Turkey Time

Turkey Creek Trail FKT attempt

Big Thicket National Preserve, Texas

FKT #002 | Ultra #060

This week has been interesting for me already. I am off work on a furlough and so I have a lot more time on my hands, which obviously would be done working. I took this opportunity and randomly decided to go for a long run attempt, and in fact a Fastest Know Time effort, on this trail I found out about. I believe I was browsing FastestKnownTime.com and the Texas routes and saw this one was added not that long ago. With everyone else in pandemic quarantine and social distancing FKT attempts have been up all over the globe. I have only ever attempted one prior (Franklin Trail in California), but I enjoyed the experience and the challenge of the solo effort.

Tuesday night after kids were in bed I looked over at my wife and she instantly knew I was going to go early in the a.m. as the idea has been floating around since last week when I knew I would be off work. She knows me better than I know myself. I got up and started gathering my gear I thought I would need. Being an chronic over-packer I took stuff for various temperatures and weather as there was a chance of rain for the area. Set out some nutrition and my other essentials before hopping into bed. Set my alarm bright and early.

I arose to a 03:30 buzz on my phone. Dazed at first I did manage to get up and then change and sneak out the door after making my coffee to go. 2.5 hours later from my doorstep I passed through Warren, TX and was at the North trailhead of the Turkey Creek Trail. This place was a tiny parking lot, maybe big enough for 10 vehicles at most, and there was a small (closed) restroom building. There was also maybe 6 picnic tables scattered around under the tall pines within the U-shaped driveway. Spent a couple minutes gathering my thoughts, mixing up my bottles and then laced up my shoes. I was going to be heading from the North trailhead all the way to the bridge where it was closed off due to some trail renovation on the other side. The out and back route is 26.5 mi, just over a marathon and sneaking into the ultra classification. This is the route laid out by Brent Williams whom posted it onto FastestKnownTime.com. I had a personal goal of sub-4 hours and hopefully closer to my 03:30.

06:45 I hit start on my Garmin and off I went southbound. The first few miles felt great in the nice warm Texas morning. However it soon became quite humid from all the cloud cover. Then i found out the worst part of my day....the Deer Flies (or Horse Flies). They were constantly buzzing around me and quite abundant. The only good thing is they kept me moving a a decent pace. But I would constantly be swatting them and brushing them off my shoulders and back, it was so annoying. I actually dropped my bottles a couple times trying to reach on my back.

3.2 miles into the run I made a slight navigational error and went down the wrong trail. Luckily it was literally only like 0.15 miles before I realized I was circling back to where I just was. I ran back to the junction and sure enough I saw the bench with the Turkey Creek Trail label on it that I completely glanced over initially somehow. Oops.

6.2 miles (10 km) into the run I came out of the trees and onto the dirt road (Country RD 4825). I had my Garmin maps on my watch and was following the along every once in awhile. I knew that I had to duck into the other side of the trees very shortly but there was like 3 spots that all looked like the trail. I mistakenly took one into an open ended camping/parking area near the creek edge. I circled around and continued 0.1 miles back on the dirt road crossing over the creek on the vehicle bridge where the trail obviously was (it was even labelled here). I passed a couple tents around mile 8.5 in the middle of the forest not too far off the left of the trail. It appeared they were probably still sleeping, no signs of movement. 

I kept up my target pace and doing well despite the humidity for the entire first half. I got to the bridge (aka the turnaround) and took a couple pictures to document. I also popped one of my gels here. My phone was not working the best either due to the moisture and the fact I was completely drenched from sweat and the humid conditions. My watch was 1:52:16 and thus my sub-4 was well within my current pace as I had initially planned. But the thing about planning is you need multiple plans and goals. I had a little boost heading back northbound now trying to outrun the Deer Flies still.

By the time I had reached mile 20 the effort level I was feeling was not good. My body was not liking the conditions. I recall glancing down at my watch and saw my heart rate (HR) was very high. From here on out I had I had to institute run-walk breaks just to keep my HR down and try to maintain. Not the best run, but I managed to come in close to my goal of 4 hours. I did not have the kick in those final few miles to maintain running effort while keeping my HR down enough. Sadly I knew my sub-4 was slipping away. I returned back to the parking lot and stopped my watch...4:04:15. My Garmin distance came out slightly short at 25.94 mi (but my backup AllTrails app tracked 26.7 mi).

STRAVA activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/3445107996/overview

FKT website: https://fastestknowntime.com/route/turkey-creek-trail-tx

The trail is in good shape and well taken care of. The scenery is great under a nice canopy of tall trees. There is a lot of small bridges and boardwalks that cross various little ditches and off chutes of the creek, and various water spots. There is also a larege number of benches build and scattered along the length of the trail. Overall on the day I saw 1 deer,  1 raccoon, many squirrels, 1 dog (whom I never did see the owner as he came out of the bush - kind of weird), 1 small garden snake, and way too many Deer Flies.

Ideally this FKT route would be extended to the visitor information center, which was listed as 2 miles from the bridge which is the current turn around point on this route. Then it would be closer to a 50 km route and include the full north to south portions of the trail. Maybe one day I'll have to come back to the Big Thicket National Preserve and explore this potential.

Gear Used:

Gear Bags: Victory Sportdesign 

Shirts: rabbit trail tank

Shorts: rabbit FKT 5"

Shoes: Altra Escalante

Socks: Drymax Socks (Hawks edition)

Headwear: Trail Racing Over Texas endurance hat

Sunglasses: goodr

Watch: Garmin fēnix® 6X - Pro Solar Edition

Tracking: AllTrails app (on my iPhone as backup tracker to my watch)

Hydration: Nathan Sports soft flasks

Anti Friction: Trail Toes

Nutrition fuel used: x2 GU roctane gels & x2 20 oz Base Hydro mix.

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