The island was huge, but moving at top speed would get you from one end to the other in no time.
If you traveled in a straight line of course...
The entire Central Island was covered in the remains of towering buildings and numerous intersecting streets and roads. This means moving through it, even towards the center was going to take some time even though they were already close by.
The most dangerous part of the mission was being careful. If they encountered a large group of wandering Mutant Beasts, even though they were Tier 1 and were probably going to be fine, it would still take some time.
But that time was going to be used to surround them with even more Mutant Creatures, turning into a never ending cycle of killing until they ran out of stamina and were killed themselves.