{"id":25935,"date":"2024-08-28T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-men-circumnavigate-mcphee-reservoir-in-record-time\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:30:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:30:44","slug":"montezuma-county-men-circumnavigate-mcphee-reservoir-in-record-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-men-circumnavigate-mcphee-reservoir-in-record-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County men circumnavigate McPhee Reservoir in record time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Felipe
Felipe Tapia-Nordenflycht, Jake Carloni and Clinton Straughen (left to right) pose in front of McPhee Reservoir in Dolores after their record-setting circumnavigation. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to the Journal)<\/span>Matthew Tangeman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Three men from Montezuma County set out to break a record time circumnavigating McPhee Reservoir and succeeded on Monday, Aug. 26.<\/p>\n

They finished the race in 7 hours, 14 minutes and 53 seconds, which cut an hour off the previous record of 8 hours, 15 minutes and 39 seconds, held by a Durango man since October.<\/p>\n

\"Clinton
Clinton Straughen's GPS watch showing their total time for the day. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to the Journal)<\/span>Matthew Tangeman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe took it back from Durango,\u201d said Clinton Straughen, 40, one of the runners.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontezuma represent!\u201d added another runner, Felipe Tapia-Nordenflycht, 32, with jest.<\/p>\n

It was a difficult journey because the trail is largely undefined, and some of it they swam. They all agreed honing the route beforehand and finding a path of least resistance was key in setting the record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very unique FKT (fastest known time<\/a>) in the sense that it\u2019s a circumnavigation without a defined route. It\u2019s pretty abnormal. Most FKT\u2019s definitely have more of a defined route,\u201d Straughen said.<\/p>\n

The route they settled on was mostly trail. But they were off trail for some of it \u2013 even though they had a set route, bushwhacking was inevitable, and they had to refer to the GPS to make sure they were still going the right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took forever it seemed like,\u201d said Straughen. \u201cWe were going through really nasty brush. And thorns, cactuses. We all had legs full of cactuses at one point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had barbs, you had to pull them hard to get them out,\u201d added Jacob Carloni, 32, who also helped set the record. \u201cAgh, you had to pull them hard to get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, Tapia-Nordenflycht had to take off his shoes to remove cactus from his foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh! A cactus in the leg,\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n

When they submit their time to be approved by Fastest Known Time, a website that keeps track of these kinds of records, they\u2019ll also submit their route.<\/p>\n

That route, however, is subject to change, depending on the water level in the reservoir.<\/p>\n

Some arms of the lake go into side canyons. When the water is high, you have to go around them. But when the water level is low, water drains out of the arms and you can cut a lot of mileage off by crossing them, Straughen said.<\/p>\n

You can also cut mileage by swimming parts of it, which they did for about 200 yards, give or take.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to say anything about swimming, we did not do it gracefully,\u201d Carloni said.<\/p>\n

\"Clinton
Clinton Straughen, Jake Carloni, and Felipe Tapia-Nordenflycht swim across the Beaver Creek arm of McPhee Reservoir during their record-setting circumnavigation on August 26. This was one of two roughly 200-yard swimming legs on their 33 mile run. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to the Journal)<\/span>Matthew Tangeman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

They brought dry bags and pushed the gear out in front of them to swim freely as they crossed the arm. Straughen kept his shoes on, the other two went barefoot.<\/p>\n

Graceful or not, swimming knocked about 3 miles off the journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to show the talent and the depth of talent and endurance that we have here in Montezuma County. It\u2019s not just a La Plata County-only thing. \u2026 If people are going to come over here and try to break our records, then we\u2019re going to step up and make it hard for them,\u201d Carloni said.<\/p>\n

At any rate, they said breaking the record was a few years in the making, and McPhee\u2019s high water level barred it from happening last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cJake and I originally tried this like two years ago,\u201d said Straughen. \u201cWe did it, but we actually made a wrong turn and we went around Narraguinnep Reservoir as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

When they submitted the run to FKT, it was denied because of the accidental detour around Narraguinnep, even though they still beat the record with the added 10 miles.<\/p>\n

\"Clinton
Clinton Straughen, Jake Carloni, and Felipe Tapia-Nordenflycht relax and stretch just after completing their 33-mile record-setting run. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to the Journal)<\/span>Matthew Tangeman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

This weekend, the tri-city team plans to circumnavigate Mount Wilson. It\u2019s 24 or 25 miles and they\u2019ll do it at a leisurely pace, Straughen said.<\/p>\n

Next week, Straughen and Tapia-Nordenflycht will do the Mogollon Monster in Phoenix, a 100-mile race.<\/p>\n

But, for now \u2013 at least for a few days \u2013 they\u2019re enjoying their victory. And well earned sweet treats.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go get some ice cream and milk,\u201d Straughen said as they were packing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need a Coca-Cola,\u201d Tapia-Nordenflycht said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

finished the 33.69-mile loop in 7 hours, 14 minutes and 53 seconds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,280,29,976],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-mcphee-reservoir","tag-newsletter","tag-outdoor-recreation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79159,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935\/revisions\/79159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25935"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}