Keith and Elisa Laverty Aim for FKTs on The Grand Loop in Olympic National Park. Oh, and Max King too!
By Chase Parnell — September 1, 2020 — 📸 Matt Longmire
The siege on fastest known times (FKTs) continues! On Wednesday, September 2nd, Keith Laverty and his longtime coach, Max King, will take their swing at The Grand Loop, followed by Elisa Laverty on Thursday. The Grand Loop is a 43 mile loop with over 13,000 feet of vertical gain that utilizes four mountain passes to form the route. If you aren’t familiar with the Olympics, it’s one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the northwest. Big mountains nestled close to Puget Sound. If you’re a sea dog but love the mountains too, this is nirvana.
On a personal note, this FKT has a bit more meaning for me. I met Keith back in 2007 when we ran on the University of Oregon running club team after he had finished up his years running for the Ducks. We may or may not have done a little partying together back in the day; I have vague memories of a drinking challenge called power hour where you take shots of beer every minute for an hour — wasn’t much of a challenge then. It would be now. Post-college, we’ve bumped into each other over the years at races, meeting Elisa and their son Luke, and I’ve followed Keith’s amazing progression as a runner throughout. It’s been fun to watch!
Add to that connection, my wife Nikki and I have been going to Max King’s Tuesday Night Performance Group in Bend, Oregon for years now. This is a free group workout that Max organizes for the community and has been a source of a lot of ass-whoopings for me as I’ve showed up in varying levels of fitness to run against the studs in Bend. You never know who might be there each week!
Lastly, the current FKT holder that Keith and Max are gunning for is Tim Bedford, who went to college (Oregon State) with Nikki. And if all goes to plan, I’ll be pacing Tim at IMTUF 100 in a few weeks, his first hundred miler.
So we’ve got a great bunch of humans getting after it on mountains that are insanely beautiful but don’t often get the attention they deserve, likely because across the sound is Mount Rainier and the tallest peaks tend to get all the love!
What is The Grand Loop?
According to the Fastest Known Time website, the name appears to have originated from Backpacker Magazine’s guide book Trekking Washington. Classic ultra runner move to commandeer a 3-5 day backpacking trip and run it in a day!
With an average of 302 feet of climbing per mile, this is on the level with a Hardrock or UTMB in terms of vertical. Depending on the direction you run the loop, you’re either finishing with a 4 mile 3,300 foot ascent or starting with that as a descent. Ouch. The climbs throughout are steep, the mountains jutting straight up from the valley floors.
What allows you to move fast here is that you have runnable alpine environments at a manageable elevation, fluctuating between 2,000 and 7,000 feet of elevation. I wish I could tell you how these jagged peaks formed at such low elevations, but I’m no geologist. Suffice to say, it’s unique to be able to run in such a mountainous and rugged place while also breathing fairly oxygenated air.
The Players: Keith and Elisa Laverty, Max King
As I mentioned, Keith was a XC/Track runner for the University of Oregon back in the Galen Rupp era. But unlike many D1 runners who graduate and never run again, it doesn’t appear that Keith ever lost that fire. Over the years he’s slowly but surely built up an incredible resume of achievements, each year the distances getting longer and the courses getting harder. I counted 35 wins on his Ultrasignup, and while he hasn’t quite nailed a super competitive ultra yet, I’m certain it’s only a matter of time before he podiums at one of the classics. And watch out for Keith at Javelina Jundred at the end of October as he makes his 100 mile debut! The guy also recently ran 2h 24m at the 2019 running of the Cal International Marathon. WHEELS! Keith currently runs for rabbitELITE trail and is a coach for TeamRunRun. Give him a follow on instagram!
I wish I knew more about Elisa. What I can tell you is that she rides a gravel bike, apparently she’s an excellent baker, I heard mention of her pursuing a yoga instructorship, and she appears to be on a similar running trajectory as Keith in that she’s methodically increasing her distances and her finishes are more and more promising. In 2019 she won the Run Forest Run 50k and was 2nd at the always competitive Yakima Skyline 25k. Together with Keith, they juggle work, training, living on Bainbridge Island, and parenting their little boy Luke. Excited to see how Elisa progresses as a runner; doesn’t hurt to have a coach for a husband! …or does it? Follow Elisa’s story here.
Do we really need to introduce Max King?! As I mentioned, Max is Keith’s coach and has been for a long time. Apparently it wasn’t the original plan to have Max join, but Keith told me, “I don’t get too many chances to run with Max in the first place, let alone a huge mountain run, so I think it’ll be a really memorable overall experience.” Pretty cool to chase an FKT with your coach in tow. Keith is fit! But I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Max should be able to hang.
Current FKTs on The Grand Loop
Men’s Unsupported: Tim Bedford of Portland holds the current FKT in 10h 49m 30s. This is a solid time. See his Strava data here. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Max and Keith lopped one to two hours off. Sub 9 hours feels possible to me. It’ll be exciting to see if this effort draws attention to The Grand Loop. It’s not a circumnavigation or a summit tag, more like a longer version of the iconic Four Pass Loop in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness of Colorado. These loops can be very cool but I don’t know yet if it’ll capture the imagination of other A-list runners. We’ll see! Final note: Max and Keith will qualify under the FKT guidelines for an unsupported FKT so long as they finish and travel together for the entire duration of the run. If one of them has to drop out, the other can continue on but it’ll then only qualify as a supported FKT. (*update: there was some confusion around the use of “only” in the previous sentence. In this case, the supported FKT would be a downgrade from unsupported because their goal was to complete an unsupported FKT and there are no supported FKTs on the route. Further, if one of them did have to drop and the other got the supported record, it would be a shame because they wouldn’t have been utilizing all of the benefits of being supported throughout their entire run. “Only” was not meant to degrade supported FKTs as a class.). More on these rules here if interested.
Women’s Unsupported: Steph Decker has the only time on record in 15h 50m 37s which she did just a month ago on August 1, 2020. Her Strava data here. Not to take anything away from Steph, but Elisa should get this record. To me, after looking at Steph’s Strava, there seems to be a lot of time to make up on the descents. But you never know what could happen out there! Navigation, hydration and nutrition, weather; lots of variables to contend with. That said, I think Elisa has a great opportunity to build off Steph’s effort and raise the bar.
Follow Along!
When I connected with Keith he said he was trying to figure out live tracking for us all to follow along but there were no promises made. If he gets it put together I’ll update this article with the link to his GPS tracking device and post updates on our Treeline social media accounts.
**9/4/2020 UPDATE: Keith and Max got the FKT by 9 minutes! Apparently Keith suffered from leg cramping from mile 18 on. He soldiered through, lowering the FKT to 10:40:49! And then Elisa, sheesh, wow, she had an unbelievable day out there. As I followed the tracker, I really though she might take the overall FKT! She took over 4 and a half hours off the previous FKT setting an incredible mark of 11h 15m!**
I don’t know about you guys, but I think this is pretty rad! Husband and wife alternating FKT attempts on an epic route in their own backyard. I love how this is spotlighting the Olympic Mountains, a range that has always intrigued me when visiting Seattle, gazing across the sound thinking, wow, if you lived in Port Angeles, you could run ridge lines in the AM and paddleboard with orcas in the PM. Seems dreamy.
Anyways, show Keith, Elisa, and Max some love over the next couple days! This is a huge effort and one that should be recognized and not lost amongst all the other incredible FKTs that seem to be happening on a daily basis.
Let’s go!!
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This article has an interesting tone compared to others you’ve authored. I can tell you love these people but your overall tone for current FKT holders is out of character. How very casually you drop terms like “lopping time” off current FKT’s, “only qualifying” for an FKT category, and “not taking anything away” from current FKT holders but then analyzing their performances as though they didn’t try very hard. FKT’s aren’t grudge matches, they’re accomplishments. It’s very cool your friends are doing this; I hope they do well. It is possible to support them in your writing without disparaging other runners.
Hi Jennifer, it certainly wasn’t my intention to disparage other runners. I do think that some FKTs are more impressive than others though, I won’t deny that. The FKT website is open for anyone to submit their times on routes they create (if they think it’s a worthy route) so I do qualify past performances to give context. And I do think that FKTs are competitive in nature and people who log their times into the database are sort of “playing the game” and opening themselves up to a certain amount of competitive energy. I think it’s part of the fun and makes it exciting, and everyone retains respect for the previous FKT holders. That said, I do have a tendency to get carried away with enthusiasm as a writer sometimes and maybe that happened a bit here. The guy who has the FKT currently, as I mentioned in the article, is someone I’m pacing at a 100 miler in a few weeks. Definitely not trying to knock his effort! Was more trying to emphasize how brilliantly I anticipated Keith and Max to run on this route. The “only qualifying as a supported FKT” I’m not sure I see why that’s a problem. I was more just emphasizing the categorical differences of supported vs. unsupported. There aren’t any supported FKTs on the route so it would really just be unfortunate for Keith and Max because they were attempting to set an unsupported FKT on something that already had some existing marks on it. I love a little friendly competition but not trying to facilitate anything more than that. Thanks for the input and putting this on my radar! I’ll keep an eye on my tone for sure.
While the Laverty’s FKT attempts are impressive, I would caution you on your use of words. “If one of them has to drop out, the other can continue on but it’ll then only qualify as a supported FKT.”…ONLY qualify? Are you implying that a person who does a supported FKT is lesser than someone who is unsupported? If you consider Emily Halnon’s feat of crossing Oregon, is it with the qualifier of it being “only” supported? Is Kaitlyn Gerbin a lesser athlete in her crushing the Wonderland trail last week because she was supported? Whether it is intentional or not in your quest to promote the Lavertys, your words are incredibly dismissive. “Not to take anything away from Steph” yet that is exactly what you immediately did. No woman had attempted the Grand Loop till she decided to tackle it. That in itself is huge. It can never be taken away from her and there is zero reason to criticize her effort in order to promote Elisa.
This article is not the spirit of ultrarunning. Perhaps next time you promote a run, you do it with less downplaying of other’s feats.
Hi Jeremiah, this is the second comment I’ve gotten on this post after never having received a comment like this in the past so it’s probably good its coming up. First off, my fault in not qualifying that “If one of them has to drop out, the other can continue on but it’ll then only qualify as a supported FKT” was said more because there are no supported times on this route and Max and Keith weren’t going for the supported record, so they wouldn’t achieve their goal. I wasn’t trying to take anything away from the category of supported at all. I am fully aware of all the amazing supported records out there. Courtney’s CT was supported, Sabrina’s Nolan’s was supported, and I wrote articles on both of those and was blown away by what they did. As far as the Steph comment, I see what you’re saying. As I mentioned in my other comment, I do think FKTs are competitive in nature and I tried to qualify the comment about Steph by saying, “That said, I think Elisa has a great opportunity to build off Steph’s effort and raise the bar.” Building off Steph’s effort was me trying to acknowledge her achievement while retaining some room for Elisa to improve it. Thanks for the comment. I’ll definitely keep this in mind. Not trying to offend the ultra spirit, but I do think there is room within it for a little competitive analysis and commentary on achievements.