It’s prime quickest recognized time (FKT) season on the 817-mile Arizona Path, and Georgia Porter simply set a brand new ladies’s total and ladies’s supported FKT on the route.
The 36-year-old Flagstaff, Arizona, resident coated the path, which has on the order of 118,000 ft of elevation acquire, in 16 days, 22 hours, and 6 minutes, ending at 4:07 a.m. native time on November 14, 2024. This equates to a mean of a little bit over 48 miles per day.
Helen Galerakis held the earlier ladies’s supported FKT on the route with a time of 17 days, 11 hours, and three minutes, which she set in early November of 2019.
Georgia Porter (backside) along with her crew on the end of her Arizona Path FKT-setting run. All photographs courtesy of Georgia’s crew.
Porter, like Nick Fowler — who set a males’s total and males’s self-supported FKT on the path only a few days in the past — selected to finish the path southbound, beginning on the Utah/Arizona border within the north of the state and touring to the U.S./Mexican border within the state’s south. Each took benefit of a slender climate window within the fall, earlier than the excessive nation of the northern a part of Arizona will get snowed in, however after the acute warmth of the southern Sonoran Desert has handed.
Whereas this seems to be Porter’s first official FKT, she’s no stranger to ultrarunning. She gained the 2023 Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile and positioned fourth at Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile that very same yr. She’s finished nicely in lots of shorter path ultras as nicely, together with profitable the Run Rabbit Run 50 Mile in 2022, ending fifth within the Gorge Waterfalls 100k in 2024, and putting second on the Black Canyon 60k earlier this yr. It’s price noting that Porter additionally certified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials and completed twenty eighth with a time of two:38:07.
Porter had a powerful crew helping her all through her Arizona Path run, who posted day by day updates on Instagram for folks following the hassle, which labored rather well till they misplaced the login data for the Instagram account and needed to begin a brand new one, which has since then been nice. Porter additionally had a reside tracker for folks to observe alongside.
Beginning at Stateline campground at 5 a.m. on October 28, Porter was quick out of the gate, masking 58 miles the primary day, crossing the Grand Canyon on the second, and getting moderately near her hometown of Flagstaff by the top of the third day. A crowd got here out to cheer her the subsequent day close to Snowbowl ski resort exterior of city, and one other group got here to camp along with her the subsequent night time. Whereas Porter was the one doing the working, the updates from the path present the group effort that went into the FKT, and that the crew was having an excellent time alongside the best way. Their updates had been affected by “Lord of the Ring” references.
Georgia Porter passing by way of the Mazatzal Wilderness on the Arizona Path.
The Arizona Path covers a stunningly various set of ecosystems, starting from the pine forests of the Kaibab Plateau within the north, to the Grand Canyon, and to the sting of the Mogollon Plateau, the place the elevation drops and the path heads into the desert and progressively works its means south into the land of saguaro cactus and rattlesnakes. The path additionally traverses a number of mountain ranges and Sky Islands, which jut up from the desert basins to over 9,000 ft.
With simply over 200 miles to go on day 12, her crew reported, “We’re toughing out the lows and driving out the highs! She is so sturdy!” By the top of the hassle, they stated, “This path is throwing the whole lot it could actually at Georgia, and she or he’s been combating again so so strongly.”
In the long run, the battle was a lot sufficient, and she or he was capable of set a brand new ladies’s FKT by nearly 13 hours.
Georgia Porter working into the sundown, on her solution to setting a brand new Arizona Path ladies’s supported and ladies’s total FKT.