Ultrarunning couple sets team FKT on 140K Georgia route
It took Laurie Cloud and Andrew Highsmith four tries, but they finally completed a brutal run that features 6,800m of climbing
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Andrew Highsmith/fastestknowntime.com
Many couples spend their weekends together hanging out and relaxing, but Laurie Cloud and Andrew Highsmith aren’t like most people, and they spent last weekend running a team FKT (fastest known time) in Georgia. The ultrarunning couple became the first duo to complete the 142K Georgia Scoop, which features close to 7,000m of climbing and takes runners up some of the state’s highest and toughest peaks. Cloud and Highsmith completed the run in one day, 21 hours, 17 minutes.
The Georgia Scoop
This was Cloud’s and Highsmith’s fourth attempt on the Georgia Scoop, and although they were unsuccessful on their previous runs, they learned valuable lessons each time. Highsmith wrote the post-run report on fastestknowntime.com, and he said they stayed in a cabin in Vogel State Park (the route’s starting point) the night before.
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They got up early on February 26 and set off on the multi-day journey at 5 a.m. “We touched the trail head sign and off we went into an epic day of foggy, misty, gusty rain,” Highsmith wrote. Their run was supported, and they had friends and family who met them along the route to help pace them and help out however else they could (with water and food, for example).
Highsmith said they ran supported in previous attempts on the Georgia Scoop, but they didn’t take full advantage of that format. In their first run, he and Cloud only had one point on the route about 80K into the run where they planned to meet their crew. “This go around, we set up more crew stops,” Highsmith wrote. “It made such a huge difference.”
In addition to their extra support, Highsmith said he and Cloud planned better for the overall attempt. “Our training was better, our fuelling was better, our knowledge of what was needed for the route was better,” he wrote. With the fog and cold not letting up throughout the challenge, the conditions were far from ideal, and mud made the route even more difficult to navigate.
“Nothing about the route is easy,” Highsmith said. “But we had the time of our lives together.”
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Their running resumes
Cloud and Highsmith have both completed a long list of ultramarathons, many of which they ran together. In fact, the only reason they ran the Georgia Scoop in the first place was so they could train for the Tahoe 200 Endurance Run — a 200-mile race in California.
The couple ended up running that race in 2019 (they finished just a few seconds apart), and with that goal checked off, they shifted their focus to the Georgia Scoop. It took them a while to get the right formula and strategy, but they finally completed the route. “Trying to finish this route has been such a journey for us,” Highsmith wrote, “and now we finally have and it feels so amazing.”
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