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You can use a snapshot to get you most of the way there although it's more centralized. Here's the link and some instructions on how to use it

https://download.gridcoin.us/download/downloadstake/signed/snapshot.zip

1) Make a backup of your wallet.dat and gridcoinresearch.conf files as well as your walletbackups folder. 
2) Delete everything in your Gridcoin Research directory (Linux = .GridcoinResearch/, Windows = %appdata%\GridcoinResearch) EXCEPT your wallet.dat, gridcoinresearch.conf, and walletbackups folder. 
3) Download the latest snapshot. 
4) Extract the snapshot into your Gridcoin directory. 
5) Launch the wallet.