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Thanks Stijn! Somehow missed that thread. Im keen to have a go at a fastish DGT at the of the year somtime. 

Here's the latest list as I have it: www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/14-drakensberg-general/55826-drakensberg-fkts-record-of-times.html?start=90#78762

Hi Guys.
Don't know if i've missed it somewhere. Was just wondering, is anyone still keeping an updated list of FKT attempts and times for the DGT? I did see a list on the Drakensberg hikes website for the top 10 FKT's and wanted to see if this list was correct.
Many Thanks

Brief summary of the race:

• 9 starting teams of 2
• 3 didn't make cut off and descended Leslies pass (overall cut off was 100 hours)
• 1 team had an injury and descended Judge pass to Injisuthi
• 5 teams finished, the winners being Colin van den Bergh and Matt Bouch in 63h53, and the 5th team in 93h25

It was very wet up there (misty and underfoot) but not as much rain as originally forecast, although the last 2 teams got caught in quite a big storm on Friday night

Thanks for sharing!

DGT race started 8am today
9 teams on the start line
Tracker here: en.follow.me.cz/tracking-en/?race_id=379&lang=en_GB

@Tiska - the no GPS navigation format is an interesting one and I also love the idea of making the challenge a more rounded one, requiring traditional mountain navigation skills as well. Very difficult to get right in practice unless you have a brand new route for every race as with adventure races. Simply banning GPS navigation on a race with the same route / checkpoints every year (as is done in the Freedom Challenge MTB race) just starts favouring repeat contenders over time. Regardless of navigation ability the racers who lose the least amount of time to navigation and getting lost are those that have done the route often enough that they simply navigate by memory only. Many of the top competitors in the Freedom Challenge (which is 2100km long btw) don't even bother to bring maps along with them anymore. Hence the rule ends up becoming more of a barrier to the potential competitiveness of first time racers (even if they are ace navigators).

Thankfully, the DGT is enough of a mountain challenge that teams who have taken the "download-GPS-route-and-give-it-a-go" approach have usually come off second best and quickly realised that the mountain experience required is a massive component.

@Viking, yes with the aid station at Sani and other forms of support like safety teams along the route, the race is considered as quite different to the spirit of the existing unsupported FKTs. The race organisers have acknowledged this on the race website and will be maintaining a separate race record and fastest times.

I believe there will be an aid station at Sani so I'm wondering how accepted a race time will be if it gets near the list of FKTs, considering it wouldn't be unsupported.
 

And followed up now with DGT- the pioneer. Fascinating material from GR on the original concept and first race. Great to have that info in one place. GR offers some appealing ideas, like a race without GPS which maps on more closely to the first attempts. Similar to the Golden Globe round the world yacht race that emulates the aids sailors had in the first such race decades ago. 

Just tuned into DGT-The Custodian.
It's a brilliant listen. Insightful, articulate and full of history - highly recommended.

Resurrecting this old thread as the DGT race concept is actually happening! Graham Bird and Spurgeon Flemington are organising a race along the DGT route scheduled for November 2022. All details here: dgtrun.co.za/

Fred Richardson of Mindful Runner is doing a podcast series on the unsupported DGT FKTs that have happened so far, starting with his interview of Gavin Raubenheimer in last week's episode (www.mindfulrunner.co.za/dgt-the-pioneer/) and this week Fred and I had a chat about the various strategies to take into account when taking on this beast (www.mindfulrunner.co.za/dgt-the-custodian/)

Enjoy!

An interview with Ryno Griesel:
dogreatthings.co.za/blog/dgt-podcasts/mr-grand-traverse-is-the-king-of-the-berg/

Hi guys

Thanks for all the support, encouragement and such like. Some of you seem to have spent as much time and energy following the dot as I put into the GT itself.

I will get around to a proper write up at some stage. At the moment though, I am back in Gauteng and just about everything I own is still in KZN, so please bear with me for a few days.

I will say that I am happy with my time and am in one piece even though I am a little stiff and sore in places.

I am not sure yet of the cumulated ascent or descent for the route but my GPS showed 202 km at the finish (the escarpment is shorter than the Jarateng by a good few km, but the extra ridges are some hard work)

Any idea yet of Andrew's exact total distance and accumulative elevation gain and loss?

See link below from 'The Adventure Blog"

theadventureblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/ultrarunner-sets-new-solo-speed-mark-on.html

So well done Andrew! Glad you finally had that "perfect" run, as elusive as it may seem

insane effort this!!!

It's got to be so much harder on your own. Well done Andrew!

I'm very keen to read your race report...

Wow, what an achievement! Truly inspirational stuff guys! There cannot be a lot of people who knows the DGT that well, and be that fast! Huge congrats to Andrew.

Just got a call from Andrew - final time was 45h08

He is chilling with a book at Witsieshoek right now.

tonymarshall wrote: Ghaz, do you mean a Calendar year or any 365 day period?

Calendar year - I know a few people have finished a GT within 365 days of each other.

My wording is "finish" specifically as Andrew did over half of the slow GT in 2014.

Well done, Andrew. Excellent effort to do solo!!

Congratulations on an awesome effort Andrew.

Ghaz, do you mean a Calendar year or any 365 day period?

ghaznavid wrote:
He might also be the first person ever to finish 2 GTs in a year.

Well done to Andrew. I feel exhausted just thinking how hard this must have been.

The weather window was timed well, I did read that he finished in mist, but a day later and this would have been really tough. Tuesday morning and the weather has gone bad here in the Central Berg (and from what I understand, to get worse as the day progresses, especially to the North).

Well timed indeed.

Set the time zone to Johannesburg by editing your profile:
www.vertical-endeavour.com/profile/userdetails.html (Login Details tab)
It should be using SA time as a default but for some reason it isn't for some members. Hoping this will be fixed in upcoming software updates.

Shot Intrepid.