Popsicle Friday
If you missed Friday’s workout, you missed popsicles! After a hot week, doesn’t a cold bar of fruit seem like a good idea?
FKT Saturday
On Saturday, October 17, Monta Vista Cross Country held an FKT Challenge Day. FKT stands for Fastest Known Time–the fastest time to cover a given route. If you are a runner, you need to know what FKT stands for! Most runners have their own list of FKTs, and we measure ourselves against those segments; how long it takes us to run Matadors when we are fit, how long it takes to get to the Homestead bridge from when we turn off Foothill, how much time it takes to run the Purple Dot Mile when we are feeling fit, etc.
FKTs can become very competitive and can lead to some insane achievements, especially now when the pandemic has closed most conventional competitions. For most of us, FKTs can simply be a way to keep focus, or a way to see how your fitness is doing. When I am training in Oregon, there is a .88 mile climb into Ecola State Park where I will time myself; if I am under 10 minutes without pushing to hard I know I’m in solid condition, if I’m between 10 and 11 that is pretty typical. I have mile segments on a loop around North Fork Road where I know exactly what a tempo mile pace time means; I can tell if I’m ready for a 3:20 marathon, a 3:30 marathon, or have a lot of work to do. Paru Meyyappan told me that the summer between her Freshman and Sophomore seasons at Carnegie-Mellon, she ran Horse every week and timed every one, not to try to be better every week but just as a way to push herself a bit and know that she was working to a certain standard. That’s all an FKT is for most of us; the point is not so much to be super competitive with others (though knocking off a rival by a few seconds can be motivational!). The point of an FKT for most runners is simply to focus our minds on our running for a period of time, to give ourselves some feedback, to have something to measure against.
On Saturday, Coaches Johnson, Becca and Flatow got together to time the team as we tried for FKTs on Horse and Horse + Garrods. These are pretty solid runs; Horse is 0.93 miles with a 495′ climb, while Horse + Garrods clocks in at a challenging 1.95 miles with a 620′ net climb. Check out our results below in purple; we rewrote the leader board!
Well done, everyone!
Horse FKT Leaderboard as of October 17
Course Rules for FKT #2: Start at the <–Coyote Ridge Trail sign (bottom of the hill). You finish when you touch the fence at the water tank (see photos below). 0.93 miles with a 495′ climb.
- Andrew Cole (2022): 8:29 on October 17, 2020.
- Sylvana Northrop (2021): 9:58 on October 17, 2020
- Conner Hsu (2020): 10:19 on August 10, 2020. (#1 Alumni)
- Nitin Kukreja (2022): 10:23
- Sydney Stevens (2023): 11:08 on October 17, 2020
- Margaux Francouer (2024): 11:44 on October 17, 2020
- Nathaniel Schober (2023): 11:45 on October 17, 2020
- Megan Nieh (2024): 13:20 on October 17, 2020
- Coach Flatow: 13:21 on August 4, 2020.
- Nerea Northrop: 13:33 on October 17, 2020
Horse + Garrods FKT Leaderboard as of October 17
Course Rules for FKT#3: Start at the <–Coyote Ridge Trail sign (bottom of the hill; photo above). You finish when you touch the sign or the gate at Garrods’ Farm (see photos below). 1.95 miles with a 620′ climb.
- Andrew Cole (2022): 15:50 on October 17, 2020.
- Sylvana Northrop (2021): 17:52 on October 17, 2020
