[pct-l] David Horton and Catra

[johnvonhof at comcast.net (John Vonhof)]

It will be hard for David, regardless of how many friends he has, to do the
PCT in the same manner he did on the AT. He will almost always have to carry
more gear then he ever did on the AT.

Your description of Catra is close but fails to take into account her
personality. Yes, she is a "tattooed, body-pierced, sword-weilding,
dragon-slaying, speed climbing, ultrarunning hurricane." She is also very
sweet who cares for those around her. No swords and no dragon slaying
though. She was married for several years to a climber who turned her into
an accomplished climber in her own right. A very capable lady.

John Vonhof


On 12/9/04 8:43 PM, "Wayne Kraft" <waynekraft@verizon.net> wrote:

> David Horton is a professor at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  He
> has a book detailing his AT speed record trip and his participation in the
> Trans -America (came in third).  The book, A Quest for Adventure, is basically
> a collection of his journal entires and/or reports to home from the
> trail/road. You can read part of it and buy it at the extreme ultrarunner web
> site:
> 
> http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/bookstore/index.htm
> 
> If he does the PCT in the same manner as he did the AT he will carry almost
> nothing but water and a little food and will stick strictly to the official
> route. He will be met frequently at road crossings and the like by volunteers
> (David has a LOT of friends) who will feed him and transport him back and
> forth to wherever he is staying for the night. On the AT he stayed in houses,
> motels, hostels, campgrounds and the beds of pickups. Selecting a few days at
> random from his AT run he was doing mileage like:  May 23-38.2 in 10:32, May
> 24-38.5 in 11:30, May 25 41.6 in 11:30, May 26-39.5 in11:04, May 27-39.5 in
> 10:41, May 28 37.9 in 9:59. Just leafing through this section of the book I
> didn't see a zero day until June 19.
> 
> This type of "running" is not hiking, but it is not steady running. One
> accepted formula for ultrarunning is to power walk all the uphills and run the
> flats and the downs.  On the Trans-Am road race I note strings of 50+ mile
> days, much of it at 8:00-9:00 per mile. So David runs trails slower than
> roads, as one might expect.
> 
> An unsupported fast packer called Maineak (Scott Grierson) was also making a
> record attempt on the AT at the same time.  Maineak left Springer earlier than
> David and left humorous messages for him in the trail registers.  Dave caught
> Maineak on day 28 (June 18) and walked with him until Dave quit for the day
> while Maineak put in another 10 miles.  I think they leap-frogged for a day or
> so before Dave left Maineak behind.  Dave describes a spirit of camraderie and
> mutual respect between the two. Maineak moved at a slower pace, but stayed on
> the trail for more hours per day and probably had much less risk of blowing up
> near the end, so that Dave was not confident that he would set the record (and
> thereby beat Maineak's time to Katahdin) until very late in the game.  Dave is
> a devout Christian who misses his wife and kids terribly when on these outings
> and expresses a lot of emotion, postive mostly, in his recounting of his
> adventures.
> 
> I don't know as much about Catra because she hasn't written a book that I know
> of. She had a web site at one time, but it appears it's down now.  She's a
> tatooed, body-pierced, sword-weilding, dragon-slaying, speed climbing,
> ultrarunning hurricane from what I've heard.  A Google search on her name will
> give you an idea of her resume.
> 
> I ran/walked a 30-mile non-technical trail here in Portland (Wildwood) in
> about 8 hours on a 95 degree day and once ran about 15 miles of the PCT just
> south of Mt. Hood in about 2 1/2 hours.  Although that's not my preferred
> method of trail travel (I like 2.5 miles an hour with my house on my back), I
> have immense respect for anyone who can do that day after day. Whew!
> 
> Wayne Kraft
> 
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