Run Across America: Nels Matson Aims To Break Pete Kolstenicks Record, Starts TODAY

No Strava upload from day 1 that I can see. The Garmin tracker shows they started at about 3 AM Pacific Time again on Day 2 and are past the town of Tracy now. I think Matson will try for around 77 miles today to make up for the lost time from Day 1

past Manteca. why go the long way around the bay?

Because there is no runable lane on the bridges until the 84 expressway. Just to the south of that expressway is a railway bridge. Railways were the route used for the original transcon by Edward Payton Weston in 1909.

It is impossible to retrace Weston's route today because many of the bridges are gone and it is illegal in many areas to walk/run along the tracks. Plus, Weston was paid to walk through certain cities, such as Buffalo and Albany. His original route was ~4000 miles which took him 100 days. By going along the Great Lake cities Weston avoid the endless up-and-down hills of Pennsylvania.

If you look at Pete K's elevation gain/loss maps guess which state had the greatest elevation gain and loss? Pennsylvania.

Give him some slack. This guy is hurting already. He didn't have time for a Strava upload. He was done at 8pm last evening and up and running again at 5:03. Just 9 hours. That's nothing for recovery.

I wouldn't be surprised, if he doesn't even get to 60 miles today.

How did you get that day 1 mileage if he hasn't posted yet on Strava? Did you just map it out on google?

On the tracking page, on the left, click on "Tracks". Today (monday) the second one down says "Yesterday 5:01 am". It gives the total mileage for yesterday as 67.28 (guessing 67.8 is a typo)

If you zoom in on that tracker map it looks like it is only pinging about once every mile. (every 10 minutes??). You can tell by the dots. As such, it looks like large tangents are being drawn on the map and it would seem that his mileage would be under reported on the tracker. At least if my thinking is correct.

Maybe his strava or watch mileage come in higher.

A 10 minute update interval is one of the options for the Garmin Inreach trackers, gives up to 14 days battery life and depending on the Garmin subscription plan Nels chose, it may be the only update interval option that would not incur overage charges. Not a big issue, the Garmin trackers are just generally to get an idea of where he is since they do not have the ability to record GPS data at 1 to 10 second intervals like a watch does due to battery life constraints.

I wonder if Nels' team knows to upload the data from his watch each night to Strava or if someone needs to nudge them to do it.

End of Day 2, the Garmin tracker shows:

Trip Time

15:51:15

Dist. Traveled

69.84 mi

Average Speed

4.41 mph

thanks, interesting stuff.

Strava is posted

Day 1 Project Campbell's Call
Ended in a spot with no service, but an extremely nice elderly woman let us park the RV in her driveway.
My buddy Reggie ran the first 31 miles and we had Cindy Campbell helping us crew.
Distance73.27 mi
Pace11:41 /mi
Time14h 16m

Day 2 Project Campbell's Call
Got very hot today. I have the very best crew.
Distance73.93 mi
Pace12:21 /mi
Time15h 13m

With less than 9 hours for recovery time, it will be very hard to maintain this.

strava.com

Nels Matson | Strava Runner Profile

Nels Matson is a runner using Strava. Join Strava to track your activities, analyze your performance, and follow friends. Strava members can plan routes, participate in motivating challenges, and join clubs. Get started by si...

Link:www.strava.com/athletes/60618977?num_e...

His Strava mileage and moving time indicates he is right on schedule for the plan he made before the start of the transcon. The Garmin tracker mileage is understating his mileage by several miles each day because it online records position every 10 minutes. Going by the Strava data, Pete's currently record has a good chance of being broken.

Based on the pace of my strides this morning, Kiptum's record has a good chance of being broken!

yes hes on wiggly roads now and the garmin inreach is clearly only updating every ten minutes. each dot is bang on the road, but then the lines miss all the curves.

Nels needed already 15 plus hours to get it done on day two. There is no way that he will get Pete's record. Most likely he will run himself into the ground in week one.

I think Pete would be the first one to tell you that he is no Kelvin Kiptum! A transcon is very different from a marathon: going slow and steady, being able to fall asleep, and eating tons day in and day out is the winning stategy

I will disagree with you there. Nels is intentionally using 15 hours more or less each day to get the 72+ miles per day in so that he doesn't need to run at a higher pace and thus limit the damage to his body from the impact forces of higher speed. He is pacing this better than Pete did, who went out way too fast in his transcon and had to slow down.

Come back to us in two weeks. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but to declare he is on track to break the record after two days is extremely naive.