

Finally, I arrived at the top of the chairlift highlighted by the rising color in the sky to the north east. During the whole climb, I felt like quitting. I was moving so slowly. At 1mph, it would take me over 6 days to finish! And I knew it was going to get very hot. I already felt hot. This was too miserable, and my feet would fall apart, and everything was terrible, no good, and very bad. After Wildcat D, I continued along the ridge with more thoughts like this. I tried to redirect myself, and give myself other things to think about, but I could only think of quitting and excuses for quitting. I had a gel with 200 mg of caffeine, but it didn’t seem to make a dent. The struggle bus carried me over the pointless ups and downs on the Wildcat ridge and eventually to Wildcat A. I decided that I didn’t really care what most people think of me or why I might quit, but it’d be really hard to tell my kids that I quit because… well… it got hard. I felt like I would have just wasted so many people’s time who supported me through the training and being out here. But I still felt like I needed to just quit. I made it to Carter notch lake, filled some bottles and sat down on a log. A message from Anne encouraged me to go on - I could make it under 5 days if I went 2 mph. I was going 1mph! No way 2mph was going to happen! I decided that it just wasn’t time to quit yet, and that meant that I should get out my Day 5 snacks and distribute them on my pack. As I was pulling them out and sorting them out, I realized that I still had quite a few easier carbs in addition to the snacks I was having difficulty eating. I ate some snacks with lots of water, mixed some high-carb drink mix, and set myself up for some high carb snacks on the climb to Carter Dome, and eventually set off.

I was slow, but after I took a bunch of carbs, my brain felt like it cleared, and I stopped feeling so negative. Now this felt very doable. It’d be difficult, and it would be very hot on the road running sections to come, but I would just get through it slowly. My pace picked up, and I felt better. Then… with a gentle pop sound, the midsole of my left shoe detached from the heel all the way to the toe of the shoe. I laughed - both at the funny sound, and at the ridiculousness of the moment. I had just gotten myself through a many-hours low that was probably the deepest low I’ve had during any endurance event, and resolved to continue for my final 24ish hours. And now my shoe had  given up the ghost - one of only a very few single points of failure in my kit (shoes, pack, myself). 

I continued to the top of Carter Dome, listening to the flip-flop sounds from the shoe with comic disbelief. The shoe wasn’t stable on the rocks or any off-camber terrain, and felt like it might fully break at any moment. I sat down at the summit and pulled out my needle and thread to try to make some repairs. With a rock for a thimble, I slowly added about 10 stitches through the upper and foam but I could tell it wouldn’t hold. I didn’t have enough tape to make a decent attempt at attaching the midsole, and there wasn’t much for the tape to hold onto given how damp and dirty the whole shoe was. There was no way I thought this would hold, and I worried it’d give out while I was on the Carters, and I’d have to navigate the awful North Carter descent without any grip or cushion on one foot. This was the end. I felt relieved, but kind of silly. This was a ridiculous thing to end my effort, but it was a thing out of my control.

I had enough service to send some messages and make some calls to start to organize a ride. I hiked my way down to 19 Mile Brook TH and on the way, since it was sunny and beautiful, decided to take the 0.25 mi detour over Mt. Height, which is - by far - the best spot in the Carters.

Super duper thanks to Jeremy Merritt for picking me up!


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Joffrey Peters

Direttissima Day 5: Near failure, then failure

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