Day One of My Unsupported Ozark Trail FKT Attempt!

Miles Walked: 58.15
Walking Time: 18h 55m
Sleep The Night Before: 5 hours
Existing Record: 51.4 miles per day avg (4 days, 11 hrs, 28.5 min total)

I hit the trail and started my unsupported Fastest Known Time (FKT) attempt on the Ozark Trail at 6:24am! Last night Renee drove me to within ¼ mile of the start, but we couldn’t get closer than that because the road was washed-out. Perhaps that was a sign of moisture ahead…

We woke up, I did a final gear-check, packed my bag, and we walked together to the “Western Terminus”: the place where the Ozark Trail officially starts. After a few minutes enjoying the peaceful morning air, I kissed Renee goodbye and started walking! I was surprisingly nervous as I got started. I’ve been very confident heading into this, but over the last couple of days I started questioning myself – 60 miles per day is a lot of miles, and there are a lot of obstacles ahead: I’ll hit a stream called Courtois Creek toward the end of the hike that can flood and become impassable, sections of the trail were recently wiped out by a tornado that will make navigating blowdowns a challenge, I’m extremely sensitive to poison ivy which is abundant on the trail, and most of all – I’ve never walked anywhere near this much mileage per day. In fact, my biggest day on a thruhike is only 33 miles…

But I trained a lot for this, I have a plan for the challenges, and as I got to walking, my fear slowly faded away. I was quickly greeted by a turtle lounging in the middle of the trail – the first of seven I’d see today. Then I hit my first stream crossing and was pleasantly surprised to find a log that let me cross without getting my feet wet. And on top of all of that, most of the blowdowns I encountered early had already been cleared by trail crews. Things were looking pretty good!

But, my dry feet didn’t last forever. Within an hour or two of starting I had to cross a stream and get my feet wet, and I didn’t know it at the time but that would be the last moment of the day when I’d have dry feet. A little while later the whole trail was flooded to the point of basically being a river itself that I was walking down/through. Late in the morning I looked at my legs and found that they had been attacked by 7 ticks. None had attached themselves well, so I pulled them off and started a count. By the end of the day, I would remove 35 ticks from my legs!

Mid-afternoon I changed into dry socks (they were supposed to be tomorrow’s pair), only to find myself crossing another stream minutes later. I get the feeling that dry feet will be difficult on this trip. I caught myself with a slight headache from not drinking enough water in the early evening, and there is no excuse for that since water is proving to be far too abundant on this trail! So, I filled up several bottles and drank a ton more. I also had several SaltStick FastChews, which I’m using on this trip to get my electrolytes, and together those things made my headache go away quickly.

Shortly before sunset it rained and got my feet even more wet, but I just walked through it as was my plan. I really wanted to make it to 60 miles today, but at 2:30am I was at 58 miles and ready to call it a night. That’s close to my 60-mile goal, and it was enough to give me a head-start on the existing record (my average for that needs to be >51.4 miles per day). My food plan went well today – I ate just about all of the 6,000 calories I planned to eat, except for my dehydrated dinner. When I got to camp, I just wanted to go to sleep without spending time rehydrating food. I laid out my ground sheet, sleeping pad, and quilt in a dry spot under a tree, did a final tick check (and found the final two of 35 ticks on the day), and quickly drifted off into a fast sleep.