Taking the Long Path to success: How Kim Levinsky set an FKT on 358-mile route
The ultra runner and trail director set a fastest known time for a supported woman on the challenging New York State trails
From crossing paths with farm dogs to shimmying over logs, ultra runner Kim Levinsky faced a plethora of physical, mental and altogether unexpected challenges as she set a new Fastest Known Time (FKT) across New York State’s 358-mile Long Path.
The Sassquad Trail Running race director even encountered curious police officers and closed trails as she completed the gruelling challenge in nine days and ten hours.
Kim set an FKT for a supported woman on the route which starts at 175th Street Subway Station in New York City, crossing George Washington Bridge and running across the Catskills all the way to Albany.
Passing through a wide variety of often brutal terrain, the Long Path takes in woods, a series of 2,900-foot peaks, and trails that pass over lakes and streams.
Kim - who has previously completed Tahoe 200 - told the Running Tales Podcast that the experience was “pretty wild”.
“I’m still trying to process what happened out there,” she said.
“My watch registered 378 miles - the path is officially 358 so I got a few bonus miles in there. The elevation was around 72,000 feet of gain over the nine-and-a-half days.
“It felt like forever and also very fast at the same time. I definitely felt a lot of fatigue at the finish, but overall it was incredible.
“I’m still trying to understand and work through everything that went on, because it was such a huge experience. I’m a bit disconnected in some ways, but as each day goes on, I’m talking with friends about what happened and sharing memories online and it has been pretty cool to remember everything.”
Unexpected early niggles:
One issue Kim hadn’t, as an experienced ultra and trail runner, expected to encounter was picking up niggles in the very early stages of the run.
“I’ve since learnt it should have been expected,” she said. “Thankfully I was surrounded by friends who are very experienced ultra runners and they kept telling me it was normal and with many people who go out for these multi-day hikes, the first one to two days your body will freak out with what is happening.
“I knew, logically, that I wasn’t injured. I hadn’t had IT band problems for more than a year, but it is really hard when it happens 30 or 40 miles into something which is going to take over a week.
“It’s hard to keep the brain in check - that’s why I was so grateful to my friends who were there. Every time I tried to project out to even 20 miles ahead, let alone days ahead, they would immediately bring it back to, ‘ok, but we’re here in this mile, this segment, and we are going to get to the next checkpoint, and then the next one and the next one’.”
Kim said once she was able to switch the way her brain was thinking, she began to cope better: “It took more than 140 miles for my brain to get fatigued enough from the mental gymnastics of freaking out and then calming down.
“Eventually it decided to focus on the next ten miles until we saw crew again. The brain is so powerful. The mental side of it was wild.”
While Kim was eventually able to quieten the demons in her head, the weather was a more persistent opponent - even threatening to bring the whole run to an end.
With record rain and flooding, all the water levels in the rivers on the Long Path were rising. On more than one occasion, Kim and her crew were forced to shimmy across narrow logs placed between two riverbanks.
“It was at 11 o’clock at night, pitch black,” she said. “It was crazy. I said to my friend, ‘you’ve got to take a picture of this because no-one is going to believe what we are doing out here’.
“That’s why I’m so thankful to my friends who were out there. They had a few more brain cells than I did.
“In all seriousness, they kept me safe. There were some really sketchy, dangerous things so I was thankful to be with friends who were competent.”
One of the most challenging sections was through Harriman State Park, which was actually closed to the public due to the impact of storms and rain in the area with some of the trails becoming little more than waterfalls.
Kim said: “Halfway through we didn’t think we were going to be able to finish because of these trail closures, but thanks to the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference we got special permission.
“That was one of those situations where, because I had recced the area, I knew where we were, and we were on this road that was about to dead end before we’d hit the trail. I knew what was coming, with trails that are challenging to begin with but were now closed to the public so I knew would be pretty gnarly in there.
“I don’t know how you can mimic something like that. What I did beforehand was very helpful, but it was a blessing and a curse to have previewed so much of the trail.
“I had been able to see about 230-40 miles of it over the previous year. It was good in the sense that I knew what was coming, but also not good as a I knew what was coming!”
Farm dogs and soggy socks
The heavy rain also presented challenges with footwear, with Kim’s trainers and socks becoming constantly soaked despite regular changes at camp.
She said: “The problem was as soon as you got back out, the trails were soaked so your feet just immediately got wet and stayed wet.
“It was unavoidable. We just had to do the best we could. I don’t think it went completely into trench foot, but my feet were disgusting.
“One of the strategies we used was I would come into camp, shoes off, socks off, and we would douse my feet in hand sanitiser because the alcohol content would help draw the moisture out.
“You know you have good friends if they touch your feet. I remember my friend saying, ‘your feet feel like wet plastic, they aren’t human feet anymore’.”
Alongside soggy socks, Kim - a cat person - had to deal with unexpected attention from hungry dogs.
“I’m not a dog person and we met a few out there. The first 100 miles were very remote, very rural, so it is common for these farm dogs to be running around,” she said.
“The funny one I posted online was when we passed this dog at the same time as I happened to be eating a piece of bacon. This dog came bounding along and I was a little scared as I’m not into dogs, but my pacer Ryan grabbed him and it turned out he was very friendly.
“The dog’s name was Leo and he followed us for about a quarter of a mile, looking for more bacon.”
If encounters with dogs were challenging enough, Kim and her crew also had to deal with enquiries from the police when the 23-foot RV they were using started attracting attention.
“The RV was very convenient for me, but it was a lot of work for my crew,” she told Running Tales. “Each night I was able to sleep maybe three hours or so. It was nice to have a bed and a little kitchen.
“But we actually had two situations where the police were called on us. We were reported for suspicious activity. I guess it was quite a sight to have an RV in the middle of nowhere.”
‘We would take a break, I’d cry a bit and then I’d get up and just keep going’
Kim said such was the challenge presented by the Long Path that there wasn’t a day went by when she didn’t feel like stopping.
“The second morning I couldn’t even imagine finishing. It was so overwhelming,” she said.
“We’d had heat in the nineties [Fahrenheit] with high humidity, and I didn’t sleep at all the first night. I was going for 36 hours awake at the very beginning.
“I was nauseous the next morning, my IT band was hurting. But again, it came back to the people I was surrounded by.”
She said the incredible support of her crew kept her going, even after spending up to 20 hours a day out on the trails.
“The last five or six hours of every day, it was really hard,” she said. “We would go maybe a couple of miles and I would have to take a break, sit down or lie down.
“There were points where I would say I can’t take another step and then we would take a break, catch a breath, I would usually cry a little bit and then I’d get up and just keep going.
“That’s the wild experience I’m still trying to process, with the human body and what it is capable of. It feels surreal.”
Kim said one thing that kept her going was a group chat of around 100 people cheering her on 24-hours a day: “When I got to that breaking point of just having to sit down on a rock and get my emotions out, I would pull my phone out and start reading through those notes. It was very emotional to do that.”
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She was also powered forward by the two charities which she undertook the run for: the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference and Bigger Than The Trail, which provides cost free therapy to anyone who needs it.
Kim said she thought about both charities every day: “The trail conference maintains all 358 miles of the Long Path and I’ve since learnt there are only four or five people looking after 100 miles of the trails. They are really in need of more volunteers.
“I benefitted from Bigger Than The Trail last year and have since stuck with that to work through the mental health side of everything. I know the money raised is going to get people help that they need.”
So far, Kim has raised more than US$5,000 for the two organisations, just another success story courtesy of the world of ultra running that has helped shape her life and experiences.
“It becomes a part of who you are,” she said. “Ultra running just weaves itself into your life and sometimes you don’t even realise it until years later.
“That’s what makes running so powerful.”
You can find more details about, and donate to, Kim's charities for the Long Path FKT at:
Bigger Than The Trail Fundraiser: https://biggerthanthetrail.networkforgood.com/projects/160786-kim-levinsky-s-fundraiser-to-provide-free-counseling
New York-New Jersey Trail Conference Fundraiser: https://www.nynjtc.com/supportkim
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