Corrine Malcolm breaks 275K Tahoe Rim Trail FKT in 44 hours, 51 minutes

With so few racing opportunities in the past 10 months, 2020 has become the year of fastest known times (FKTs) for trail runners everywhere. American ultrarunner Corrine Malcolm recently contributed to the record books with a new FKT on the 275K Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) in California, completing the route in 44 hours, 51 minutes to beat the previous record by a little more than two and a half hours. Forest fires on the west coast of the U.S. in late summer forced Malcolm to delay her TRT run, but after an extra month and a bit of waiting, she finally got her shot on the route, and she didn’t let it go to waste.

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The TRT FKT 

Malcolm’s run on the TRT was supported, meaning she had a crew to help her out throughout the attempt. To become the new route record-holder, she had to beat fellow American Krissy Moehl‘s TRT supported FKT of 47 hours, 29 minutes from 2015. Malcolm was well prepared heading into the run, as she had prior experience on the TRT thanks to her time crewing former Olympian Magda Boulet on the the route in 2019. Boulet failed to beat Moehl’s FKT, but with her knowledge of the route, Malcolm was able to break the record this time around. 

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Her run featured a brutal 8,100m of elevation gain, and according to her Strava file for the TRT, she only had about three hours of rest in the close to two days of action. As Malcolm explained on Strava, she experienced “some chilly headlamp-less moments” and “really great visual hallucinations,” but she ultimately made it to the finish line with a new best time. 

Way to go Champ ???? https://t.co/T7UkMc1N6k

— Magda Boulet (@RunBoulet) October 20, 2020

An experienced ultrarunner 

This is Malcolm’s third FKT of 2020, and it’s by far the longest one she has run this year. She has had a noteworthy career in ultrarunning so far, and at just 30 years old, she still has many years of peak running ahead of her. Some of her best results include two top-10 finishes at Western States 100 in 2018 and 2019, fourth place at the 2018 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc TDS 120K event and race wins at a number of other ultras. She only raced once in 2020, finishing 10th at a 100K race in Arizona in February, but her TRT FKT is a satisfying end to an unusual season. 

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