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asansone wrote:

Broken Knee wrote:

ezabielski wrote:I think Andrew has proven he's the best around for multi-day hero level efforts on 14ers. This year was just the coup de grâce for him on that front.

People might go a bit faster than him in the future on Nolans, but maybe only because they are unencumbered with all the gear he carried. What I am really waiting for is an elite mountain runner to come and blow the Nolans route out of the water and reduce it from a multi day (2 and a bit days) to something more in the realm of one and a bit days. Until then, Andrew remains overall king of the route, and will probably be king of the unsupported FKT for a very long time.

"One and a bit"? I'd need a more specific number since I think of a "bit" as a minor fraction, like 1/4. Are you seriously talking ~30 hours? I think the problem taking that much time off is the terrain. The off-trail parts I've been on and my limited knowledge of the area has me skeptical at anyone getting well under 48 hours.

The self-supported record will be separate, if needed. Gotta feel good having the twofer!

Is EPO allowed?

+1
The person who breaks the new record will be fast and know the mountains, well. A day and a bit sounds very unreasonable. 48 hours ... That's more in the ball park. I always thought Brett could come back and blow Nolan's away.

I will disagree. I know human effort has its limits, however, a time existed when a 5 or 6 minute mile was considered as fast as it could possibly be done. Climbing an 8000 meter peak without supplemental oxygen was a death sentence. The list goes on and on about limits and what we once thought impossible becomes possible.

Without the word "possibility", what exists in this world for us to endeavour to accomplish? Surely Andrew's record will be broken. Under 48 hrs? Sure, why not?

I think I was referring to thinking about it being done in a day and some.(~30 hours)I guess it just seems unrealistic until it happens. I'm sure the record will fall, sooner or later, in how long, who knows. But it will be super fun to watch.

Nolans is certainly generating a lot of interest in the last 3-5 years. Pretty sure there are going to be some really phenomenal attempts on the route in the near future!

Like Justin said, Tony was shooting for about 30 hours, and he was actually doing quite well towards that, but he just didn't have a good day when he was last able to try it. With sufficient knowledge of the route and a good day in the mountains, I think there are a number of people in the world that could absolutely crush the current times. The problem is that Tony is the only one in that set of athletes that seems to have put in the effort to learn the route.

The pipe dream would basically be Kilian putting in the effort to learn the route and focus on the attempt. He's proven both times at Hardrock that he can go really fast in the mountains at altitude, and his TRT FKT proves that he's not just a 100 mile/<24 hour runner. Nolans has gotten very popular in recent years, but it's still relatively a fringe thing. 14er culture in Colorado is already kinda fringe. And I think that's why we probably won't see Kilian really caring about Nolans.

For setting and breaking records... going under 2 days, 40 or even 30 hours....

What is a realistic average MPH for a hiker/runner doing 90 to 100 miles in the mountains?

Could someone really do 3 MPH average for Nolans?

If my math is somewhat accurate Andrew was about 1.6/1.7 average MPH for his Nolans.

JQ

ezabielski wrote:I think Andrew has proven he's the best around for multi-day hero level efforts on 14ers. This year was just the coup de grâce for him on that front.

People might go a bit faster than him in the future on Nolans, but maybe only because they are unencumbered with all the gear he carried. What I am really waiting for is an elite mountain runner to come and blow the Nolans route out of the water and reduce it from a multi day (2 and a bit days) to something more in the realm of one and a bit days. Until then, Andrew remains overall king of the route, and will probably be king of the unsupported FKT for a very long time.

Never say never, but I don't think 1 and a bit is humanly possible. 2 full days might be.

Sean Nunn wrote:

ezabielski wrote:I think Andrew has proven he's the best around for multi-day hero level efforts on 14ers. This year was just the coup de grâce for him on that front.

People might go a bit faster than him in the future on Nolans, but maybe only because they are unencumbered with all the gear he carried. What I am really waiting for is an elite mountain runner to come and blow the Nolans route out of the water and reduce it from a multi day (2 and a bit days) to something more in the realm of one and a bit days. Until then, Andrew remains overall king of the route, and will probably be king of the unsupported FKT for a very long time.

Never say never, but I don't think 1 and a bit is humanly possible. 2 full days might be.

I don't think there is enough data to even say what's possible. How many people have finished? 17ish? That's not really much to go on. What did people say about Hardrock course records when that was in it's infancy. I bet no one considered sub-24 possible like Kyle and Kilian have done. We might never see Nolan's get as popular as it would need to be to bring out the strongest people, but that doesn't mean fast times are humanly impossible.

Nolans has almsot 2x the vert of HR. Pretty safe to say 24 aint happening.

JQDivide wrote:Could someone really do 3 MPH average for Nolans?

JQ

Interesting way to look at it, and this is a fascinating discussion.

This is obviously a terrible comparison, but Matt Carpenter's record on the Pikes Peak Marathon had him averaging 8 MPH! (3:16:39 for 26.2 miles) Of course it's a great trail, no route finding, "only" 26 miles vs 90+, etc. But it does make you wonder what someone of that fitness level and physical ability at altitude could do on Nolan's.

As others have alluded to, AK showed glimpses of what's possible a few years ago with his attempt. It was obviously just not his day, and from his own descriptions seems to have a history of nutritional difficulties on the on anything much longer than half a day. However, he put down a training run from Fish Hatchery to Elkhead Pass (~ 40 miles) in under 11 hours. If someone of that physical ability could figure out the sleep deprivation and nutrition part of the challenge, then 30 hours is possible.

Alternatively, a guy like that could take a full meal and 8 hours sleep at the end of day 1 and still go under 40 hrs.

ezabielski wrote:

Sean Nunn wrote:

ezabielski wrote:I think Andrew has proven he's the best around for multi-day hero level efforts on 14ers. This year was just the coup de grâce for him on that front.

People might go a bit faster than him in the future on Nolans, but maybe only because they are unencumbered with all the gear he carried. What I am really waiting for is an elite mountain runner to come and blow the Nolans route out of the water and reduce it from a multi day (2 and a bit days) to something more in the realm of one and a bit days. Until then, Andrew remains overall king of the route, and will probably be king of the unsupported FKT for a very long time.

Never say never, but I don't think 1 and a bit is humanly possible. 2 full days might be.

I don't think there is enough data to even say what's possible. How many people have finished? 17ish? That's not really much to go on. What did people say about Hardrock course records when that was in it's infancy. I bet no one considered sub-24 possible like Kyle and Kilian have done. We might never see Nolan's get as popular as it would need to be to bring out the strongest people, but that doesn't mean fast times are humanly impossible.

True, but you can do some educated armchair quarterbacking. Anna Frost did Hardrock in 28:20 and then a month later let's just say that she would've finished at around 60 hours at the Shavano TH. Let's deduct a few hours from her Nolans time to account for bad weather and not being fully rested and maybe not knowing all the shortcuts. If under ideal conditions she would've finished in 54 hours, then her Nolans to HR time ratio is 1.9 (and that's a low figure bc it assumes that HR conditions were ideal). Using this ratio, 48 hours at Nolans is 25:15 at HR, and 30 at Nolans is 16:45. The former is possible, but I doubt the latter. This is what happens when work is slow on a Friday

It's tempting to do that but Frosty only has one result at HR and one on Nolan's. Anoyher problem with this analysis is that I don't think anyone who has finished Nolan's has been racing it. Whereas Anna was definitely racing at HR (and she did have some difficulty in the night).