Come and run a FastestKnownTime with Camino

Do you know about the #fkt phenomenon?

FKTs or FastestKnownTimes to give them their full name have been in existence for as long as someone has ever tried to be the fastest to run a route.

What is more of a modern thing is that a few Americans put together a website www.fastestknowntime.com and in the pandemic when races weren't being hosted many of the best runners around the world had a go at beating or trying to set a new FKT for one of the many iconic routes around the world.

Our very own Coach - David Bone is currently third on the all-time world list for the most of FKTs held - https://fastestknowntime.com/athletes

Now let's be very clear about this. It is perfectly fine for you (try at least) to submit a route that is not on their website and if they do and you are the first to run it then you have an fkt (what is known to many as a 'first known time' - it's just that both have the same #fkt) So during the pandemic David went deep into the history of the London trails and added many that weren't previously of this (US focused) site.

One of the outputs of all these FKTs has been a profound passion for the many routes that exist in London and how possible it is to start piecing different ones together to make a new long route.

When Camino created the Greenways challenge - some of the routes used were a homage to these historical routes. What Camino did was to modify them so that they were easier to get to and from using public transport and also to take advantage of seeing plenty of London's iconic buildings/statues and weird stuff!. During the Greenways we didn't actually do many of these actual FKTs but in the Blueways challenge we will do a couple. So if you fancy doing an FKT route (and maybe with a bit of pacing from the Camino Coaches we can advise whether it is actually possible to run the fastest version of the Mixed Team category - where you need both women and men in your group to beat the previous best Mixed Team time)

Ideas on how you can get the most out of the www.fastestknowntime.com website:

One of things that we love is their ROUTES section - Click on the global map and zoom in until you find the area that you live in (or where you might be visiting) - London must have somewhere between 40-50 routes and even more when you include 200-500 mile routes that carve a way through our city before ending in every other place imaginable.