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

Nels Matson has done some decent ultras but he is not even close to the level of Pete Kostelnick.

There is no way that he will come close to the record.

What organization sanctions the record? Are athletes drug tested? What are the rules on sleeping, pacing, and approved route?

Happy to be here on the first page of a soon-to-be 65 page thread of arguing about heart rate, cadence, and whether or not anyone knows how to download the data.

None of it. You can do what you want. Traditionally the route goes from San Francisco or LA to New York.

Nels Matson's Strava activities shows he uses a Garmin Forerunner 945 LTE yet he doesn't share his data on a public Garmin Connect page, just like a previous transcon runner........

Do you run?

Looking through Matson's ultra results, the most relevant one for this transcon is likely his recent Tampa Bay 100 Miler from Nov. 4, 2023 ran on urban city roads. He placed 5th and was beaten by 2 men and 2 women. The winning man was faster than him by a significant 2 hours and 48 minutes or so. This kind of result doesn't support his claim that he is capable of beating Pete Kostelnick's run across America record, especially when Nels Matson is already 41 years old and Kostelnick was much younger when he set the record. This is assuming EPO and testosterone are not being used for this transcon, which I do not rule out.

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Yes, I run. Yes, I race. Currently, preparing for a sub-3:07 ‘Thon attempt in 2026.

Seems Matson is already behind schedule on the first day. He started at 3AM Pacific Time and it is about 5PM Pacific Time now but he is stuck in Livermore with 12 miles still to go for the first planned stopped in the Mountain House Rec Area according to his route on his website. In interviews he said he is aiming for 15 hours of run time per day on average which means today is meant to end around 6 PM Pacific Time.

Seems like Matson is moving again according to the tracker. I think they stopped at the Weinerschnitzel in Livermore to get hot dogs from the largest hot dog chain in the world. He is behind schedule for the 72 miles of his planned route for today, I estimate a finishing time near 9 PM Pacific Time instead of the planned 6pm. Matson is targetting 72 miles everyday for 15 hours a day so doesn't bode well to already be using up sleep time on the first day.

fun fact.. Pete took one zero day on the entire run and it was at the end of the first week.

Did he take the day off because of diarrhea from consuming too much glucose based carbohydrates? Endurance nutrition has advanced a long since Pete's time. Nowadays for a transcon like this, I would expect Matson to be using a 1:1 ratio of glucose to fructose in his drinks along with electrolytes to enable him to consume 100-120 grams of carbs per hour throughout the transcon. In Pete's days, such an amount of carbs was unthinkable because he would have been consuming mainly glucose based carbs that give people diarrhea at high amounts.

Pete Kostelnick started day 1 with 80.8 miles in 13:55.

Nels has 67 miles in 15 hours right now. This will never work.

Nels might have completed the planned 72 miles today in 17 hours and a bit. Not sure because the Garmin tracker hasn't updated in an hour, likely due to the road they are on having very little cell phone reception for the tracker to send data out. But yeah, he is already behind schedule and behind Pete's pace.

Scratch what I said about cell phone reception. Nels is using a Garmin Inreach device for the tracker that doesn't depend on cell towers, it sends the location out by satellite. Looks like they turned off the Garmin Inreach several miles before the planned first day endpoint. No update on their social media or Strava either. Winner what's going on?

67.8 miles on day 1 in 15:04 hours.

Today it will be much harder.

this is going to be a hard and fast fail or a cheat fest

I don't have it in me this time to watch some well-meaning fools duke it out for 100 pages with someone from Matson's crew on these boards. Someone remind me in a few weeks and give me an update.

Anyone know what happened on his first attempt to break the record last year? Did it even happen?