The JMT 2025
Only in a 200+ mile effort can something go from “fuck ya i’m on one” to “oh my god i’m going to fucking die out here”… at least fifty times over. The thing felt endless while I was out, but even immediately after finishing I felt like I hadn’t gone anywhere, hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t moved further than 20 feet from my driveway, and hadn’t spent longer than ten minutes hanging out with anyone who was out there with me. Even after 100ks where I’ve been fully locked in, a mode I would expect to make me feel like not much happened over the eight or so hours, I feel like I experience more. Days after, a week, two weeks, now while writing this, time out there seems to feel even shorter and less significant.
I guess there are pros and cons to feeling this way. On one side, I clearly don’t have a hard time processing the distance nor moving time required to finish these ultra-long projects. On the other side, I’m also clearly not very present while enjoying the most beautiful places in the world anymore either. But maybe there’s a time and place for presence. A big part about identity I am proud of is my ability to unplug from competition a couple months of the year and just slow down. That doesn’t mean I’m not active and enjoying the outdoors during this time. Actually sometimes my total training hours during this period is higher than some weeks during the season as things are not prescriptive, are not tied to a purpose involving fitness, recovery is irrelevant, and just plainly because I’m moving slower and taking things in more with people that are very special to me. I do get those significant moments of presence in my life and maybe it’s not a bad thing it’s not during these race-like efforts…that’s not what they are about.
I “ran” the JMT for the first in August of 2021. The objective came to my mind during the peak of Covid in the autumn of 2020. I was still living in San Francisco at the time and had just spent that summer coming up to the Eastern Sierra almost every weekend, really falling in love with the area. I wanted to see it all and the JMT served as a route to do that. Ultimately the obsession over this goal lead me to moving up to Mammoth in May of 2021 to have better access to the route and to acclimatize to the elevation. We had gotten a five month lease with every intention to move back to the city after the summer and return to work at our offices. Turns out that never happened and I have now gotten to call this special town home for the last four and a half years.
I’m often asked “what is so special about the JMT for you?” and this is the reason. This trail has indirectly given me this life I would have never dreamed of in a million years. I don’t think I would have taken trail running as seriously if I moved to Mammoth, and while that probably would’ve given me a much more balanced life, I would absolutely not be a professional runner with the opportunity to race all around the world, but would be commuting to an office five days a week in a busy city. The interest in this trail through the Sierra connecting the highest point in the contiguous U.S. to Yosemite Valley truly changed the trajectory of my life.
It’s hard to say if I’m “happier” in these shoes versus my city kicks but I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to mean. There are good days and bad days in any scenario, although I do think the highs and lows are much more frequent and much more dramatic. The intense lows are often relatively quickly followed by some of the most exciting and euphoric moments you could think of. It’s a wild ride and at this point I wouldn’t trade it for anything, nor would my dopamine receptors allow me to.
All of that to say, there is a magnetic pull to the JMT for me that feels driven by something more than just having my name at the top of the FKT recordbooks. It’s a pull I never really have sat and reflected on. At the end of the day, I do just want the FKT and when I set out for the mission that is all I’m thinking about. But even days I get to run a few miles on the JMT, whether to access remote peaks or do point-to-point training runs, feel special. I feel an aura when I’m on that trail that I don’t feel elsewhere, and when I really stop and think about it I think it’s powered by nostalgia. Nostalgia for that time in my life where I was so unsettled and so curious what else was out there for me. I knew the life I was living in the city wasn’t what I was meant to be doing or where I belonged. I knew I had to be in the mountains and felt it every time I would come out to the Eastside that summer of 2020. If it weren’t for the JMT, I would never have pursued that hunch, and every time I’m on it I feel even more affirmed in my decision.
Maybe it’s that feeling of belonging the trail gives me that makes me so confident I can set a record time on it. I believed it back in 2021 with nearly no long-ultra experience and zero overnight experience, and I believe it even more now with 4 extra years of familiarity with the Sierra. Back in 2021, I had nothing to chase. All I wanted to do was complete it under four days, which was also just an arbitrary objective. For some reason, there was no time posted for a Supported Southbound (Yosemite to Whitney) as an FKT, so all I had to was complete it. I ended up getting it done in 3 days and 17 hours, but more importantly with a confidence that a multi-day 200+ mile run is something that I could do. I was 25 back then and 30 now and have done many many more ultras since, so clearly my mindset is a bit different now than back then. There much more of a willingness to risk it and push harder now. With that, there’s always the possibility of things going wrong, but it’s also the only way to post historic times. While I felt more prepared than the first time I ran the trail, I still don’t think I was prepared enough for what it takes to chase down a record and the attention to detail it requires.
My number one mistake luckily is also the easiest one to fix:
If you are going for a supported FKT, be supported the ENTIRE time.
I didn’t learn this until after when talking to a lot of my friends about the effort, but people actually like coming out and being a part of these big missions, especially when it’s going down in their backyard too. I felt lucky enough to have the group of people that come out to pace, resupply, support, communicate, update for me and felt confident enough to do long stretches without others, but wow I needed much more help.
What it really came down to was carrying too much weight on me for the first 150 miles, before finally taking the suggestion to give my pack to my pacer Matt at the time. I estimated my pack was around 20-25 unevenly distributed pounds. I really didn’t feel the impact of this until the beginning of Day 2, climbing up Muir Pass. The sleepies had finally hit me after 25 hours of more-or-less continuous movement and I felt like I weighed 200 pounds, having to stop every mile or so for a 5 minute dirt nap and reset of my back and shoulders. All the downhill running with the weight also really tightened my hips up and my body felt pretty trashed. The idea of still have 130 miles to go from that point felt pretty unfathomable after feeling so good just one pass prior.
The JMT is unique in that it can easily be broken down into sections by its iconic passes. Going Northbound on the trail is actually uncommon for most thru-hikers as most people want to finish with Whitney for its symbolism, but it is the direction where the fastest times are posted and seems to have much more competition than going Southbound. The passes and milestones you hit going Northbound are listed in order below:
Whitney Portal (mile 0)
Mt. Whitney Summit (mile 11)
Forester Pass (mile 31)
Glen Pass (mile 43)
Pinchot Pass (mile 62)
Mather Pass (mile 70)
Muir Pass (mile 92)
Selden Pass (mile 120)
Silver Pass (mile 140)
Donohue Pass (mile 180)
Yosemite Valley (mile 220)
Whitney Portal to Glen presented very little drama for me but I did begin to notice the impact the pack was going to have on me early on. I summited Whitney in just over 3 hours and jogged down to Guitar Lake. My hips and lower back were a bit angry from the bouncing on the pack, but I figured I would get used to it. I continued to cruise at a really strong pace toward Forester and then Glen, where I planned to meet up with Abby who drove all the way from Flagstaff that day to come meet me. Somewhere in the calculations, my projection to our meetup spot became way off and I ended up being three hours ahead of my planned split. I did end up missing Abby here, but she hustled hard to catch up by the time I got to the top of Glen Pass, 11 hours and 40 minutes into Day 1.
Abby came to freaking pace. I pictured a leisurely hike with her through the night, having silly conversation, stopping to boil water and eat some meals, but once we got down the pass, I was locked in on her heels running down toward the Woods Creek bridge. It was exactly what I needed to wake me up and put me back into the race mindset. All of a sudden, the gravity of what we were trying to accomplish hit me. This was a young Francois D’Haene’s record we were going after in a year he also won UTMB. One of the greatest ultrarunners of all time came out to this trail, with 20 of his French buddies and threw down on this trail eight years ago, and we were trying to clap back. I buckled in and shook off the sleepies with a caffeine pill and Abby and I rolled to Mather together.
It wasn’t all business though. We shared some extremely memorable conversation that I’ll always remember. It was extremely special for me to have Abby out there with me and I’m very grateful she wanted to come out. I think this is more of a reflection of just how meaningful the trail is to her. Abby went for the Southbound, Unsupported FKT in 2020, right around when the idea first sparked into my head of trying to run the trail. I remember watching the Youtube film on the effort and becoming such a fan of Abby, her drive, and her ability to create meaning around these big objectives that often feel meaningless. I could feel how much impact the trail had on her and how life-changing the experience was, and knew that I needed to feel that for myself.
Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to build a friendship (life’s weird like that) and somehow got to share 12 hours through the night with her on the trail that has had such a profound impact on both of our lives. I remember saying bye, continuing up to Muir Pass and reflecting on how moments of connection like that are really what it’s all about. This sport has brought so many unique individuals into my life that I would never have met otherwise and I’ll never take that for granted.
The Day 1 stats were solid - 80 miles and 16,000 feet in the highest altitude in 24 hours. Unfortunately Day 2 took a rough turn pretty immediately as I climbed up Muir on my own. As I mentioned earlier, the weight of the pack hit me like a truck and I felt like I was moving through molasses up any climb. I was lucky enough to have Tim waiting for me at the Darwin Bench turn off at Mile 100, where I got a hard reset with a 20 minute nap and real food. The reset brought me to the base of Selden Pass by Muir Trail Ranch at a good clip, but as it turned to Night 2, things got rough again.
Selden and Silver Pass (and of course Lyell Canyon on Night 3) were the biggest challenges of the entire effort for me. I spent all 24 hours of Day 2 running by myself without anyone to keep me awake, remind me to eat, carry any extra weight for me. All of a sudden, this didn’t feel like a supported effort anymore and I felt the gravity of that as a massive disadvantage.
By the time I hit my next pacer on the North side of Silver Pass I had convinced myself to exit out of Duck Pass and go back to Mammoth. Matt was very helpful in talking me through the decision and taking an objective stance around it. His energy at least kept me moving when all I wanted to do was lay in the dirt and sleep for twenty hours but I had totally convinced myself to drop. At this point, I had to run a 12 hour 100k with 10,000ft in order to get the FKT. Obviously under normal circumstances this would have been a walk in the park, but 150 miles into the JMT with less than 2 hours of sleep total isn’t exactly a fresh 100k. It didn’t seem possible anymore and that felt like my only goal I was shooting for.
At Purple Lake, we took a nice 45 minute stop before Katie came running down the trail with the energy of a thousand suns. I told Katie I was exiting Duck in 2 miles and she wasn’t having any of it. Instead, she took my pack off my shoulders and asked me “what else would you rather be doing?”. It took a mile or so, but I realized she was absolutely right. Maybe it was having the pack off my shoulders, maybe it was readjusting my goal to finishing in under 3 days, maybe it was just realizing it was going to absolutely suck sitting at home knowing I could have kept going, but all of a sudden I could run again and felt like a brand new person.
Matt and I continued on toward Red’s Meadow. I carried absolutely nothing, while he ran with two backpacks - his and mine. Absolute legend. We started clocking 10-11min miles which felt like 7s. Conversations got juicy and to make things even higher energy, we ran into Leo, Yelly, and Emma who joined for the few miles to the Mammoth Pass turnoff. Creek dips, leg rubs, and iphone speaker tasty tunes really kept the momentum going and Matt and I raged toward Shadow Lake where I was handed off to Matt #2 around Mile 170. Still, feeling great Matt and I moved past Shadow, Garnet, and Thousand Island Lake at a good clip before finally climbing up Donohue Pass. I was eating fine up until now but somewhere along the line I started to get an intense heartburn that made it feel painfully repulsive to swallow anything. We settled for more candy and less acidic easy to chew option which seemed to work fine.
Around 11pm, we were greeted on top of Donohue by ripping winds that nearly knocked us over and for some reason made me feel disoriented and sleepy. Still moving well, we ran down to the base of the north side of the pass and took a 15minute nap. Waking up around midnight, I felt a wave of nauseau that I was never able to get over. The next 5 hours turned into a 10 mile death march through Lyell Canyon to Tuoulmne, having to stop every mile or two to lie down and avoid throwing up. I wasn’t able to eat or drink at all during this time and experienced a biblical bonk that had me consistently walking off the trail and seeing multiples. I wasn’t sure if it was the bonk or the sleep deprivation, but either way I was not in a good place.
Matt put up with my frequent stops and moans like a champ and Jake eventually came out and met us the trail too, guiding us to the car where Emma, Olivia, and Matt were waiting. By this point, I was hours on hours behind pace and my crew/pacers had work and other obligations to get to in the morning. If I were continuing, it was going to be on my own, which was very hard to get myself to do. I was lying in the back of my car, 200 miles in, still unable to put down any food or drink and unable to pull myself out of the bonk with zero motivation to finish the last 20 miles of trail to Yosemite Valley. Honestly, it was a very easy decision for me.
I expected to be much more upset by the DNF, and I was a little the day after, especially after I was able to get back home and eat and felt like I could go for a run that day, but really I wasn’t then and I’m not now. Setting an FKT on the JMT feels like such a deeply personal project for me and something I am truly only pursuing for myself. I could not care less who knows I’m going after it, and frankly would prefer it if no one did. This is not really possible though as it is an FKT Premier Route and requires letting the organization know and to have live tracking available. At the very least, it felt really nice to have no media around it and to be out there completely on my own or just with my close friends. It’s a refreshing reminder of where your motivation lies when there are no cameras around you, and that is exactly how I want the JMT to feel for me every time I go for it. And I will be going for it again very soon.
The fire is lit for me, and there are so many glaring areas of improvement that I cannot wait to get another chance to take advantage. First and foremost, I want to let myself ask for more help, sooner rather than later. This trail needs to be lined with support for me to do this to my maximum potential, and I would love for it to be from people who also have a special connection to it. I learned pretty immediately after that there are enough of my friends who feel that way and want to see something special done on it. It can be about so much more than just me if I let more people in.
I said it early, but that is what these missions, racing, and this sport are all about to me. The achievements, accolades, and course records are all sick, but the feeling of satisfaction achieved from them are so so so temporary and easily forgotten. The only thing that has lasting impact and survives the test of time are the friendships made through going after something big together. I loved what Francois commented on my Strava activity from the effort as it totally embodied this feeling. He wrote, “Wow! 🤩 it remember me some crazy nice memories with my friends arround there ! What an adventure it was …”
Seeing my activity did not remind him of the feeling of finishing and setting the record. The immediate memory it conjured up was the time with his friends spent out there, epic-ing, suffering, and laughing together. I’m sure those guys are his bois for life now and he has the John Muir Trail in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains of California to thank for that.
2025 Northbound JMT FKT Attempt - DNF (Tuolumne Meadows)
