Living With the Itch

Good morning! I’m really happy to share that it’s official and recorded: I now hold the women’s self-supported Fastest Known Time on the Swiss Via Alpina!

There’s an easy trap to fall into: “If I accomplish X, I will be whole and satisfied.”

Three summers ago I booked tickets to Zurich for an eight day trip before I even knew what I was going to do out there. I perused Fastest Known Time’s search engine for trails and came across Via Alpina: Switzerland, a route that traverses the entire country of Switzerland via the Alps. Sold!

It was such a fun and exciting trip in that everything was new. It was my first solo trek outside of the US. I was totally charmed by all of the mountain villages and the epic, sweeping beauty around me. The combined sheer steepness and length of the high passes was shocking. The entire trip was very exploratory and it felt like exactly like the kind of adventure I was craving.

The following summer, I had the amazing opportunity to join Mountain Hardwear on my first photo/video campaign with them, also in Switzerland!

While I was out there, I learned that Elena Fernández López had lowered the women’s self-supported record on the Swiss Via Alpina by three hours. I was simultaneously happy for her and also felt like, “I have to go back!”

It wasn’t that I had to be THE BEST. I’ve accepted that there will always be better and faster athletes than me out there. I think it’s just that I knew deep down that I could do better than my initial run, and this was sort of the kick in the pants that got me thinking about how I’d like to return and try again one day. I think that’s also cool part about the women’s side of multi-day FKTs continuing to grow–the more women that go for it, the more we see what’s possible, push each other, and get the best out of ourselves.

The following summer I thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in my quest for a Fastest Known Time. I remember thinking during that long and often remote journey about how appealing going for the Swiss Via Alpina FKT again would be. “Only” six days of hiking, and with so many amenities along the way–I can’t say I could pull off of the PCT at any given moment for an apfelstrudel and espresso!

Fast forward to this summer: after two years of thinking how I might do things differently a second time around, I finally got to find out if my plan could work.

I made some small but hugely time-saving tweaks, like starting in the morning (7:30am) versus my 12:52pm start in 2023, straight off of a red eye flight. This would give me more of a full day in the beginning and eliminate one unnecessary night of sleep. Since I began and ended with a half day in 2023, simply combining those into one full day would automatically shave off a bunch of time from my initial record.

I also now knew which passes would be the toughest, and mapped out more conservative goals for the days that I’d go over them, including a penultimate day of just 30 miles, knowing that I’d be coming off of a big day with some tough passes the day prior, plus covering the highest point of the trail first thing in the AM. My legs would be toast. And to make up for that, I planned a much longer 55 mile day for the end, knowing that the terrain would be much more gentle by comparison (my final day in 2026 was actually my final two days of 2023 combined).

So the plan I made for myself this year had me finishing under 6 days by a comfortable margin. Whether I’d be able to pull it off, I wasn’t sure. In addition to the challenging high passes, I knew my biggest nemeses would be the extreme heat and daily storms.

My solution for both the heat and avoiding being on the high and exposed passes during the storms was doing a ton of night hiking.

Here were my start times for each day:

Day 1 - 7:30am start. This was just determined by the bus schedule to the start, but I also favored a late start because I knew I could run for much of this day, given the flatter terrain, and make great time. I figured the later I started, combined with more running, the more time I “saved” for myself on the last day. There were also no storms forecasted this day, so I made it over Foo Pass toward the end of the day with no issue.

Day 2 - 12:15am start

Day 3 - 12:44am start

Day 4 - 10:59pm start - This day hinged on my getting over Sefinenfurgge pass (8,570 ft, the second-highest pass of the trail) toward the end of the day, before the forecasted storms began. My plan of starting very early paid off big time, because I made it over the pass, and it did storm like crazy just a couple hours later!

Day 5 - 2:27am start

Day 6 - 4:32am start - I had actually meant to start my day closer to 10pm and hike through most of the night, but somehow I forgot to set my alarm. I swear I have a memory of setting my alarm, but maybe my brain was just loopy at that point. Everything had gone pretty much exactly to plan, except this one major blunder at the end! It stormed just as I was reaching the final pass of the day, Rochers de Naye, which was scary and caused some delays (e.g. waiting below treeline while a storm passed before continuing through an exposed area).

In the end, I reached my A+ goal of finishing under six days. My final time was 5 days, 17 hours, 40 minutes.

I truly didn’t know if I would be able to achieve my goal. I’m ecstatic that I did! Then there’s what one could consider either my best or most toxic trait of immediately thinking of all of the ways I could do better next time.

The overall self-supported record on the Swiss Via Alpina of 4 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes is held by Wouter Berghuijs. What he accomplished blows my mind. He went further on his first day than I did in my first two days this summer combined. Those numbers always seemed impossible to me, and I never bothered even thinking about trying to do that myself. In 2023 I finished a little over 64 hours behind Wouter. This year I took another 30 hours off of my previous time, and finished 34 hours behind Wouter.

My average time on my feet, from the day’s start point to the day’s end point, including breaks, was 16 hours, 19 minutes per day for six days. My shortest day was 11 hours 38 minutes and longest day was 20 hours 38 minutes. This feels exciting to me, because it shows there is still a lot of wiggle room and time to play with. I now know more about myself and the route, and I know there is still plenty of room for improvement.

My husband Chris has been reminding me to savor this win and to feel proud of what I accomplished. Whenever I start to think of the “would haves” or “should haves” I keep trying to look at this from the lens of Liz from two weeks ago, who wasn’t sure if she could even do what she was setting out to do. Past Liz would be thrilled, and therefore so am I… even if I need a little extra reminding!

I think I am continually accepting that the itch to keep striving will never go away, therefore there may be no such thing as truly being satisfied in this world of chasing fast times. I think this is a good reminder that any wholeness found in life will not come from accomplishments, because that ceaseless itch to reaching toward them in the first place will keep rearing its head no matter how great the results are.

This could read as incredibly depressing, but in a weird way I find this both comforting and freeing. It takes some of the power away from the end result and has me coming back to the root of it all and what I love about about running and endurance hiking: being curious about what I can do with my own unique set of skills, limitations, and potential.

💫

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‘Til next week! ~Liz (Mercury)