Andrea Sansone set a new women’s supported fastest known time (FKT) on the Nolan’s 14 route, shaving more than 3 hours off the existing record of 48 hours, 49 minutes.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on iRunFar.
After 2 years, Sabrina Stanley’s women’s supported FKT on Nolan’s 14 is no more.
Andrea Sansone began a record attempt — running south to north — in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 10 and finished less than 2 days later, on the morning of Monday, Sept. 12. Clocked at 45 hours, 42 minutes, her run takes the women’s supported record well under the iconic 2-day barrier. You can view her tracker information and splits online.
The route comprises 14 peaks of greater than 14,000 feet (4,267 m) in the Sawatch Range in Colorado. There is free route choice between the peaks, and the challenge amounts to around 95 miles with roughly 44,000 feet (13,411 m) of elevation gain.
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Sansone — a neonatal intensive care nurse who lives in Colorado — previously held the women’s overall FKT when she completed the challenge with her partner, Andrew Hamilton, as a self-supported team in a time of 53 hours, 14 minutes, in August 2020.
Although the pair still hold the mixed-team FKT, Sansone’s overall women’s record didn’t stand for long back then, with Sabrina Stanley besting it by almost 2 hours, with a supported run of 51 hours, 15 minutes, just 5 days later. The record was lowered twice more in the fall of 2020 — by Meghan Hicks in a time of 50 hours, 32 minutes, and again by Stanley, whose 48-hour, 49-minute finish time remained the benchmark for almost 2 years.
Sansone’s valiant second effort at the Nolan’s 14 didn’t come out of the blue. On July 31 of this year, she set a new overall Colorado 14er 24-hour record, summiting 12 Colorado peaks of above 14,000 feet in 22 hours, 27 minutes. The previous women’s record had stood at eight peaks in 24 hours.
Two months previous, on May 31, she set a record on the Manitou Incline for the greatest number of ascents of the popular Colorado trail by a woman in 24 hours — totaling over 35,700 feet (10,881 m) of elevation in 19 repetitions.
“This was by far the most challenging of my successful FKT attempts this year,” Sansone told iRunFar. “As I’ve trained incredibly hard and had an amazing crew, I knew quitting and letting my team down was never going to be an option.”
