Run The Whites Blog

Presi Picnic FKT

Presidential Picnic Women's FKT I recently bought my first gravel bike. Shoutout to Ride the Whites for hooking me up with my new Santa Cruz Stigmata! I've been spending the end of summer checking off bucket-list trail runs in the White Mountains, and the Presidential Traverse was at the top of my list. I figured that since I had a bike now, I might as well make it a picnic by stashing my bike at Crawford Notch and biking back to Appalachia. The plan was to attempt to set a new women's Presidential Picnic FKT. The previous record stood at 7:01:50. This was going to be my first Presi (and first picnic), so I didn't exactly know what to expect. I was hoping to run somewhere between 5 and 5.5 hours for the traverse and then use whatever I had left on the bike. My route plan was to go up Valley Way from Appalachia, go out and back to tag Madison, then continue over Adams, Jefferson, Clay (required for the traverse), Washington, then descend Crawford Path and tag Monroe, Little Monroe (also required), Eisenhower, and Pierce down to 302 (18.5 miles, 8.5k vert). Then once I got on the bike, I took Mt. Clinton Road over to Jefferson Notch Road, biked up to the top of the Notch, then got onto Route 2 and finished back at Appalachia (17.3 miles, 1.4k vert). View of Mt. Clay and Jefferson (with Adams peaking to the right) from the Great Gulf Headwall (not from the day of the picnic!). Shoutout to the RTW September Segment Challenge! The weather was mildly windy and socked in, but not dangerous, and although most people I saw out hiking were bundled up, I stayed in shorts and a t-shirt the entire time. Going up Valley Way my legs just wouldn't click into gear. My calves were straining and my quads were heavy. I hadn't tapered or specifically prepared for this run so I was a bit fatigued from one of my biggest training weeks ever the week prior. Eventually, with the help of a caffeine pill, my legs woke up as I reached the alpine zone. I started with one 500mL flask of Tailwind and the other empty. Once I reached the hut, the climb up to Madison felt great and my mood was high. I got water inside Madison Spring Hut and saw some friends there which was nice. I didn't stop and chat for long. The climb up to Adams felt easy and smooth. Coming off Adams though I got confused with route finding. I had the route on my watch but with the clouds and seemingly endless talus, I made some wrong turns and had to double back a couple of times. I still felt very strong all the way to the top of Jefferson. After tagging the summit, my legs started to feel a bit tired for the first time. Also, on the descent of Jefferson, I started to notice some hot spots forming on the balls of my feet. Nothing crazy, I just hoped they wouldn't get worse. I moved over Clay really well, and found the terrain to be super runnable all the way up to Washington. I was surprised by how smooth the grade and trail was; I figured the entirety of the Northern Presidentials was going to be impossible to flow on. I got to the top of Washington 22 minutes ahead of the splits for a 5:20 Presi and I knew I had a good chance of getting the Picnic FKT, and I also realized that sub-5 was also in reach. I ran by the line of tourists taking pictures at the summit sign, and began the descent to Lakes of the Clouds. At this point I was feeling ecstatic. Everything was still going pretty well. I filled up water inside Lakes and then began the climb to Monroe. This is where my legs started threatening cramping rather suddenly. My right inner hamstring, left upper quad/hip flexor, and right arch all started to get pretty angry. Power hiking seemed to be the worst, so I ended up walking all of the remaining steep climbs. Fortunately at this point, there wasn't a ton of climbing remaining on the route. Running felt okay at least, but on hiking sections I was just shuffling. Same with the downhills. I had to alter my stride because I was terrified they were going to fully seize up. Normally I think as a track/road runner originally, the Southern Presidentials would play to my strengths, so I was a bit bummed about that. All the while, my hotspots were getting worse too. However, when I got to Eisenhower in just under 4 hours, I knew that I was going to get the Picnic FKT as long as I could make it back to my bike in one piece, so I just focused on keeping moving and avoiding a full-blown cramp. I was on track for a sub-5 for sure and then began to wonder if I could go sub-4:50! Coming off Eisenhower I ate a Precision 30g chew and that was the last solid food/gel I took in because after that, whenever I burped a bunch of stomach acid came up. Up to that point, I had been alternating between 50g and 25g gels every half an hour. I knew if I could just get to the bike, I had liquid calories there (a bottle of Tailwind) so I just said screw it and stopped eating (and drinking basically, even water was weird). Eisenhower to Pierce was rough, and I was hoping the descent would be easier, but the descent down Pierce sucked. It was practically a river with how wet it was and I was kind of just falling down rather than running. Cramps were still threatening. I had also never run longer than 3.5 hours in my life so I was definitely hitting my muscular limit. Less than a mile from the finish, I actually took a massive fall in front of some poor woman and immediately my calf cramped up completely. I started to freak out because I'd never experienced cramps before, and I knew I was so close to sub 4:50 for the run. I probably traumatized this woman because I was being pretty dramatic rolling around on the ground. Eventually after a minute or two I got the cramp to calm down, and then I just got up, mumbled something like "I have to keep going," and then I took off. She looked bewildered. I made it back to 302 with a final time of 4:49:50 for the run, and was in shock that on my Presi debut I did that! All I had to do was survive the bike now and I was pretty certain I was going to get the Picnic FKT. View of Mt. Washington (also not from the day of the picnic). I had stashed my bike in the woods along with a helmet, chamois shorts, a dry shirt, and two bottles, one with Tailwind and one with plain water. I didn't change shoes because I've still got flat pedals and my NNormal Kjerags are low profile anyways. The first 20 minutes on the bike I was still living in complete fear of cramping. My calf was okay, but my right hamstring and left quad were still acting up. Eventually they kind of eased up and I was actually able to put some power into the pedals. I hadn't listened to music the entire day but I figured I earned it at this point so I threw on my trail running playlist which helped with my mood. The climb up to Jefferson Notch was pretty tough and I was just grinding in my lowest gear. I once again wrongly thought that the descent would bring relief, but for some reason the gravel felt wicked loose (and I think I was just exhausted mentally and physically) and it was just scary. Also, the hot spots on my feet hurt a lot more on the bike because I was pressing on the pedals with the balls of my feet, and every bump in the road at speed aggravated them. Finally I hit the pavement on Route 2, which was relieving for many reasons. It was also all downhill from there so I clicked into a higher gear and just pushed as hard as I could until the finish. I even started to sing along to my music! I finished the bike portion in 1:18:55, establishing a new Presidential Picnic FKT. The Santa Cruz Stigmata I used in this effort! Thank you Ride the Whites. Overall, I'm very happy with this for a few reasons: it was my first time doing a Presidential Traverse (and longest run by 90 minutes), and I just got my gravel bike, so I haven't developed much bike-specific fitness yet. I didn't do any recon on the route nor did I put together a training block or taper. With all that being said, I can definitely improve my durability for longer efforts and that would hopefully eliminate the cramping issue. Aerobically I felt strong and the pace itself felt manageable. The cramps I experienced seemed to be neuromuscular/muscular endurance related due to my lack of long runs with big vert. On the bike, I'm sure I could take off some time with a few more months of riding under my belt, both on the uphill with more cycling-specific fitness and on the downhill with more confidence on loose gravel (I was scared basically the whole time). Fueling is also definitely something I need to work on. I averaged about 53g of carbohydrate per hour across the entire effort, which was enough to avoid bonking, but probably wasn't enough to optimize my performance. High-carb fueling is not something I have any experience with yet (or really fueling hard efforts at all, my last trail race I also was barely able to eat anything because I just didn't practice it). I'm also not sure whether I was drinking enough water or getting enough sodium (3.5L of fluid and 1600mg of sodium). Final Times 4:49:50 Run 1:18:55 Bike 5:08 Transition 6:13:53 Total FKT Also, apologies for the lack of pictures from the day itself. I was too busy trying to go fast! Run GPX Bike GPX