Catra Corbett of Fremont, CA, (my first California locale) plans to set a new record for thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. She has wacky hair, enough body art to fill a New York gallery and a shoe contract that got her face plastered on posters all over Europe. From a San Diego Union-Tribune report:

Corbett, 42, of Fremont, has a dream to break the speed record for hiking the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail in 78 days. She set out Thursday with Julien Chauchepart, her 26-year-old French hiking buddy she met on the Internet and has been corresponding with for over a year. They met in person for the first time this week.

“Julien had a poster of me and really wanted to meet me,” said Catra, a competitive ultramarathon runner whose poster for running shoes was plastered all over Europe. Chauchepart is a sales rep for outdoor retailers.

Think of Catra as Generation X’s or Generation Pain’s Farah Fawcett, who was the poster girl of male Baby Boomers like me in the 70s. When I was 26 I would have hiked barefoot over hot lava to trek along with Fawcett for 78 days, so I kind of see where this French dude’s coming from. Now he will spend around 2Ω months hiking and running and trying to keep up with his poster girl.

Good luck, Frenchman.

The speed hiking record is 78 days for men, 91 days for women, and Corbett thinks she can break both.

“I’m confident I can do it faster,” Corbett said. “It will mean a little running down the passes once we go to lighter packs up north. And it will mean some 24-hour pushes. But we can do it.”

She has a blog (natch) here.