Liberty University ultra-marathoner seeks new running record

By Ted Allen
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: June 6, 2008

Before Big Brown attempts to win the third leg of the Triple Crown of horse racing Saturday in New York, Liberty University ultra-marathon man David Horton will begin his quest to complete the Triple Crown of trail running out West.

As he did on the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail in 1991, running from Maine to Georgia in just over 52 days, and the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail in 2005, running from southern California to northern Washington in a little more than 66 days, Horton will try to set a new speed record on the 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail.

Matt Hawzly of England is the current CDT record holder after finishing it in slightly more than 75 days in 2005. That was the same year Horton set the PCT record and Andrew Thompson, a former student of Horton’s at LU, set the AT mark at 48 days while being crewed for the fourth time by Jonathan Basham.

Basham, who set the Colorado Trail speed record in 2006 while being crewed by Thompson, will serve as Horton’s primary crew support this summer.

“I’m tickled to death the have JB accompanying me,” Horton said. “He’ll be with me the whole way.”

On Saturday, National Trails Day, Horton takes the first of nearly 7 million footsteps in his summer-long odyssey from Antelope Wells, N.M., on the border of Mexico, through Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho to Glacier National Park in northern Montana, on the border of Canada.

He plans to run more than 42 miles per day with an average of 6,000 feet and as much as 12,000 feet of elevation gain and loss.

The trail will travel from below 4,000 feet to above 14,000 feet, with its low point at 3,900 in Columbus, N.M., just a few miles north of the border, and its highest summit at 14,270 feet at Gray’s Peak in Colorado.

Horton is targeting an Aug. 14 finish, the Friday before he is due to teach his first class of the fall semester at LU on Aug. 17.

“That’s going to be a challenge,” he said.

It would put him at the CDT’s northern trailhead in 69 days, 10 hours, three days longer than his record on the PCT, which was more than 300 miles shorter. If he goes the distance, he will complete a sort of “Horton Slam” of his own, after also placing third in the 2,900-mile Trans-America Footrace in 64 days in 1995.

Horton is a man of faith, but he admits to being fearful of the 3,000 miles of mountainous terrain that await him along the rugged and remote CDT.

“This is a hard thing, a very hard thing,” Horton said from home last week. “And to tell you the truth, it scares me.”

At the same time, the impending trek kindles the spirit of adventure within the 58-year-old Horton, who seeks to inspire others to do more than would be possible without a step of faith.

“This is what God has gifted me to do, to encourage others,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt or be difficult, but the Lord’s going to bless me through this. I will survive and, Lord willing, I will finish it.”

Though he is already bothered by a knee injury, Horton is determined to finish the course, even if it isn’t finished itself.

Of the trail’s 3,100 miles, more than 1,000 are unfinished. That will make it tougher for Horton and Basham to remain on track.

“It’s probably going to be more challenging (than the PCT) in trying to find the trail,” Horton said. “The trail is only 70 percent complete so it will be a big challenge staying on course.”

Besides purchasing all of the maps of the CDT that they could find, they rented satellite phones, one of which Basham will carry in his Toyota truck, and a GPS.

“Hopefully, we don’t get lost, but catching each other and meeting up will be a challenge, logistically,” Horton said.

The CDT is the least-traveled of the nation’s trans-continental trails, with one-hundredth as many people attempting to through-hike or run it as the AT.

“It is called the King of the Trails,” Horton said. “(Approximately) 3,000 people start the Appalachian Trail every year, 300 start the Pacific Crest Trail and only 30 start the Continental Divide Trail. It’s so remote.”

Horton has only run on a small portion of the CDT in the past, all in Colorado.

“I’ve never been on it in New Mexico, Wyoming or Montana,” he said.

This week, Horton and Basham have gotten a preview of parts of the trail in New Mexico.

“We’re starting in northern New Mexico and working our way south and stopping at all the major railroad crossings,” Basham said by cell phone Monday. “There’s a little concern where the trail crosses roads. There’s a lot of sections in this area that aren’t very well marked.”

Basham said throughout Colorado, the CDT is literally on top of the Continental Divide, whereas in New Mexico, it isn’t always. “In some areas, you’re following cattle trails,” he said.

Horton expects Colorado to be the best-marked state, and also the one where he’ll see the most people on the trail. With its alpine terrain, it will also be the most scenic and strenuous state.

“About 80 percent of (the CDT in Colorado) is above 10,000 feet and 20 percent of it is above 12,000 feet,” he said. “You don’t start acclimating until you get up to 7,000 feet or higher.”

That is the average elevation of the CDT, which has approximately 350,000 feet of elevation gain and loss from start to finish, about the same as the PCT.

“They don’t call them the Rocky Mountains for nothing,” Horton said. “Some of New Mexico is pretty flat and half of Wyoming is pretty flat. So I should make better time there.”

Foot troubles slowed Horton on his PCT trek, so how does he expect them to hold up for 3,000 miles of trudging on the Rockies?

“Hopefully well, in my Montrail ‘Continental Divide’ trail shoes,” he said, noting his primary sponsor is also coming out with a line of shoe called the “Mountain Masochist,” named after the 50-mile trail run Horton started more than 25 years ago.

Horton turned the direction of that race over to LU graduate and past MMTR champion Clark Zealand as part of a deal with his wife, Nancy, who agreed to let him go on one final cross-country run spanning more than a month.

“I’m not planning anything else,” he said. “I suspect this will be my last MAJOR adventure. This would be a good one (to end with), wouldn’t it? Lord willing, I’ll hold the record on the CDT.”

Horton’s detailed itinerary, can be viewed on his Web site, http://www.extremeultrarunning.com, or Zealand’s, http://www.eco-xsports.com, which will have regularly updated blog reports.