Allegheny Trail Record Attempt – Mongold and Casseday Style
August 20, 2008 by Bryon Powell · Leave a Comment
iRunFar readers, in this the year of the long trail record attempts, I wanted to let you know of one that is of the utmost of personal interest to me. On August 29, West Virginia mountain men, Bradley Mongold and Adam Casseday, will set off from the WV/PA line at 0500 on Thursday, August 28 to break the fastest known time on the 330-mile (or so) Allegheny Trail.* Rebekah Trittipoe currently holds the record at 8 days. (An account of Rebekah’s Allegheny Trail fastest known time.)
You can follow Casseday and Mongold’s attempt on the blog they set up solely for this effort. The website is up and running now, so check out their summary of their attempt, read up on their crew, and take a look see at the itinerary (Word Document). Live updates will start flowing on August 26 – so mark your calendar, if you have a calendar… we recently burned ours. Kavara Vaughn will be providing frequent updates throughout the event and a dedicated computer geek to keep things going or post voice updates if things come to that. The effort will also be well supported and well photographed. While Mongold doesn’t promise a record, he does promise “suffering, blowdowns, darkness, hillbillies, and wild dogs.”
Mongold lays out the attempt in his own special way:
in case you’re curious, we’re halfway fit, we know the trail better than anyone, and we have the burliest crew ever assembled for a long trail attempt… but will these tools be enough? i do not know. will we fold beneath fatigue, the endless new moon darkness, and the Sirens’ Song of sensibility? will we scream like banshees down Peters Mountain in a new ALT Speed Record?
Rip it up boys.
*It’s worth noting that this is not the woosy Allegheny Trail that runs from Pittsburgh to DC with miles and miles on the C&O Canal. No, these men are taking on the real rock-kickin’, baby-eatin’ deal.
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Bryon Powell is the Editor-in-Chief of iRunFar.com, which he founded five years ago. Also the author of Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons and a contributing editor at Trail Runner magazine, he's quickly approaching 10 years as an ultrarunner and 20 years as a trail runner. These days he calls Park City, Utah and its trails home.
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