Ultra runner Karel Sabbe racked up another astonishing feat this weekend as he set a new FKT on New Zealand's Te Araroa (TA) trail.
The Belgian dentist announced on Instagram that he had run the 1,897-mile trail (that's 3,054k) which traverses the entire length of both the North and South Islands in just 31 days, 19 hours and 40 minutes. That's an eye-watering 17.5 days faster than the previous record, set by the UK's George Henderson in 2020.
"What an epic adventure it was. For sure, it was the most diverse trail I ever ran, from volcanoes to rainforest, Alps to kayaking rivers," says Sabbe, who says he previously hiked most of the trail 12 years ago.
"One moment you could gently cruise on runnable trails, only to suddenly have a 'rough tramping' section on which you take hours for just a couple of km."
In the end, Sabbe ran at a blistering 59 miles per day (96k) to complete his latest challenge. If his effort is ratified by the Fastest Known Times website, it will be the new men’s supported record on the trail.
On January 29, the runner posted a picture on Instagram of a pile of his On running shoes on the trail, revealing he was wearing the Cloud Monster Hyper shoes during road sections on the run, the On Cloud Peak for mud and the On Cloud Ultra as well as a prototype that isn't out yet.
Sabbe already holds the FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail, which he ran in 2023 in 46:12:50, and has previously set records on the Appalachian Trail in 2018 (which fell to Tara Dower last year) and the Via Alpina route in 2021.
The TA means “the long pathway” in Māori and the route involves crossing Cook Strait between the two islands, multiple river and estuary crossings and a 71-mile section of the Whanganui River that Sabbe undertook in a kayak.
