JMT speed record attempt

Okay,
So what the above means is Brett left Crater Meadows, mile 162.2 in 63:15.
This is an average speed of 2.56 mph.

He just got some sleep with 60 miles to go and has 28:45 to do it in.
This means he only has to average 2.1 mph to get under the record.

Brett is flying!!!

Even if he averages only 2.25 mph, he will beat the record by over 2 hours.
This is over the supported record too, but Brett is doing this Unsupported.
The U/S record is 101 hours 25 mins.
Thanks for the update…

I am writing from a motel where Brett's resting now. I met with him at the first bridge on the Happy Isle trail and walked to the terminus with him. He was emotional, delirious, and in pain. YAE!!! I will let him tell the final time :)

Awesome !

That is a tremendous accomplishment, I can't wait to read more about his run.

Wow!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Eagerly await the story…

Congratulations!!! Awesome accomplishment!!!
I can't wait to hear your story.

Just some quick stuff for now I still haven't slept.

First, thanks to all for the heartfelt advice given through this forum. They dramatically improved the probability of success (from 0!). Even if I didn't use someone's advice on the actual run, everything was still part of the learning process.

The times: I don't trust myself with math right now so I'll also give starting times.
I started thursday at 12:45 AM from portal and left the summit at 5AM.
I reached the trail marker sign today @ 2:58(~35 seconds) PM
So I think that makes:
time from portal: 3 days 14 hours 13 min
time from summit: 3 days 9 hours 58 min (IMHO real FKT JMT)

some other things:
Aaron–i think you mentioned the JMT cough in a previous posting. What is this disgusting yellow crap I'm coughing up? Should I be concerned? My knees are also 'very' tight and painful. I can't really walk at the moment.

As I suspected/feared, I think I burned up 'all' of my body fat at the end of the second day. Is this really bad? Funny I didn't examine the consequences of this beforehand.

Coincidentally, Ian was acclimating in the Whitney hut when I reached it!!! He was planning on starting an hour later–at 6 AM. Anyone hear anything?

The TR may take a while. I'll try to get it finished this week. I still need my car. Highway 120 is closed! :(

Brett

Great job Brett!

Can't wait to read your report. I hope you enjoy your well deserved rest.

Mark

Brett if you or your wife are still following posts…

120 is NOT completely closed..you CAN get to your car!

There is a detour set up, it's much longer, but do-able. Should be signs up. FWIW read on:

Hwy 140, west, out of park. Get onto 49 and go north. Switch to 120 east. You can then get back into and through the park all the way to the east. (These are directions posted on YNP website)

Good Luck, Rest up!

Congratulations!

I LOVE it! Some unknown kid comes out and puts his heart
and soul into this thing for the whole summer. His first
attempt he crashes & burns on Day 1, as everyone expects.
Learning his lessons, and steeling his resolve, he comes
back a month later and CRUSHES it in classic style.
Great job Brett! I look forward to the full report.
PB
(who now has the FOURTH fastest JMT time…)

Brett
Very amazing feat.
Still trying to rap my head around it.
Congratulations on a great job.

Huge congratulations for breaking both the supported and UNsupported (wow) JMT records! After you've rested up a bit, would love to read your trip report. Wouldn't worry about the cough & knee pain; both should go away in a few days. (To say, of course your knees hurt!!) :)

I think it's cool how both the PCT (Adam Bradley & Scott Williamson) and JMT overall records are now owned by people who did the trails self- or unsupported.

Sue Johnston
2nd fastest JMT time
1st fastest chick time :p

Wow. A new combined record by over 5 hours!! Sue's mark was already amazing, but you killed it!

The yellow stuff you're coughing up is "normal." Can Anything like this be described as normal? :-) Not sure exactly what it is, but probably dust and/or your body's defense against breathing so much dry air.

You've earned a long rest. Make sure you give your body lots of time to recover. Easy walking is fine, but no long hard runs for several months, at least.

Congratulations!
Brian

Brett –
Nice job staying diligent and not giving in the fears of failure out there.
Your efforts have raised the dial to 11!
Rest, Digest and enjoy the memories of the JMT…the pain will soon be a distant memory.
Borne

Way to go Brett!! I knew you could do it! See you tomorrow.

Ed

Dude! You F*cking ROCK!!!!
Congrats.

Catra
2nd fastest girls time on the JMT
Yo Yo record 12 days 4 hours and 57 min.

http://trailgirl.blogspot.com

Amazing effort and time! Brett, you deserve this trail!

Do you have the splits for the route? Would be nice to analyze those.

Looking forward to the report!

The yellow chunky stuff you're coughing up (JMT cough) is normal for this level of excertion and the conditions on the trail. It's dust/dry air/cold air, and apparently human body rejects these things in such a disgusting manner.

Get some very well deserved rest now!

-Michael

Congratulations Brett! Truly amazing. Word of your success trickled into Bishop yesterday as I was lounging around being really tired after an 8 mile run! Enjoy the moment and good luck with the recovery process. Knowing what I felt I can't imagine what you're feeling!
I'm really curious as to the air quality you dealt with. Two of the days you were out there we had some of the worst, stagnant air pollution of the summer down in the Owens Valley due to smoke from the Yosemite and Angeles NF fires and I couldn't help but wonder how that was affecting your attempt. Apparantly, not at all! Or maybe you would have been under 3 1/2 days! Again congrats man!
I've been too busy to get a report posted on my attempt but now I'm more psyched to read about yours!

Test

Hello everyone,

I've been really busy getting back to LA and dealing with the injury aftermath from the run. I will be working as fast as I can on the TR but unfortunately won't have much time until next week to work on it. I'm going to try my best to get it finished before next weekend. There's a lot to write about–a lot happened! The TR is really my only way of giving back to the community which has given me so much so I want to make it as good as possible.

I've completed the time sheet and it will hopefully appear below as a legible picture. Part of my JMT 'research' entailed transcribing all time sheets from past record breaking runs into a common excel sheet so I could do a side-by-side comparison. In the end I used Sue's (naturally!) as a template to construct my own and so I've included her times in it as well.

Great spreadsheet, Brett!

What was your gear list? Please post.

Do you have verifiers for the trail?

-Mike

Holy Toledo Brett!!!……21,000 calories a day…..that is more calories a day than I consumed during any of my entire JMT fastpacks.

A 3 day, 9 hr, 58 minute unsupported JMT….wow!!!…that is really smoking.

You boys have taken this JMT thing to a whole new level.
When I first hiked the the JMT with the Scouts in 1996 I wore waffle stomper boots hauling a 85 lb pack and cooking
oat meal and freeze dries on a wisper lite stove.

On my JMT fastpacks I always had trouble with the question
of food & sleep vs speed.
More food equals more weight which equals reduced speed.
However, More food equals more energy which equals increased speed.
Same with sleep….sleep to a speed hiker is wasted time.
On the other hand more sleep equals more energy which in turn equals increased speed.
The question is where do you draw the line?
Where is the happy medium for maximum performance?
It appears Brett has found that happy medium that works for him.

I have the same problem with this age issue…..when are you to old for this extreme stuff?
My wife insists that at one month shy of 69 I have gotten
to old for this extreme stuff loong ago and I should instead consider taking up crocheting & knitting.

Yup, you boys have taken this speed hiking to an entirely new level and I can't congratulate each and everyone of you enough.

JMT Reinhold

I have been watching this thread from the beginning. Truly stunning what Brett has done.

I want to post right behind Reinhold. I just finished my first JMT thruhike in 14 days. Plenty fast for me. However, I was able to hike with Reinhold and his wife for a number of those days. I have to think that if Reinhold was only 10 years younger he'd be out there trying to beat that record. He can still move along at a great pace even while carrying a 55 lb. pack so his wife could enjoy her trip more. He truly was a trailblazer in the speed dept. I know he could do me in at any moment and I'm not quite 50 yet.

Congratulations Brett! I hope you recuperate soon.

Scott

First of all congratulations Brett!! Truly an awesome accomplishment. Having just finished the trail on Saturday myself and returning to work today with a few aches and pains I was thinking of how you must be feeling after this remarkable feat.

Sorry to be off topic a little…

Being out on the trail and hearing some chatter from people about Jeff and Reinhold being out there was fun. I heard a few stories about Reinhold punching his food into the bear canister at VVR and packing and repacking his big pack.

Jeff: I believe your pacer may have passed me on the way up to Forrester pass on Friday the 4th on her long day out over Whitney Portal. It gave me a good laugh as she went by with her camelbak and said "It's a beautiful morning" as I huffed and puffed as a light drizzle and some hail came down. I did 23 miles that day to Guitar Lake and that was plenty for me.

This has been a great thread and thanks for sharing here on BPL.

Outstanding job Brett. Just an amazing effort.

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

I am starting the TR after this post. I will finish it ASAP but can't work on it from Fri-Mon. I want to make it complete as possible as a thank you to everyone who has helped. I can literally point to virtually every piece of gear and run strategy element and trace it back to either one of the previous record attempt runs, related threads, or this thread. Just two examples to illustrate. 1) I tried (used) Storm Dragons because Aaron had padding issues with the lighter Sun Dragons. 2) I never could find a new pair for the second attempt, and decided to use Dirty Girl gaitors (as mentioned in Sue's TR) to replace the torn ones I had. Literally EVERYTHING I know/used pertaining to this run came from scouring the previous posts during this past year.

Here's the gear list:
I changed a few items since the first attempt (e.g. trekking poles) and outright removed the following:
Clip on sunglasses (my glasses block UV)
Toothbrush and toothpaste (I knew I wouldn’t take the time to use these anyway)

Gear List
EQUIPMENT
GoLite Jam pack
Titanium goat trekking poles
Belt loop clip watch
1 fl oz DEET (never used in September!)
small compass (as if I would need this!)
two head lamps with 6 AAA lithium batteries (I needed both as it turns out)
small bottle of sunscreen
maps/splits/permits
chapstick
3L camelback
Powerade bottle (for water)
~44 Aqua Mira tablets with small scissors to cut packaging
Camera
Athletic tape
Tp
Western Mountaineering Highlite sleeping bag
3/8” thick evazote from gossamer
AMK blister kit and space blanket

FOOD
~8k calories of Hammer raspberry gel, with 2 5.5 serving squeeze bottles
~10k calories of cliff bars (21 chocolate brownie, 21 chocolate chip cookie)
~1.5k calories of Recoverite (in a nearly full powerade bottle)
~400 calories of sausage leftover from first attempt (for efficient tasty salt ingestion)
Pills/supplements: ~22 ibuprofen, full bottle (120 capsules) of endurolytes, ~8 S!caps, 8 caffeine pills (used 2), ~6 vitamins, 2 emergen-C packets (didn’t use)

CLOTHING
GoLite Storm Dragons
Dirty Girl Gaitors (purple flame design)
Injiji socks (2 pair)
Paper thin black pants with zip-off legs (I’ve had for years)
Polyester underwear
Capilene shirt
Thin long-sleeve Patagonia polyester shirt
Montbell ThermaWrap Jacket
GoLite Virga rain shell (I needed this!)
Cutoff finger bicycle gloves
Full finger fleece insulated gloves
OR white, light hat
Fleece hat