Setting the Caledon Trailway FKT – the Details

This is a follow up to my original blog post on the Caledon Trailway FKT which I wrote on September 13, 2020. I’ve written a much more detailed account below – the original post only included a few paragraphs and a short video. The Caledon Trailway FKT has since been broken by Jason West and Tyler Chacra who ran it in a smoking fast 6 h 19 m on November 1st, 2020.

My watch alarm went off and I wearily got out of bed. It was 4:30am on a Saturday. I usually sleep in on Saturdays and I felt tired as I brushed my teeth and assembled my running gear. I drove to Chris’ house at 5:30am and he followed me on the 20 minute drive to the trail head. We decided to take two cars because of Covid-19. We were starting our run in Terra Cotta, Ontario, a beautiful little town on the banks of the Credit River. I had proposed our goal to Chris a few weeks earlier – to break the fastest known time (FKT) for the Caledon Trailway, a 35km rail trail. The FKT was set at 10h49m by Norman Ficker for an out and back, a total of 70km. The trailway is gravel covered, flat and straight. Chris rubbed his hands together as we walked to the start of the trail. It was a chilly 8°C and we weren’t used to this cool weather. We counted down to start our watches and both touched the seven foot tall rock monument with the engraving “Welcome to the Caledon Trailway”. It was 6:07am and we were both amped to run. 

It was still dark when we set off at an easy pace, both of us using the light from my headlamp to navigate. We had considered leaving my headlamp in the car since sunrise was only a half an hour away. We were only a few minutes into our run when we saw what looked like a small pile of garbage on the side of the trail. As we approached, we realized that the small pile of garbage was in fact a porcupine. We had made the right decision by running with a headlamp! We gave the porcupine a wide berth as we passed, it didn’t move an inch. 

I had to consciously hold back on my pace, Chris and I have a tendency to run fast when we’re together. There’s always a lot to talk about and we don’t notice that we steadily increase our pace. We breezed into Inglewood after 10 km and caught sight of a nice sunrise. Caledon East came into view after another relatively easy 10 km. Although the trail was flat and straight, the scenery changed regularly. There were forests, wetlands, farmer’s fields, golf courses and old bridges passing over country roads. Just outside of Caledon East, we talked about refilling our water as we passed a soccer field complex. We spotted washrooms and thought there might be a water fountain. Chris and I both carried large hydration bladders in the back of our packs and two 500mL soft flasks in the front. We still had plenty of water because of the cool weather but it was starting to get hot. We knew that we’d have to fill up water in the next 2 hours. Our original plan was to refill water from one of the rivers but I was getting nervous about that. I haven’t ever drunk water from a natural source, I’ve always had tap water. 

We had run a total of 30km when we arrived in Palgrave and passed their beautiful town clock. Just outside of Palgrave, we got passed like we were standing still by a young lady running with her mom. We felt a little funny about it until the mom asked us if we were ultra runners. She wanted to know how far we were going and was impressed when we told her 70 km. Encouraged by this interaction, we ran another 5km and reached the halfway point just outside of a small town called Black Horse. There wasn’t a clear sign that the Caledon Trailway had ended so we continued running as we discussed whether or not we had finished. In the end, I pulled out my phone and checked the previous FKT route. We realized that we went a kilometre past the turnaround point. Despite this hiccup, we had run the first 34.5km at a great pace, completing it in 3h40m. We added an extra 10 minutes with our goof up but we were still well ahead of FKT pace. 

Chris and I discussed water again as we turned around and started the 35 km back to the start. We both had a small amount of water left in our hydration bladders and the temperature had warmed up to 18°C. We reached a water hose just off the trail after 5 km and were disappointed that we couldn’t turn on the tap, we needed a wrench. Luckily, we were being careful with the water we had left. We ran on, agreeing that we’d see if we could fill up at the soccer field complex just outside of Caledon East. Chris and I were both out of water when we reached the soccer complex about an hour later. We could see buildings but couldn’t tell if they were unlocked or if we could fill up water. Not wanting to waste time, we pressed on agreeing that we’d fill up from the first suitable water source. Luckily, we spotted a fast flowing stream just outside of Caledon East, a couple of kilometres later. Chris led the way, having filled up from natural water sources on previous running trips. He filled up his Salomon soft flask, screwed on the filter cap and took a sip. 

“Awesome, refreshing!”

Encouraged by Chris, I filled up my soft flask and took a sip of the cold water. It tasted amazing. I drank a full flask before filling up again. We would both carry a flask with us and look for another river to fill up later on. 

Relieved that we had water again, we set off at our sub 11 minute mile pace that we had been holding the whole time. We had 20km to go when I started to feel the effects of running for over 5 hours. I had fairly intense and general pain in both legs with significant tightness in both hip flexors. I didn’t tell Chris though. I’ve found that you give your pain more power in ultra running, when you complain about it. I knew that we only had a little under three hours left and that I could last through the pain. I fed off of Chris, he moved easily and was in great spirits. He set our pace and I kept up. 

The Caledon Trailway has metal gates at each road crossing. There’s a map of the trailway at each gate which shows the road crossings as black dots. Chris picked up on using the gates as progress markers early on in our run. He called out that we had six gates left before hitting Inglewood which marked 10km to the finish. I focused on keeping our pace and getting to the next gate. Running, like any task, is easier when you break it into small chunks. 

Despite the pain, I held our sub 11 minute mile pace as we picked off gate after gate. We arrived back in Inglewood after 6h48m of running. We hadn’t planned for it however we were in a position to take 3 hours off the previous FKT if we kept our pace. This energized us both and hardened my resolve to push through the pain. We checked the map as we left Inglewood – we had 12 gates until the finish. Chris continued to move easily, running through road crossings after checking for cars. I needed to sneak in a few steps of walking at road crossings to relieve the pain. We held pace for 6 gates and arrived in Cheltenham, halfway there. I continued to struggle, however I kept up with Chris. In addition to the pain in my legs, I started to feel the heat – the temperature had risen to 27°C. Could I really continue to run for the next 6 gates? I wasn’t going to complain and I wasn’t going to let Chris down, so I kept on. I could see the next gate on the horizon and knew that I could run the short distance. I managed to hold pace to the gate and then set my sights on the next gate. We continued like this until we came to the last gate where we had parked our cars, earlier that morning. We had a road crossing and 300m to cover in less than a minute to hit our goal. 

“You ready to go?” said Chris.

The pain didn’t seem relevant any more as Chris and I started a sprint to the finish. I’m always amazed at the reserve of energy your body can summon when it’s needed. 

“I’m with you,” said Chris.

We continued our sprint, intermittently checking our watches. We could see the big stone monument at the end, but could we reach it in the 30 seconds that we had left? 20 seconds left, then 10 seconds left, we were almost there. Huffing and puffing, we slapped the stone monument and stopped our watches. We made it with 4 seconds to spare. We finished the 70km FKT in 7 h 48 m 56 s, hitting our goal of taking more than 3 hours off the previous FKT. Amazingly, we had held the same pace of around 10 m 41 s per mile for the whole run. 

Exhausted, we took a short video to document our finish and walked back to our cars. I revealed to Chris that I was really suffering during the last 2 hours of our run and he told me that he knew. He could tell from my breathing and I’m sure he noticed me sneaking in the walk breaks at road crossings. Like any running event, the pain dissipated quickly and was replaced with a warm feeling of accomplishment.