Word of the week: FKT

It probably doesn't mean what you think it means. On the other hand, why not.

I’ve had “FKT” in my Drafts folder since January, unsure whether it amounted to anything more than an interesting initialism I’d recently learned. Today, though, I am surrendering to the irony. FKT? Oh yeah. FKT indeed. Definitely FKT.

Here’s the non-sweary lowdown on FKT from Wikipedia (I’ve removed links and footnotes for a smoother read):

A Fastest Known Time (FKT) is the speed record for a running, hiking or cycling route. Unlike most endurance sports competitions such as marathon world records, FKTs are self-organized and done alone or in small groups. FKTs are most popular on long trails suitable for thru-hiking or ultramarathon trail running such as the Appalachian Trail, the Pennine Way, and the John Muir Trail.

The entry goes on to note that the modern FKT movement “has been cataloged on a tracking website, fastestknowntime.com, founded by outdoor enthusiasts Pete Bakwin and Buzz Burrell, who coined the term ‘FKT’ in the year 2000.”

Bakwin was the first person to run California’s John Muir Trail in under four days. Burrell has logged FKTs in many of the western states and in Chile.

This all seems cuckoo to me, a person who has never aspired to a Fastest Known Anything, but not nearly as unhinged as, say, bringing a semiautomatic rifle to a campaign rally and shooting at least three people, including a former U.S. president. Or as bizarro as glorifying that slightly bloodied former president as a “living martyr.” Or as . . . I don’t think I need to go on.

FKT has been turned into a verb, as in Women who FKT, “a grassroots movement to bring women to the trails.”

Is it a past-tense verb?

I’d never heard of FKT until I read a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed published on January 27, 2024, and headlined “Bay Area tech culture loves optimizing things, but leave hiking alone” (gift link). The subhed: “In a tech-dominated culture, the relentless search for extreme efficiency is a sort of dogma that permeates work and personal life.”

The author, University of Vermont professor emeritus Robert Manning — the co-author, with his wife Martha, of a series of books about trail walking — says the FKTers are missing the point:

Along the iconic 223-mile John Muir Trail, for example, the current FKT is 2 days, 19 hours and 26 minutes. It’s the kind of breakneck pace that leaves little time for anything other than propelling one’s body forward in a sleep-deprived haze. My hike of the John Muir Trail, by comparison, took 17 days and what I saw and experienced changed my life.

Here’s the kicker:

In 2005, a man logged the account of his unsuccessful attempt at the speed record for the John Muir Trail on the FKT website. He had dozed off beside the trail from exhaustion when he awoke to find a nice middle-aged woman sitting beside him. “Why are you here? ’’ she asked. The man briefly explained what he was doing and that he had to hurry on. The woman smiled, looked at him with warm penetrating eyes, and asked again, “But why are you here?” Then she got up and walked away.

I did a little research to see whether Bakwin and Burrell, the coiners of “FKT,” chose the initialism because it suggested — wink-wink, nudge-nudge — the F in, say, snafu. If they did, I haven’t found evidence of it. The official story is that “FKT” is pronounced “eff-kay-tee.” Unofficially, you’re free to choose your own adventure.