Ask a Dirtbag is a reoccurring article that highlights a unique outdoor adventurer. We give them the mic and sit back and listen to their advice and epic stories.
"Hike. Eat. Drink. Sleep."
This article features one rugged dude. Not only is he the Race Director for the NorthShore Inline Marathon (just the largest skating race in North America, no big deal) but he's also the co owner of Duluth Timing and Events. This guy knows speed. In 2016 he set the record for the unsupported Fastest Known Time through hiking the Superior Hiking Trail. That is a big deal. Join us, as Mike Ward discusses what it takes to do so as well as offers some tips and advice on how to get started with your own speed hiking adventure.
"It's so fun to look at what I've done and the history of certain routes. It's a cool little world out there for sure"
Travel On Paddle On: Alright, Mike we're rolling. So you held the record for through hiking the Superior Hiking Trail for two years. And you did this in eight days, yeah?
Mike: Yeah about 310 miles from Canada to Wisconsin for the fastest known time in the unsupported style. The official time was 8 days 7 hours and 59 minutes.
TOPO: Nice, well let's talk about supported versus unsupported in just a minute. But first, let's talk about the gear. Unsupported means you've got everything on your back from the first step so you've got to be pretty savvy on what you bring with you and how you pack it. I was taking a look at your gear spreadsheet for this on your website and you have everything down to a science to the point where each item is categorized by grams, ounces and pounds. That's quite the planning, why do you break it down so much?
M: Well, it's kind of funny when you pack up your pack and then if you have everything weighed out and you go back then you can really see where the weight comes from. So for instance, you look at your sleeping bag and it's probably one of the heavier items, let's say 30 ounces, and then you look at your multi tool and that's about half the weight of your sleeping bag. Then you have to ask yourself, ya know you need your sleeping bag, of course, but do I really need this multi tool? Then you start kind of cutting things out and you can see where the weight makes a difference. Over the course of five or ten days you start feeling the ounces and you start feeling the grams. Everything is just a matter of is it worth the weight?
"Like your sleeping bag, sure it's heavy but if you get hypothermia and die then you're not going to finish"
TOPO: Makes sense. So what is worth the weight on a through hike speed attempt? What are the absolute necessities if you're going to through hike over the course of three plus days?
M: Well I guess safety is the first priority. If you're not going to bring something and it causes you to die then maybe you want to bring that. It's worth the weight. Like your sleeping bag, sure it's heavy but if you get hypothermia and die then you're not going to finish.
TOPO: Yeah, that's gonna be a hinderance.
M: Yeah there's that. And kind of a mantra that I had out on the trail when I was through hiking was, let's see. Hike. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Those were the four things that I just needed to do and everything else is just out the window. Just hike, eat, drink, sleep in that order. So I'd just say that over and over in my mind. So I guess what I'm getting at is that's a reflection of the bare minimum that you need. First of all you need to hike. So that's hiking shoes, my trekking poles that I brought which were pretty key. Drink, so you need to be able to stay hydrated and that includes something to carry water in and a water filter. Eat, of course you need your food. And then sleep. I suppose you probably could do the 310 miles without sleeping.
TOPO: Do you think so?
M: I think we'll see something along those lines in the next couple of years where someone goes all 310 with very minimal sleep, yeah.
TOPO: Insanity. Going through your gear list I noticed it reflects exactly what you just said. Your full water bottle was I think the heaviest thing in your pack.
M: Yeah, especially filled with water ya know water is heavy. But that's kind of the basis of what you pack. If you have one item that can have multiple purposes that's super key as well. So for instance, my trekking poles were super helpful to lessen the load on my legs but then also I used them as tent poles.
TOPO: Right, so you're saving weight and saving space that would otherwise be on your back. Let's talk about food. Sure, not everyone is going for a speed record, but it might be worth taking a leaf out of your book here. You had everything broken down to calorie per pound, calorie per ounce, calories per hour, calories per day. So were you eating in this same mindset where maybe you weren't just running and thought I'm hungry I'm going to eat? Or was there an alarm on your watch that would go off when it was time to eat 60 calories?
"Then he pulls out some celery and carrots. I'm thinking, Dude no...no! Literally, celery is the least dense calorie food on the planet. He should just eat all of it tonight and then just throw it away. Celery, are you kidding me?"
M: A little bit of both. I recall a funny story on my sixth day kind of getting towards the end. Just like you said, not everyone is going for a speed record but the principles are still relevant. I was camping at the same site as this guy and it was just his first night and he was gassed! "Oh man I didn't realize how tough this hike was. My back is killing me and those six miles were really, really hard".
TOPO: And you were at what, on your sixth day around 220 miles?
M: Yeah, somewhere around there. Then he tells me his girlfriend started eating healthy so he brought some health food along and pulls out some carrots and celery from his pack. I'm thinking, "Dude, no...no!" Literally, celery is the least dense calorie food on the planet. He should just eat all of it tonight and then just throw it away. Celery, are you kidding me? Anyways, yeah I did have the food rationed per day. I treated it as a quote un quote "normal day" where I eat breakfast lunch and dinner, maybe snack throughout the day. Everyday I had a certain amount of food for breakfast, for instance two Nutrigrain bars. Same with lunch and dinner, ya know same lunch same dinner every day for nine days. Lunch being maybe potato chips and a few beef sticks. Dinner being a hot meal essentially a freeze dried add hot water meal.
TOPO: So you weren't really having what a normal person would call a "meal" until the end of the day? Just chips and a beef stick for lunch would leave most people pretty hungry.
M: Yeah but if you're looking at the calorie intake based on a 2,000 calorie a day diet I figured that would be enough to sustain me. But I'll tell you what, I was definitely rationing by the fourth day. Only half way I started rationing big time and I was getting super hungry. So I was hungry often, I lost weight and for sure the food was a struggle. But again, you have to ask yourself is it worth carrying the extra food on the first days and being less hungry? Or is it worth going and doing a little calorie deficit to shave the weight and shave the impact on your body. An extra pound over the course of 200 miles, what's that do to your legs? So it's kind of this fine balance.
TOPO: Actually this is a good segue to talk about supported versus unsupported. In your case your through hike was unsupported meaning, like we talked about earlier, everything you need is on your back from step one and obviously that makes it more difficult.
"Supported will be more like a race type format whereas unsupported is more like a backpackers style. It's kind of a different vibe I think"
M: Yeah so there are three methods in the fastest known time world. One would be supported, fully supported. So that's like if you're doing an ultramarathon you can have a crew working for you. There are pretty much no rules in this arena anymore. You can have people mule your gear, carry water for you, pacers, a full support crew, medical people popping blisters and stuff. This is generally the fastest way to do it, obviously. Then self supported is where you do your own food drops, you can go into town, rent a hotel and these sort of things but you don't accept any outside support beyond what your own self can provide. Then unsupported, is like you said, everything is on your back from the first step. But this gets kind of tricky because, I mean it poses the question of can you use a bridge? Like someone else built that bridge so technically it's supported and you're supposed to go down into the ravine and in the water. Or can you pick berries along the way? And really when it comes down to it if you set the record you can outline what you did and people will have to match that to some extent. So there's no real hard and fast rule set it's all kind of underground.
TOPO: Yeah I can see with it being as competitive as it is that of course organically this nitpicking would transpire at some point. But I think at the end of the day it's important to not get wrapped up in it. You're doing it for you so just doing it is the most important part. Like you said, however you see fit and you can just be honest about what you did.
M: Yeah it's just about setting a standard. And every trail is going to be different. On the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail there is no self supported versus unsupported categories because it's just not feasible to carry that much food on your back.
TOPO: Right. Let's move on to talk about actually being on the trail. There has to be a mindset that you get into because you're going to enter the suck eventually at some point. I read on your website when you were training, and this is on the Duluth Loops Trail, you were counting off tenths of a mile until you got to 40! That's insane to me. That would drive me crazy. But then your methodology works because you ran 40 miles in 10 hours and 17 minutes with a goal pace of 4 mph. You nailed it right on the head. So is that what you're like on the trail too are you constantly geared towards pace and time and mileage or do you zone out? How do you crush 33 miles per day for 6 days?
M: Yeah I think I am more analytical. But whatever works for the individual. Some people do zone out and before they know it run 40 miles. For me I'm analytical and that's just kind of how I operate. Constantly checking in and making sure I'm on pace. I think it's fun to just know the Superior Hiking Trail in particular. So I did a bunch of recon on it and kind of had a rough idea of ya know, it's about 10 miles from this trailhead to that trailhead. So then I knew I had to cover that distance in 3 hours to stay on pace. So I had this pace set of 3 miles per hour and I was always checking in to make sure I was on pace. And some of it is just knowing what you're in for and preparing and learning the lay of the land. As well as other factors like I've got to stop for lunch so I banked a little bit of time so I could stop for a half hour. So that's how I am, always wanting to be on pace but I think everyone does it different.
"Just get out there and go on a backpacking trip. That's how it started with me, just doing some backpacking"
TOPO: So I know you had some plans that aren't happening now but are you going to go back to the Superior Hiking Trail and try to reclaim the record?
M: I think so. I don't know about reclaim the unsupported record. Supported sounds fun because since 2016 I've done some more 100 mile ultramarathons and I think I've had some pretty good success doing stuff like that. So supported will be more like a race type format whereas unsupported is more like a backpackers style. It's kind of a different vibe I think. And I've had a lot of fun and some success doing the trail racing that maybe I'd be better suited for the supported style.
TOPO: Yeah, and that'll allow you to go all out and focus less energy on packing and more energy on conditioning and speed.
M: Exactly, and there's the whole aspect with unsupported of setting up camp and the weather over night and that's draining. I think to sleep in a hotel or a car or something would be kind of unique. And also I don't want to wear the same underwear for eight days ever again. It's just not, not good.
TOPO: Yeah and it's not your everyday underwear it's your running 33 miles for 8 days underwear. That's a different underwear.
M: It's not nice. It's not nice at all.
TOPO: Well I wish the best of luck to you in your supported speed record effort I think that'll be really fun to watch and track when you do it. When do you think you're going to try to tackle it?
M: Well my plan was Memorial Day weekend of this year so about a month ago. But I think for something like that training has to be perfect, everything has to line up perfectly and things just didn't line up for me exactly how I wanted so I pulled the plug. Why even try ya know? For a supported attempt it's gathering all of my support crew and pacers and I had enough lead time to ask myself if I was going to do it. I had to make a decision one way or another to continue forward and not feel great about it. You know with my preparation and my training and my body. Or, just pull the plug now and save the whole time and hoopa and regroup. So I chose the latter and said alright it's off and I think it was the right decision. At this point I don't really have a concrete plan of when or, ya know maybe it just won't happen it's a pretty big undertaking. But the fire is still there for sure and I want to go back. I think I can do it faster.
TOPO: That's good to hear. I think you're going to keep shattering records with the way you're running. Man, it's awesome to watch. Well, before we wrap up here do you have any final thoughts that you want to share?
M: Yeah, if anyone's looking to get into Fastest Known Times or speed hiking just get out there and go on a backpacking trip. That's how it started with me, just doing some backpacking. And there are trail races all over the country and that was kind of the second step for me. From there it's just progressed into going for the Fastest Known Times. It's so fun to look at what I've done and the history of certain routes. It's a cool little world out there for sure.
Read more about Mike's accomplishments and check out some other useful resources using the links below.
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