Northville Placid Trail Run 2005 (ADK)

[Tim Seaver]

The Smoking Gun is Found

My appointment with the NPT end-to-end program administrator went well - The records were very well organized by year and I was able to locate Mr. Denker's trip record in short order. For me, the anticipation of finding his ancient application was akin to the quest for the Dead Sea Scrolls;

not a stone has remained unturned in the desert, not an aperture unprobed.​

Thankfully, my worst fears were NOT realized: that he had done the entire 133 miles between the "official" end points as opposed to the 122 miles recognized as the "practical" end points by the ADK, the latter being the route I chose. ( Doing the official 133 miles involves a 10+ mile run on pavement on the south end and 1.2 miles of pavement on the north end)

That being said - even the end points he used were slightly different than my route.

He started at the Wescott Farm in Averyville, which was the terminus before 1978. Increased traffic on the trail led to relocating the section North of Wanika Falls to follow the east bank of the Chubb River to the Avervyville Road, a change which added 2.6 miles to this section of the trail (2.6 miles longer from Wanika falls to where the trail intersects the road - it doesn't add 2.6 miles to the overall course length)

On the south end, he finished at "Benson Center", which I am measuring as being at the junction where Trailhead Lodge is - this is .6 further than the current trailhead, which is on the Godfrey Road.

Overall, the 2005 route is roughly 2 miles longer ( not including the road sections outside of the 122 mile end-to-end points)
His overall time was 40 hours and 20 minutes ( ours was 37:31)

So while the course has changed, I feel OK about calling this a new record for the NPT.

Interestingly, Mr. Denker managed to sleep a whopping 7 hours and get back up to almost his initial speed, while I stayed up and faded at the end.
This is what suprised me the most: He had the support of 10 people, and was sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America "Explorer Post #5".

Hopefully we can get a phone interview with one of the folks who participated. We did some people searching and found that many of the names on his support list are still in the same tiny town in New York.

Richard Denkers Record of Trip
and
Support Team List
and the mandatory
Pace Comparison

I am almost done with a full account of our attempt, and should be posting it shortly.

 

[Rik]

Awesome! Congrats Tim! And cool scoops in the research you did.

 

[iceNsnow]

Congrats, Tim!!

Tim!
I want to congratulate you on an awesome run and even more awesome efforts on doing the research to find the details of the previous recordholder.
Running is fun - research has something to be desired IMHO.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to go!
Inge

 

[Head]

Way 2 go Tim! Congrats on the new record!

 

[mike1889]

Congrats Tim. I recognized 2 names of Denker's support crew. The Rhodes' were (still may be) long time members of the Schenectady Chapter of ADK and held an annual steak roast on their property.

 

[Tim Seaver]

Followup

There is an interview on North Country Public Radio today about my run.

Also, a write-up can be found at Adirondack Sports & Fitness

Thanks to Darryl at ADK Sports and Fitness, who tracked down the original record holder, I was able to exchange a few emails with him (Richard Denker).

Here's an interesting quote from his letter:

My Explorer Post leader came up with the idea. I remember his reason for doing the run was to bring attention to the trail – I guess it was falling into some disrepair.

He ran much of the trail for the first time DURING the event, wearing cloth cross country shoes, at a time where long distance trail running was a rarity - at 18 years old! Pretty amazing stuff

(cross posted to ADKforum)

 

[Cath]

"thousands of closed Gentian were glowing a brillant translucent blue in the evening light" What a fantastic site it must have been! I've only seen small clumps out on the hi-lines, which pales in comparison to thousands

The same blue that one spots in the snow in a certain light

Great write up of your adventure & accomplishment Tim!