Central Park FKT

Robbie Balenger is a study in modesty. He isn’t setting out to break the Fastest Known Time of the Central Park Loop Challenge out of a desire to be the best, set a world record, or do something nobody else has done before. His impetus is much simpler: Robbie is taking on this feat – and returning to Central Park – to end one chapter and start a new one.

Despite never living there, New York is one of the most important places in Robbie’s life. While he was born in rural Georgia and now lives in Denver, New York has come to embody the crucial changes he’s made in his life.

“New York always seems to come into my life at a juncture, at a place where old things are behind me and new things are beginning."

The last time Robbie was in New York was in 2019, when he completed his 75 day transcontinental run. As he crossed the finish line in Central Park, he knew it represented the end of a monumental chapter in his life – and the beginning of an even more difficult one. He’d spent months and months gearing up for his transcontinental run, and crossing the finish line represented the culmination of the hard work, the sweat, and the tears he’d put in.

“When you do something big, like run across the United States, there's definitely depression that comes after. You put all your eggs into this basket, and it’s your entire focus. And then you finish and you're wondering: Now who am I? What am I going to do? That process has been its own journey.”

Returning to Central Park is Robbie’s answer to that question. In the midst of the pandemic and the continuous wrestling with how to come back even stronger following his transcontinental run, Robbie is using this challenge as a fresh mental start.

Robbie’s desire to return to Central Park to give himself his physical and mental fresh start – as well as his previous endurance feats – lend themselves to the idea that Robbie has been perfecting his ultrarunning craft for years on end. However, it isn’t that simple. Robbie hasn’t always been an ultrarunner.

Instead, his path to the sport is closely tied to his struggle with – and desire to truly understand – the concept of manhood. Robbie looked up to his father as the ultimate role model and embodiment of the traditional definition of manly – gritty, driven, and dedicated. When his father passed away at a young age, Robbie was forced to wrestle with this concept head-on and figure out what manhood looked like for him. That led him down a “risky and hell-bent chapter, one filled with working hard but partying even harder.”

“After my father passed, I really tore it down on the partying scene,” Robbie explains. “A lot of that was this exploration of what it meant to be a man. My dad was a pretty hard hitting dude, so I was emulating that.”

Despite his partying, Robbie had a successful career owning and operating pizzerias in Austin. With this success came immense stress and pressure, and recognizing this, his girlfriend – now fiancé – suggested he join her for a run one day rather than get a drink to blow off some steam.

That first 2.5 mile jog changed Robbie’s life. Not only did he find a new way to handle stress and anxiety or blow off steam, but he found another way to prove his manhood and carry out the memory of his father.

“It was a way to continue to express grit. I was able to find a new outlet in my struggle to understand manhood. It became a place for me to put this guttural growl that I have in me that my dad had in him.”

As Robbie came to realize the role that running was playing in redefining his manhood and allowing him to recognize his own version of success, he jumped into it. Within a month and a half of that first jog, he ran a half marathon, The next year, it was a marathon. About six months later, it was a 50-miler, and then it just kept progressing until the transcontinental run. For Robbie, his immediate ruthless dedication to the sport solved the question he had been wrestling with since the death of his father.

Highly structured training. An exacting diet for the months leading up to the run. A precise weekly mileage target. Robbie Balenger eschewed all of these. Rather than approach his effort with scientific precision as he had his previous endurance events, Robbie took a completely different tact with the Central Park Loop Challenge: relying on his body and mind to guide his training, and moving away from any sort of formal strategy,

While Robbie has stared down grueling distance events before, this challenge is different. Rather than the sustained daily efforts that underpinned his transcontinental run, this effort is about laying it all on the line, for one day. That requires a completely different approach to training.

“With the Central Park Loop Challenge, I don’t have to be as reserved in my effort – but I do in my training. It's a one day thing. It's one big push, whereas with the transcontinental run, I had to be calm and I had to hold on because I needed more for the next day.”

That’s what makes preparing for this so challenging for Robbie. He can’t simply run 100 miles straight every day, let alone every week or even month leading up to his FKT attempt. Instead, he’s settled into a routine by listening – and adapting – to his body, changing up his schedule a bit every day of every week. There’s no set mileage or days on – it’s all about consistency and feeling good.

With that approach, Robbie’s settled into a routine. He’s run at least 10 miles a day every day for the last 50 days, increasing or tapering his mileage and his cadence at any given moment – including mid-run. While this has included some longer efforts – including a recent 32 mile cruiser – no effort will even come close to the mileage he’s planning to crush in Central Park. This decision to focus on consistency over insane mileage totals is intentional.

“At a certain point, I think there are diminishing returns when you're gearing up for something this big,” he said. “I’ve found that consistency is what increases my odds of success. The hay is already in the barn, as they say. I've already done the work. Nothing I’m going to do right now will really change the outcome. Even though I’m hoping to run further than I've ever ran in one effort, I know I can do the distance – and I have to bet on that confidence.”

Robbie’s approach to the Central Park Loop Challenge is especially jarring in comparison to how he approached his transcontinental run. One full year out, he settled into a rigid training schedule, breaking the year into three parts and spending each four month period focusing on a different crucial skill. As Robbie began gearing up for Central Park, this extremely deliberate approach had two crucial impacts: it gave him a strong baseline from which to start, and it taught him that rigidity isn’t always the way to go.

It was 4 a.m., and that meant one thing: it was go time. Along with that came a core change: Robbie’s cool, quiet, and confident demeanor shifted. The gravity of the challenge sunk in, and he was nervous. This wasn’t the first time he’d put himself on the line, but that didn’t make it any less intimidating.

Robbie’s months of training and many hundreds of miles were crucial, but they weren’t going to matter now. They’d prepared him to lay it all out, but they weren’t going to make the experience feel any easier in the moment.

“I definitely had nerves as anyone would, knowing that you’re about to put yourself in a pretty compromising place for the next eighteen and a half hours. There’s an immense amount of pain and suffering that you’re thrusting yourself into. It brings butterflies in your stomach just knowing what’s about to happen and how it’s about to feel.”

However, as he toed the starting line, his apprehension began to subside – at least for a moment. He hadn’t stepped foot in Central Park since the end of his transcontinental run in 2019, and being back in the same spot reminded him of the gravity of the moment – and the meaning that the park held for him. It served to push him to go even harder.

“Being back in Central Park, I was completely taken aback,” he said. “I hadn’t been there since I completed my run across the US and it's a special place. I didn't realize how special it was to me until being back there.”

“I’d seen it on paper, but it was still hard to process that in New York City I was going to find myself having to dig deep to get up some of these hills. When I got to Harlem Hill, I was thinking, holy hell is that brutal.”

Even so, though, Robbie let his training guide him, and he was feeling good. He cruised through the first few 6.1 mile loops, pacing well, feeling rested, and making great time. It all changed around mile 40.

Both physically and mentally, Robbie hit a lull. His IT bands were causing immense leg pain. He was disoriented, and he had no idea where he was at times. For somebody whose last long-distance effort involved running through new locales every single day for 75 days, running in circles challenged him in a way he couldn’t have predicted.

Robbie knew that he could adjust for the physical pain. He downed sugar, took ibuprofen, and relied on CBD oil to loosen his legs. What was harder, though, was adjusting for the mental block he was hitting. That’s when his fiancé laced up and joined him for a lap.

“At that point, I really needed Shelley,” he explained. “I knew I wasn't going to keep myself moving. She knows me well enough to know how to motivate me without even having to say anything.”

Shelley’s lap was the ultimate motivator for Robbie. From there, things started to look up. The run didn’t get any easier, and Robbie was still in pain. The difference was that he now had distractions. For the next few laps, tons of people began joining Robbie on his run, realizing that he was on the cusp of breaking a world record. Whether they were friends from his transcontinental run or strangers who were inspired by how close Robbie was to breaking the 100 mile mark, they began joining in.

“Talking to people as I ran gave me so much fuel. I mean, due to COVID, I was more social in that 18 and a half hours than I've been in a year.”