Karel Sabbe supported attempt

[pbakwin]

Is there Strava Data for Gorham to Katahdin?
Filling that in would get it pretty close to complete.

They didn't post to Strava for 8/23, but they have 8/22 & 8/24, so those establish the start and end points for 8/23. 8/22 ended just where the AT leaves the road after crossing the Androscoggin River.

[Odd Man Out]

Yes I used the tracker map to determine where he stopped each day and recorded that spot as close as possible in the data set that I have. I do believe I have the 2018 data set that matches what is posted on the atdist website, but with more resolution (data points). If you add up all the daily numbers in my data, it adds up to 2190.9, which is the exact same number for the entire trail from the atdist web site. I believe the day's miles reported by Karel on his Facebook posts were from his tracker and were consistently lower than the atdist web site data (on average 97.7% of the AT data). I converted km to miles to 4 significant figures, one more than the at data and two more than Karel reported, so that would not be the cause of any discrepancy.

As for why there is a difference between Peter FKT's data and my data, I am not sure. It would appear that we are using the same base set of data. This is suggested by the fact that the total miles for both data sets from Springer to day 39 (Karatunk ME) are 2039.7 mi (same as the ATdist website). Perhaps there are differences in where we recorded his start and stop times for the day. For example, If Karel started running before 4:30 AM, I did not attribute those miles to the previous day although technically they would have been. Doing that would have been too annoying.

You can check to see why the number don't quite match by picking a day where there is a difference and comparing to your numbers. For example, day 29 is one of those where Peter (FKT) and I differ. This is a day when there were no gaps in the tracker data, at least not at the starting and stopping points. The map clearly shows him going from Cornwall Rd CT to Jerusalem Rd MA on that day. My data set says these are at mileposts 1484.3 and 1541.1 for a day's run of 56.8 miles. Peter shows 54.9 mi for that day. The biggest discrepancy is in the next day. Some of that is due to the fact that I had his stopping point for day 30 wrong. The map shows he stopped at MA 2 (I had previously had that day ending a couple miles earlier). This may have been due to missing data that filled in later and I didn't go back to check on. My data set shows MA 2 at milepost 1593.5 so the distance from Jerusalem Rd to MA 2 is now 52.4 miles. This is closer to Peter, but still not the same.

[Just Bill]

Close enough.
It's all a (very good) guess on this one. I think you explained most of the minor variation in that you have a better data set. AtDist is handy... but not as good as having a full guide.
There are some minor typo's on Peter's side too. That .5 miles on day 19 and again on day 27 that don't match atdist.

There's always a bit of 'float' ... you can use the south end of Damascus (470.1 per ATDist) or figure him a bit further north as you both seem to have depending on how far you want to figure he walked through town.
Same happens often enough when you hit a larger road/highway crossing that could go .5 miles or more either way depending on if you use the NOBO or SOBO crossing.

And I agree- easier to count periods of movement rather than exact FKT days. Annoying and unnecessarily complicated.

The bottom line- regardless of minor interpretations of exactly where or what .10 of a mile he was at based upon the tracker... both your sets catch up with each other every few days. Really well given the tracker was the only really reliable reference and that takes some head scratching on everyone's part to chose both the right ping to observe and then tie it to a mile marker in whatever guide you're using. So Kudos to you both.

Revising Peter's gorham to caratunk with his strava cross reference cleans that up a bit... but you both have him there when he popped up regardless of how he got there.

Even if the tracker was working perfectly- things get screwy from there no matter how you want to count it when you look at extended pushes for the finish.
Even when you know what's going on that's a bit of a coinflip on where you want to count a "day".

Was just emailing with Joey a little about that... leaping off the line or charging the finish it's all one blended push and the final time is the final time regardless.
A big part of what made knotts hike such a mess was that he did lots of overnight pushes or extended surges which messed him up more than anyone really.

Overall- we got a pretty durn good idea. This isn't chemistry or physics and it should stand up just fine to peer review by hiker trash.
There are not any glaring inconsistencies or reasons to think he wasn't where he was supposed to be +/- a mile or so. That's a pretty high standard for these overall.
I expect to see some understandable translation issues when/if his trip report comes through.
Given his tracking woes and the distance issues even if all worked as planned it still would have been off.


I don't even speak english, my 'merican is pretty good, my metric not so much.
Karel is doing dutch, german, french and English so nothing but respect from me, lol.


Maybe he and Joren will convert it better in the final... but if not; having a split sheet will be a big help when it comes time to cross reference his hike.

[Karelsabbe]

Hi all! This is Karel aka Deerfoot (or Duvel, Swiss Watch, Belgian Blur etc :-) ). I registered to this forum a few days ago but it took a few days to get accepted. Anyway I wanted to say I enjoyed the Whiteblaze discussions that reached me through my crew. The AT community seems to be bigger than the PCT one. Over there we tried to reach out many times but hardly found local contacts or interested people which made that record come as a surprise to everybody. It was nice to see that this one was closely followed and speculated upon from the start.

It's a bit late now but I'm still open to answer some of your questions if you still have those. I have put on the trackers in Portland, ME where they loaded the buffers and put those online (no 4G in Millinocket). Hope that settles that now.

As for the SB / myself comparison: I will be the first one to say that his effort was even more impressive and I can also admit i wouldn't be able to go through that kind of hardship (being lonely, the lack of food, etc) but I do know that my record run stands out as well and it feels good to have set such a solid record. I just look forward to somebody going for the PCT or AT record as I'd love to follow these runs from the first row. As Bob / Trailrunnerguy points out: there are definitely some evening miles to make a difference but I felt very strong and fast throughout the entire run. On many days other record runners would just arrive over an hour later because I was in such a good flow.

Having ran the PCT was such a help - for example it took Harvey 10 days to realise a chair at a meetup is a bad idea because it makes you break longer. We knew those kind of things from the start.

As for SB and myself: we've been in touch during the run as well and are considering running UTMB's PTL race as a team - how awesome would that be.

As I've already said it was a privilege hiking / running this trail and it was nice to be a part of the community. I'm never forgetting this experience! As you know my crew (especially Joe) was awesome and they were great from the start. Motivating me and pushing me, and keeping me injury free. The next supported runners will need a very good crew to match mine!

Of you have questions post them below and I'll answer them soon.

Best regards,
Karel

[SteelCut]

Karel, Welcome to WhiteBlaze.

I am blown away by your effort. Congratulations on stellar run.

I'm surprised that you didn't hop on a plane and run UTMB. But, you might have been a little tired ;-)

[gbolt]

Karel,

You past us during our lunch break at the bottom of Hay Mountain! Congrats on your Summit and congrats to your support crew that was so nice to the normal Thru Hikers at the various road crossings. Just wondering if you had any bad weather or heat during the run through the mid states? Also wondering, Did your crew lie about how far ahead of the record you were the last three days? (On trail we heard you were ahead of the record by day's, but then the day you past us, the word was that you had to finish the next day to beat the record).

[CalebJ]

Also wondering, Did your crew lie about how far ahead of the record you were the last three days? (On trail we heard you were ahead of the record by day's, but then the day you past us, the word was that you had to finish the next day to beat the record).

He broke the record by over four days, so I'm not sure what you're trying to ask.

[chknfngrs]

Mussels From Brussels. Did that ever enter the trail name arena?

[matthew.d.kirk]

Hi all! This is Karel aka Deerfoot (or Duvel, Swiss Watch, Belgian Blur etc :-) ).

Congratulations Karel! And thanks for stopping by to answer questions on WB. Fantastic performance and thank you for the transparency. How's recovery going? Your consistency was mind blowing. Any near misses with injury/illness? What do you attribute to sustaining your health on the trail?

[SteelCut]

Karel,

I'm curious about your logistics. How many nights did you camp on the trail in a tent or shelter; how many nights camped at or near road crossings; and how many nights in a hostel, hotel, or someone's house? You seemed to have had a small support team. Can you give more details about the team ?

So far I've only looked over some of your Strava profiles from the last part of the AT. But, how much of the trail would you say you ran versus hike/power hike ? For sections that could be run, did you have a pace that you targeted (km/h or minutes/km) ?

Did you have any injuries along the way that your had deal with ?

Thanks.

[gbolt]

He broke the record by over four days, so I'm not sure what you're trying to ask.

Exactly, did he know he was three to four days ahead the last two days, or did his crew tell him differently?

[TrailRunnerGuy]

Exactly, did he know he was three to four days ahead the last two days, or did his crew tell him differently?

When I met him, and from a couple FB videos I saw him do, he seemed very aware of his standing and what he needed to do. I find it almost impossible for him to believe that he dropped to barely ahead of the record when he had literally no bad days. It seems you are basing this on "word on the trail", whatever that is. Maybe a couple random out-of-touch hikers, and you are believing they had something of substance? Maybe they misunderstood something coming from his crew who are not native English speakers (though the Karel and his crew member in VA were very fluent)? Or maybe they were just busy or being a little modest, like, "he's a little ahead of the record"?

[putts]

Another Congratulations to Karel! I am curious, and don't know if it has been answered anywhere else - How was the Kennebec crossing done? (A.T. ferry, private ferry, or swim/ford) I know Warren Doyle helped out with logistics and support, and also strongly advocates fording the river.

I don't want to stir up a heated conversation about the subject, as can happen here and could be another thread if it needs to be debated ...again. I am just curious. AND amazed at such an amazing accomplishment.

[Karelsabbe]

Haha, it did very briefly cross my mind. But it is best to give it 120% and then in the future I can give it 120% during the UTMB :-).

[Karelsabbe]

Karel,

You past us during our lunch break at the bottom of Hay Mountain! Congrats on your Summit and congrats to your support crew that was so nice to the normal Thru Hikers at the various road crossings. Just wondering if you had any bad weather or heat during the run through the mid states? Also wondering, Did your crew lie about how far ahead of the record you were the last three days? (On trail we heard you were ahead of the record by day's, but then the day you past us, the word was that you had to finish the next day to beat the record).

We did have some bad weather but we always looked at it in the positive way. My main worry was extreme heat / humidity. But everytime where I started feeling it was really heating up and where it would have become an issue, it poured down heavily. The trail was flooded pretty often during my run, but mostly I was happy that I wasn't running in extreme heat. We were also pretty lucky that the rainy days were very concentrated so I didn't have multiple days in a row of rain. Some days it did get hot of course, but on those days I managed to run with a wet shirt all the time. There were plenty of streams or meet-ups with my crew so running with a wet shirt cools you down very good.

As for your other question: my crew had been honest about how much I was ahead of record the way you are questioning it. What they didn't tell me is that they were getting me ahead of an "ideal schedule" that Warren had sketched for us. I was thinking often that days were very hard but that it was okay because Warren - with his immense knowledge of the trail - would only schedule realistic days. About a week before the end Joe told me I got ahead of that schedule and that I could make it in sub 42 days.

[Karelsabbe]

Congratulations Karel! And thanks for stopping by to answer questions on WB. Fantastic performance and thank you for the transparency. How's recovery going? Your consistency was mind blowing. Any near misses with injury/illness? What do you attribute to sustaining your health on the trail?

Thank you ! Recovery is going slower than expected! But then again - it's only been about 10 days since finishing. I get more stiff every day (there was a long flight back home in those days) and it was definitely better when I kept running. This weekend I'll go for a cycling tour and this should loosen my muscles up a bit. Feet are numb but this will take 2-3 months again (I also had this after the PCT).

Near misses: a fall is always scary, I went flat down a few times but without harm. Didn't feel sick the entire attempt and when I would start feeling something (a knee, an ankle, a hip,...) that would usually pass after about an hour. In the evening I would tell Joe (who's a physiotherapist) about it and he would focus on that area and tell me some preventive things I could do on the go. I iced my shins about 3 out of 4 evenings.

Staying healthy was mainly because of my sleep I guess. I averaged around 7.30 hours a night, if not more, and felt very recovered every morning. I did take some supplements like Magnesium, BCAA, protein recovery shakes, Omega-3 and 6, ... I was also very well rested before I started the attempt. I also was able to keep my weight (or loose not too much weight, I'd say about 9 pounds) which also helps in staying healthy. I remember Scott got very skinny and thus vulnerable.

[Karelsabbe]

Karel,

I'm curious about your logistics. How many nights did you camp on the trail in a tent or shelter; how many nights camped at or near road crossings; and how many nights in a hostel, hotel, or someone's house? You seemed to have had a small support team. Can you give more details about the team ?

So far I've only looked over some of your Strava profiles from the last part of the AT. But, how much of the trail would you say you ran versus hike/power hike ? For sections that could be run, did you have a pace that you targeted (km/h or minutes/km) ?

Did you have any injuries along the way that your had deal with ?

Thanks.

I made my reply and then my browser closed - so here I go again.

My crew was :
Week 1 Joe + Joseph (and Leonie for 3 days, Joe's girlfriend and Emma's sister)
Week 2 Joe + Thomas
Week 3 Joe + Kristian
Week 4 Joe + Kristian (with Emma from 4.5 weeks)
Week 5 Joe + Emma
Week 6 Joe + Emma (with Joseph, a friend from Montreal the last 4 days)

We had a SUV with a roof-top cargo bag so we could store everything. We slept in tents and every now and then in a hostel or hotel (this was about 9 times). When we slept in tents it was usually at a (gravel) road crossing because logistically this was a lot easier than hiking in with ice, water, etc. We camped a few times at campsites like the one near Mizpah hut.
We slept in a shelter once, in the Smokies.

Ran vs power hike: I ran way more than I was expecting to. I heard a lot about how rough the trail was but all-in-all I found it pretty runable until Moosilauke. Then I found it hard until the end (probably also because I was getting tired). For a very long time I was able to calculate at a speed of 6km per h. I would usually run everything that was flat or slightly uphill and then would powerhike technical sections and steep sections. I would only eat / drink (with some exceptions of course) during these powerhike moments to try to run as much as possible during the runnable parts. I would say I have run roughly 65% of the time but it's hard to tell !

The target pace was usually 6km/h then I had the feeling I was cruising.

I have replied to this in the comment above - no injuries ! This saved me at least a day and a half off the record pace.

[Karelsabbe]

I made my reply and then my browser closed - so here I go again.

My crew was :
Week 1 Joe + Joseph (and Leonie for 3 days, Joe's girlfriend and Emma's sister)
Week 2 Joe + Thomas
Week 3 Joe + Kristian
Week 4 Joe + Kristian (with Emma from 4.5 weeks)
Week 5 Joe + Emma
Week 6 Joe + Emma (with Joseph, a friend from Montreal the last 4 days)

We had a SUV with a roof-top cargo bag so we could store everything. We slept in tents and every now and then in a hostel or hotel (this was about 9 times). When we slept in tents it was usually at a (gravel) road crossing because logistically this was a lot easier than hiking in with ice, water, etc. We camped a few times at campsites like the one near Mizpah hut.
We slept in a shelter once, in the Smokies.

Ran vs power hike: I ran way more than I was expecting to. I heard a lot about how rough the trail was but all-in-all I found it pretty runable until Moosilauke. Then I found it hard until the end (probably also because I was getting tired). For a very long time I was able to calculate at a speed of 6km per h. I would usually run everything that was flat or slightly uphill and then would powerhike technical sections and steep sections. I would only eat / drink (with some exceptions of course) during these powerhike moments to try to run as much as possible during the runnable parts. I would say I have run roughly 65% of the time but it's hard to tell !

The target pace was usually 6km/h then I had the feeling I was cruising.

I have replied to this in the comment above - no injuries ! This saved me at least a day and a half off the record pace.

Joseph, Thomas and Kristian were running about a marathon a day with me. They were training for UTMB (Joseph, Kristian) and the Goretex Trans-Alpine run (Thomas). They were company-keepers rather than pacers as they didn't have to watch our pace or time - we always went with the speed the A.T. would allow. Towards the evening this would be a bit more like pacing as I would slow down and they would run ahead and I would have to hurry to keep up with them (without overdoing it). It was a great help to have somebody to talk to on the run!

[Karelsabbe]

Another Congratulations to Karel! I am curious, and don't know if it has been answered anywhere else - How was the Kennebec crossing done? (A.T. ferry, private ferry, or swim/ford) I know Warren Doyle helped out with logistics and support, and also strongly advocates fording the river.

I don't want to stir up a heated conversation about the subject, as can happen here and could be another thread if it needs to be debated ...again. I am just curious. AND amazed at such an amazing accomplishment.

Thanks! I was doubting about the crossing as there are A LOT of signs saying you shouldn't do it, and if you read about it on the internet people strongly advise against doing it. Warren was indeed guiding us towards fording but I didn't really trust the sudden water rises. The issue solved itself when Seth, a local trail maintainer who maintains the Saddleback Mountain stretch of the A.T., came out to run a section with me. When talking about the Kennebec he told us that he had a canoe, and we then decided to just paddle across together.

[Karelsabbe]

Karel, Welcome to WhiteBlaze.

I am blown away by your effort. Congratulations on stellar run.

I'm surprised that you didn't hop on a plane and run UTMB. But, you might have been a little tired ;-)

I replied above but without the Quote ! So that reply was meant for you :-).