Singletrack Buzz Burrell: Modern FKT Movement, FKT.com Sale To Outside Mag, Trail Running Business (Sunday Conversation)
In this episode we talk with Buzz Burrell, a co-founder of fastestknowntime.com, a tracking website that has been cataloging the modern FKT movement here in the United States and abroad, to my knowledge, for the better part of the last decade. While there is no governing body for FKT certification, fastestknowntime.com has acted as the informal arbiter of these records.
We spend the majority of the conversation getting into the details about the recent sale of fastestknowntime.com to Outside Magazine earlier this month.
But there’s a lot more to Buzz that’s interesting that we delve into at various points. For example, he’s been trail and ultra running since the late 1960s and has set a wide array of fastest times and first attempts at many classic routes here in the United States including the Colorado Trail and John Muir Trail. And in addition to his work on the FKT site, he has also been an athlete manager for La Sportiva and Brand Director for Ultimate Direction and will be joining Ultrarunning Magazine next month as a regular columnist.
Timestamps:
- (1:50) - what it was like being in the trail and ultra scene before it was popular
- (5:18) - slow growth on the professional side of trail and ultra running
- (11:13) - whether the growth of the FKT community is good
- (19:07) - description of fastesknowntime.com
- (21:09) - the inspiration for building the website
- (23:12) - whether there were always business aspirations for the website
- (24:42) - the pros and cons of full-time versus part-time investment
- (30:06) - why the website was sold in 2022
- (34:39) - the assets that Outside Magazine was most interested in
- (36:29) - audience numbers for the website
- (37:40) - improvements coming to the website
- (39:48) - whether the people working on the site should be community experts
- (42:46) - objections to the sale to Outside Magazine
- (45:36) - the realities of social media and content businesses in trail running
- (50:42) - requests for startups in the trail and ultra running space
- (51:58) - favorite guests on the FKT podcast
- (55:59) - Lazarus Lake
Links:
Additional Episodes You May Enjoy:
- #7 - Mark Gainey | Co-Founder of Strava, Trail Running, Athlete Creators
- #8 - Larissa Rivers | Trail Running Stores, Sports Marketing, Strava
- #3 - Jimmy Daly | Social Media, Content Creation, Branding For Trail Runners