Huge congratulations for breaking both the supported and UNsupported (wow) JMT records! After you've rested up a bit, would love to read your trip report. Wouldn't worry about the cough & knee pain; both should go away in a few days. (To say, of course your knees hurt!!) :)

I think it's cool how both the PCT (Adam Bradley & Scott Williamson) and JMT overall records are now owned by people who did the trails self- or unsupported.

Sue Johnston
2nd fastest JMT time
1st fastest chick time :p

Wow. A new combined record by over 5 hours!! Sue's mark was already amazing, but you killed it!

The yellow stuff you're coughing up is "normal." Can Anything like this be described as normal? :-) Not sure exactly what it is, but probably dust and/or your body's defense against breathing so much dry air.

You've earned a long rest. Make sure you give your body lots of time to recover. Easy walking is fine, but no long hard runs for several months, at least.

Congratulations!
Brian

Brett -
Nice job staying diligent and not giving in the fears of failure out there.
Your efforts have raised the dial to 11!
Rest, Digest and enjoy the memories of the JMT...the pain will soon be a distant memory.
Borne

Way to go Brett!! I knew you could do it! See you tomorrow.

Ed

Dude! You F*cking ROCK!!!!
Congrats.

Catra
2nd fastest girls time on the JMT
Yo Yo record 12 days 4 hours and 57 min.

http://trailgirl.blogspot.com

Amazing effort and time! Brett, you deserve this trail!

Do you have the splits for the route? Would be nice to analyze those.

Looking forward to the report!

The yellow chunky stuff you're coughing up (JMT cough) is normal for this level of excertion and the conditions on the trail. It's dust/dry air/cold air, and apparently human body rejects these things in such a disgusting manner.

Get some very well deserved rest now!

-Michael

Edited by mpopov on 09/08/2009 03:57:22 MDT.

Congratulations Brett! Truly amazing. Word of your success trickled into Bishop yesterday as I was lounging around being really tired after an 8 mile run! Enjoy the moment and good luck with the recovery process. Knowing what I felt I can't imagine what you're feeling!
I'm really curious as to the air quality you dealt with. Two of the days you were out there we had some of the worst, stagnant air pollution of the summer down in the Owens Valley due to smoke from the Yosemite and Angeles NF fires and I couldn't help but wonder how that was affecting your attempt. Apparantly, not at all! Or maybe you would have been under 3 1/2 days! Again congrats man!
I've been too busy to get a report posted on my attempt but now I'm more psyched to read about yours!

Test

Hello everyone,

I've been really busy getting back to LA and dealing with the injury aftermath from the run. I will be working as fast as I can on the TR but unfortunately won't have much time until next week to work on it. I'm going to try my best to get it finished before next weekend. There's a lot to write about--a lot happened! The TR is really my only way of giving back to the community which has given me so much so I want to make it as good as possible.

I've completed the time sheet and it will hopefully appear below as a legible picture. Part of my JMT 'research' entailed transcribing all time sheets from past record breaking runs into a common excel sheet so I could do a side-by-side comparison. In the end I used Sue's (naturally!) as a template to construct my own and so I've included her times in it as well.

Great spreadsheet, Brett!

What was your gear list? Please post.

Do you have verifiers for the trail?

-Mike

Holy Toledo Brett!!!......21,000 calories a day.....that is more calories a day than I consumed during any of my entire JMT fastpacks.

A 3 day, 9 hr, 58 minute unsupported JMT....wow!!!...that is really smoking.

You boys have taken this JMT thing to a whole new level.
When I first hiked the the JMT with the Scouts in 1996 I wore waffle stomper boots hauling a 85 lb pack and cooking
oat meal and freeze dries on a wisper lite stove.

On my JMT fastpacks I always had trouble with the question
of food & sleep vs speed.
More food equals more weight which equals reduced speed.
However, More food equals more energy which equals increased speed.
Same with sleep....sleep to a speed hiker is wasted time.
On the other hand more sleep equals more energy which in turn equals increased speed.
The question is where do you draw the line?
Where is the happy medium for maximum performance?
It appears Brett has found that happy medium that works for him.

I have the same problem with this age issue.....when are you to old for this extreme stuff?
My wife insists that at one month shy of 69 I have gotten
to old for this extreme stuff loong ago and I should instead consider taking up crocheting & knitting.

Yup, you boys have taken this speed hiking to an entirely new level and I can't congratulate each and everyone of you enough.

JMT Reinhold

I have been watching this thread from the beginning. Truly stunning what Brett has done.

I want to post right behind Reinhold. I just finished my first JMT thruhike in 14 days. Plenty fast for me. However, I was able to hike with Reinhold and his wife for a number of those days. I have to think that if Reinhold was only 10 years younger he'd be out there trying to beat that record. He can still move along at a great pace even while carrying a 55 lb. pack so his wife could enjoy her trip more. He truly was a trailblazer in the speed dept. I know he could do me in at any moment and I'm not quite 50 yet.

Congratulations Brett! I hope you recuperate soon.

Scott

First of all congratulations Brett!! Truly an awesome accomplishment. Having just finished the trail on Saturday myself and returning to work today with a few aches and pains I was thinking of how you must be feeling after this remarkable feat.

Sorry to be off topic a little...

Being out on the trail and hearing some chatter from people about Jeff and Reinhold being out there was fun. I heard a few stories about Reinhold punching his food into the bear canister at VVR and packing and repacking his big pack.

Jeff: I believe your pacer may have passed me on the way up to Forrester pass on Friday the 4th on her long day out over Whitney Portal. It gave me a good laugh as she went by with her camelbak and said "It's a beautiful morning" as I huffed and puffed as a light drizzle and some hail came down. I did 23 miles that day to Guitar Lake and that was plenty for me.

This has been a great thread and thanks for sharing here on BPL.

Outstanding job Brett. Just an amazing effort.

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

I am starting the TR after this post. I will finish it ASAP but can't work on it from Fri-Mon. I want to make it complete as possible as a thank you to everyone who has helped. I can literally point to virtually every piece of gear and run strategy element and trace it back to either one of the previous record attempt runs, related threads, or this thread. Just two examples to illustrate. 1) I tried (used) Storm Dragons because Aaron had padding issues with the lighter Sun Dragons. 2) I never could find a new pair for the second attempt, and decided to use Dirty Girl gaitors (as mentioned in Sue's TR) to replace the torn ones I had. Literally EVERYTHING I know/used pertaining to this run came from scouring the previous posts during this past year.

Here's the gear list:
I changed a few items since the first attempt (e.g. trekking poles) and outright removed the following:
Clip on sunglasses (my glasses block UV)
Toothbrush and toothpaste (I knew I wouldn’t take the time to use these anyway)


Gear List
EQUIPMENT
GoLite Jam pack
Titanium goat trekking poles
Belt loop clip watch
1 fl oz DEET (never used in September!)
small compass (as if I would need this!)
two head lamps with 6 AAA lithium batteries (I needed both as it turns out)
small bottle of sunscreen
maps/splits/permits
chapstick
3L camelback
Powerade bottle (for water)
~44 Aqua Mira tablets with small scissors to cut packaging
Camera
Athletic tape
Tp
Western Mountaineering Highlite sleeping bag
3/8” thick evazote from gossamer
AMK blister kit and space blanket

FOOD
~8k calories of Hammer raspberry gel, with 2 5.5 serving squeeze bottles
~10k calories of cliff bars (21 chocolate brownie, 21 chocolate chip cookie)
~1.5k calories of Recoverite (in a nearly full powerade bottle)
~400 calories of sausage leftover from first attempt (for efficient tasty salt ingestion)
Pills/supplements: ~22 ibuprofen, full bottle (120 capsules) of endurolytes, ~8 S!caps, 8 caffeine pills (used 2), ~6 vitamins, 2 emergen-C packets (didn’t use)


CLOTHING
GoLite Storm Dragons
Dirty Girl Gaitors (purple flame design)
Injiji socks (2 pair)
Paper thin black pants with zip-off legs (I’ve had for years)
Polyester underwear
Capilene shirt
Thin long-sleeve Patagonia polyester shirt
Montbell ThermaWrap Jacket
GoLite Virga rain shell (I needed this!)
Cutoff finger bicycle gloves
Full finger fleece insulated gloves
OR white, light hat
Fleece hat

Mike,

About verifiers, primary verification is through pictures and videos I took at all major junctions and passes. I liked your method of taking pictures of yourself at each pass. It really showed the progression of exhaustion. I did the same for this attempt but didn't think to include the trail pass signs in the background of the pics until Selden Pass (oops!). The videos are clear though so I'll probably post more of those. I'll probably include a pic or vid from each pass in the TR and others important to the story. I can make all ~400 MB of data available to people who want it.

Other than that, Ian (anyone hear from him?!?) was at the summit of whitney when I signed in. I mentioned to a few hikers along the way what I was doing but random hikers aren't that useful for this purpose. I did speak to a man (who was hiking with someone else) just below the mini-pass above virginia lake. he mentioned he knew of two friends(?) who were trying to break the JMT record the previous week! I asked "you mean Jeff?". He said no and said their two names. One of which may be Alex, but that could very easily be wrong. I was very sleep deprived at this point and I think the guy even said I looked like a mess.

Also, there was a lovely thunderstorm at Muir Pass mid-day Friday. Many people saw me as I quickly walked by them down towards evolution valley, as they hunkered down alongside the trail. I have videos of this.

Brett

It's after the fact and moot now,
but Mark Davis seemed to have the best method at attempting verification for solo efforts.

Mark passed out small cards with his name and email address to people he passed on the trail, and asked them to send him an email describing their encounter.
Third party contact is always best.

Congrats Brett. I wonder if the coughing up yellow is due to dry air causing mild bronchitis. That could be true if there is definitely an associated cough and not just a feeling of needing to get rid of phlegm. Maybe Doc Sawchuk has a better idea of what it is.

There is an unsubstantiated report, on the Whitney Portal Message Board, that the "other" mystery guy, Ian Alloway, just did an unsupported JMT of 101 hrs 5 min. That would also beat Michael Popov's 2007 Unsupported Record by 20 minutes if it is correct.

What's in the water this summer?

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=67989&page=1&PHPSESSID=
8764ce691fe54fea2ccf7a9237dd3fb9#Post67989

Edited by asandh on 09/10/2009 11:14:30 MDT.

Say Brett,
Looking at your gear list I don't see any type of shelter,
tarp or ground cloth for rain or snow protection.
Did you go without and just plan on bayling if caught in a rain or snow storm, or did I overlook it?

Again, I can't congratulate you enough on your tremendous achievement.....this will be a hard one to break.

JMT Reinhold