FKT Podcast

On August 26, Karel Sabbe reached the U.S.-Canadian border, officially smashing the supported record on the Pacific Crest Trail. The 33-year-old dentist from Belgium covered the 2,600-mile-plus trail in just 46 days, 12 hours, and 50 minutes—which was five days and four hours ahead of Timothy Olson’s mark of 51 days, 16 hours, and 55 minutes.  His secret to success? Not thinking about the old reco...

In 2019, Nick Fowler started touring national parks. He tricked himself into going on a 32-mile hike—his longest by far—when he wanted to touch a glacier with his hand in Glacier National Park. “The next day I couldn’t walk I was so sore,” Fowler says. “The day after that I thought, ‘That was awesome!” Just four years later Fowler set the self-supported record on the Pacific Crest Trail. Fowler jo...

America’s oldest long trail has been a hotbed for FKT action this summer, and record setters John Kelly and Will Peterson are here to dish all about it. On July 3, 2032, John Kelly established a new supported mark on the trail that traces the 249-mile length of Vermont. Just 24 days later, Will “Sisyphus” Peterson smashed the unsupported FKT. His time of four days, 11 hours and 34 minutes was only...

Escape the summer swelter for half an hour with Chris Fisher, who set the fastest known time on the Colorado Fourterneers—winter edition.  Completing Colorado’s 58 14,000-foot peaks in one push is a massive feat in itself. Taking on this challenge in winter adds a whole new level of daunting difficulty and complexity. Weather, avalanche risk, frostbite—the list of hurdles is endless. That’s probab...

While the trail running world fixated on the Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run in southwestern Colorado, David Hedges put down a performance for the ages a few hundred miles to the northwest in Colorado’s Sawatch Range. At only age 25, David completed the largely off-trail open route across the 14 14,000-foot peaks in 39 hours, six minutes, and 40 seconds. It’s the fastest time ever recorded on...

The 2023 Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run starts today. While three-time winner Darcy Piceu attempts her 10th loop around the San Juans, what better time than to listen to her and Trail Sisters founder and Hardrock board member Gina Lucrezi talk about the gender issues this sport faces. Thanks to the work of these two and other rockstars in the sport, this is the second running of this iconic 1...

Let's try this again. Buckle up, fan favorite and FKT legend Jack Kuenzle returns to the pod to bring you behind the scenes on his recent Denali FKT. Kuenzle went on a skiing record tear this year, taking down FKTs on the volcanic 14ers Mount Shasta and Mount Rainier in America’s lower 48 before making the trek out to Alaska. And he’s here to dish about it all in his characteristically humorous fa...

Fresh off their Presidential Picnic FKT, highly accomplished hiker, backpacker, and ultra runner Aubri Drake joins the FKT podcast today. While Aubri, who uses they/them pronouns, says they’re not the fastest athlete, they’re certainly one of the toughest. Aubri has 20 FKTs to their name—none over easy terrain. Hailing from the east coast, Aubri gravitates towards grueling routes in the Whites and...

Running legend Mike Wardian joins the FKT Podcast to give the inside scoop on his recent FKT across Panama—and much more. Clocking in at nine hours even, Wardian’s record across Panama doubles as the fastest run across any continent! From getting chased by dogs to running neck-in-neck with buses, Wardian chronicles the glory and the gory of traversing this route highly trafficked…by vehicles.  As...

Living “wilderness running” legend Doug McKeever joins the podcast this week to reflect on his nearly four decades in the sport. A geology professor and mountain guide in addition to a storied ultrarunner, McKeever’s tackled nearly every iconic 100-mile race in the world and recorded three FKTs in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including a speed record on Washington’s Glacier Peak. But he’s best known for ser...

Washington has the Bulgers. Colorado has the Centennials. California has the Sierra Peaks Section List—and it has a new FKT. Established in 1955, the Sierra Peaks Section List may not have the snazziest name but it may be one of the oldest, largest, and most compelling peak bagging objectives in the lower-48. Spanning 247 mountains across California and Nevada, the SPS is not for the faint of hear...

One hundred and ninety-eight episodes later, Alyssa Godesky returns to discuss her most recent mind-bending beat: setting the overall supported FKT on the New Hampshire 4,000 Footers.  That sneaky northern New England state boasts 48 peaks above 4,000 feet, and speed trips for tagging them all in one push go back to at least the 1970s. With the Adirondack 46 and the Long Trail supported FKTs under...

What’s it like to set an FKT on the heels of a six month thru-hike? Cal Swartzentruber joins the FKT Podcast to dish it out. Fresh off completing the Pacific Crest Trail—Cal’s first of thru-hike of a Triple Crown trail—Cal returned to his local trails of the south last October. That thru-hiking fitness paid off. Completing the Sheltowee Trace in an unsupported style, Cal broke not only the unsuppo...

For our 200th (!) episode, we’re jumping across the pond to catch up with Finlay Wild, Scottish resident and recent Paddy Buckley record-setter. A doctor with a passion for painting, Finlay shares his vast insight and skill on all things fell running, UK rounds, and the UK at large. With nine FKTs to his name, Finlay’s most iconic feats include the Cuillin Ridge Traverse on the Isle of Sky, the Tr...

Jeff Garmire dreamed about going after the unsupported John Muir Trail FKT for three years. In fact, he got three permits for the trail just this summer. Each time, self doubt led him to cancel the next day. But then Joe “Stringbean” McConaughy shaved three hours off of four-year-old record in the beginning of August. “[Stringbean] setting the record was really the push I needed to go give it a sh...

Fresh off her course record at Bandera, Courtney Dauwalter returns to shed insight into yet another of her outstanding performances of late: setting the overall FKT on the Collegiate Peak Loop.  Many have tried to throw down on this 160-mile link up of the Colorado Trail’s east and west alts through the Sawatch mountains. And many have failed. Armed with the power of familiarity—she can essentiall...

For the first time ever, we put FKT of the Year nominations in your hands. You, the community, decided which athletes put down efforts on routes of all lengths and with all degrees of support that deserve to be in contention for FKT of the Year. Our panel voted from that list, and host Heather Anderson is here to announce the top 10 winners. While we awarded honors to five men and five women, we t...

There may be no better way to celebrate 2022 than through the eyes of Andrea Sansone. Smashing records on Nolan’s 14, 24 hours of Colorado 14ers, and the Manitou Incline—on paper, Sansone’s year could not have gone better. But the year did not start auspiciously. Tune in to learn how Sansone went from dealing with a broken foot to breaking records. Read Sansone's FKT write-ups on fastestknowntime....

Just before 9 pm on Sunday, August 7, a 27-year-old British hiker with no fixed home arrived at his destination. The destination was the Canadian border, a stone pillar he walked 2,600 miles in 55 days, 16 hours, and 54 minutes to reach. His name was Josh Perry, and he had just smashed the male self-supported PCT.  Perry shaved by nearly 10 days off of Scott Williamson’s FKT set in 2009. Even more...

Last spring, Katie Brown notched her first FKT—the self-supported record on the Arizona Trail. She broke the long-standing record of Heather Anderson, who Katie joins today on the FKT Podcast to break down all things AZT.  The emergency room nurse from Utah first attempted the notoriously challenging trail in 2019. Storms scared her away. She returned for redemption in May 2022. Graced with good w...

In July, Jack Kuenzle flew to the UK and bought a camper van. The 27-year-old didn’t want to squander the mandatory three months of car insurance. It’s safe to say he did not. In case you lived under a rock (or simply in a camper van) all summer, Jack set FKTs on a variant of the Ramsay Round and the Bob Graham Round—two of the most iconic routes not only in the UK, but on the planet. Etching his...

What better way to explore a new place than by foot? After moving from Oregon to Asheville, North Carolina, at the beginning of the year, Julie Wallace started learning about her new home by scouring fastestknowntime.com. Her objective was simple – find local FKTs that don’t have a woman’s time. And then get after it and put a time down! This strategy led Julie to setting the first woman’s known t...

The Moab 240 starts today! As intrepid athletes embark on their multi-day journeys across the desert, catch up with the race director herself Candice Burt. Candice not only founded the Moab 240, she helped popularize the 200+ mile foot race distance. On this episode of the FKT Podcast, Candice and host Heather Anderson chat about all things ultra-ultra distance racing. They get into the vast dispa...

The Wainwrights 214 represents the 214 fells chronicalled in Alfred Wainwright’s seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Many British walkers aim to summit all 214 peaks in their lifetimes. The less sane attempt to summit them all in one continuous round. On May 7, 2022, John Kelly solidified his place in the later category by completing a continuous round of the Wainwrights – setting...

A fever forced Alyssa Clark to forgo her early April race, so a few weeks later she put her fitness to use and set an FKT on Mount Whitney instead. Alyssa didn’t just set any FKT, she went after the self-supported record on the mountaineer’s route from the town of Lone Pine. The 33-mile out-and-back involves a 12-mile road climb, a couloir filled with snow, and fourth-class scrambling before taggi...