Josh Perry

About

Josh Perry is a British long-distance trail runner, thru-hiker, and FKT specialist from Birmingham who discovered the outdoors at 18 and spent his early adult life as a nomadic long-distance walker — completing the Camino de Santiago, Japan's Shikoku Pilgrimage, the Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail — before turning his ambitions to speed records. Having not started running until 21, and with no formal athletic background, he became one of the most compelling performers in the self-supported long-distance FKT format. In 2019 he set the unsupported FKT on Vermont's 272-mile Long Trail, and holds the self-supported FKT on the 800-mile Arizona Trail. His landmark achievement came in August 2022 when he completed the Pacific Crest Trail — 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada — in a men's self-supported FKT of 55 days, 16 hours, and 54 minutes, erasing nearly ten days from the previous male self-supported benchmark, beating Heather Anderson's overall self-supported record by five days, and coming within four days of Timothy Olson's 2021 supported record. The PCT effort was achieved against serious personal adversity: a year earlier Perry had survived a suicide attempt during a period of financial crisis, and his 2022 attempt was a deliberate act of recommitment to purpose. His achievements represent the most demanding tradition in long-distance trail running — unsupported, self-navigated, and self-sufficient.

Notable Wins

• — Pacific Crest Trail self-supported FKT 2022 (55d 16h 54m
• — men's record
• — ~10 days under previous mark)
• — Arizona Trail self-supported FKT
• — Vermont Long Trail unsupported FKT 2019

Race History