The Logic of Long Distance

Andy Anderson has been kind enough to share his account of breaking the Mt. Whitney FKT (Fastest Known Time.) Andy is also the owner of the Long's Peak FKT and the Grand Teton FKT  (see those links for his accounts of those records.) Nice work, Andy! The words below are his: *  *  * “Those look like old man shoes,” joked my friend Ann as she printed out my day permit for Mt. Whitney.   “Well, I'm almost 40, my forehead keeps getting bigger, and my beard is turning grey. I am an old man,” I replied. This was my third trip to Mt. Whitney this summer. When I ran up it for the first time in July, I spent a little more than five hours exploring the Mountaineer's Route looking for the fastest variations. On my second trip, on August 6th, I tried to go fast and ended up at the summit in  1:50  and back at the car in  3:13 . While I managed to get the ascent record, my downhill time remained too slow for the overall record. This time I...

Andy Anderson surprised the small world of speed mountaineering by setting two classic FKT marks in a period of two weeks, first on Long's Peak, then on the Grand Teton--just days after Kilian Jornet had taken almost 8 minutes off the mark. Make sure you read his account of his Long's Peak run. This interview focuses on his background as a runner and climber and his Grand Teton ascent. Special thanks to  Christian Beckwith of  www.outerlocal.com  and  Meghan Hicks of  www.irunfar.com  for contributing questions to this interview.  A huge thanks to Andy. Enjoy! *  *  * LLD: What's your background with speed mountaineering/climbing/scrambling and trail running, the two disciplines required for a Grand Teton FKT? AA:  I started running in middle school and loved running and racing cross country in middle school, high school, and college. I was a terrible runner on the track. In reality I don't have that much speed, as Jeff, wh...