North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

by Scott Jurek

The Pacific Crest Trail, at 2,650 miles, is longer than the AT, and the Continental Divide Trail, at 3,100, is longer still. And while a lot of Westerners boast about the snowpacks and deserts, the granite outcroppings, the alpine meadows, and the oxygen-sucking heights, the fact is that if you’re fit, it’s a comparatively smooth ride. The western trails have their frozen passes and jagged peaks, but most miles were graded for horseback travel, and their switchbacks rarely climb at anything steeper than a 10 percent grade. As a foot-travel-only path, the AT is much sneakier and more devilish. It dives directly into ravines. It snakes into foggy river bottoms and then shoots straight up hills so dense with undergrowth that even deer have trouble climbing them. It is almost hard to describe it until you actually set foot on the AT’s potpourri of rocks and roots. The tread and grade are like tentacles that grab at you from different directions when you least expect it, making forward progress a tedious and tense battle. On top of that twisted floor are walls of woods and a ceiling of tree limbs that are challenging in their own right. The Appalachian Trail is so wooded and thick, so dense and enclosed, that it is known as the Green Tunnel.

The next morning, my knee was swollen, sore, and achy. As a physical therapist, I knew enough to suspect I had irritated the cartilage beneath my kneecap. The condition is so common among runners that it has a spectacularly obvious name: Runner’s Knee. It was irritating and painful, but not fatal to my chances; it wasn’t going to stop me. I had known ultrarunners to finish races as their kidneys were shutting down and they were losing control of their bowels. One veteran mountain runner, Joel Zucker, gutted out the last twenty miles or so of the 1998 Hardrock Hundred while suffering a near-crippling headache. After the race, on his drive to the airport to catch a flight to his home in Upstate New York, he died of a brain aneurysm. Runner’s Knee wasn’t even near the worst thing someone could have. We all kept going.

I was stumbling over mud and rocks and roots, making my way forward on a ribbonlike trail that rose and fell to the rhythm of the unknowably ancient geology in this part of the country. I was falling north.

I’ve experienced my fair share of success. And I know this: You rarely ask why when you win. It’s a word you can outrun and outperform. Applause makes it hard to hear yourself. But just because you ignore it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And why doesn’t get old and tired. It catches up, and it gets louder. It churns up thoughts that are best kept down in the dark. Maybe I’m too old for this. Broken and very much alone, I checked my watch and limped on north. Even if everything went according to plan, I still had at least thirty-five more days on the trail. Thirty-five days to chase the record and outrun the ghosts of hikers and runners who had already proven themselves.

Anything can happen over two thousand miles. It’s a span that resists the influence of planning. In the early stages, I’d considered that a positive. I knew that my prior experiences in dealing with unforeseen adversity would be a secret weapon. I’d gotten through a lot of tough spots in my life, and I knew I would be fully capable of tapping into my best self once again to meet whatever challenges inevitably cropped up over six weeks.

During those moments of quiet, my mind snapped back from newts and grassy balds and homed back in on the pain. To try to take command of my ruminations, I started repeating my tried and true mantras: Sometimes you just do things. This is what you came for. I’d chosen this path, and I’d chosen to push myself to the limits of my body and mind. I knew that adversity bred transformation, that there would be an enlightening ease at the other end of this struggle. The sweetest reward lay in that ease, and it was a feeling that neither money nor power—nor a healthy quadriceps—could guarantee. And it existed in each one of us. Stay the course; keep pressing forward, I told myself, but part of me—a lot of me—kept questioning the choices I’d made that had gotten us out here.

I was at the lowest of lows and couldn’t imagine things getting any worse. And then I heard that voice. “There’s that runner! How ya doin’, boy?” Good old Horty was back in his usual form. Quite frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for Horty or for his boundless energy. I’m not sure what I was in the mood for, but whatever it was, it wasn’t Horty. But he knew this trail, and twenty-five years ago, nearly to the day, he had been chasing the same speed record. Now, at sixty-six years old, he had a wealth of experience and wisdom—and, unfortunately, he knew that. “What’s da matter? You lookin’ like an ol’ man,” Horty hollered for the entire forest to hear. I shook my head, wincing in pain and signaling my mood. Don’t even start with me, I thought. “It’s bad. Real bad,” I said. “I’ve never had a muscle tear like this, right in the belly of my quad. I can barely hobble. It’s taken me two hours to go the last two miles and I’m getting slower and slower.” Horty knew where I was at, physically and mentally, and, to his credit, he used the opportunity to be helpful rather than just loud and obnoxious. Fortunately, we weren’t far from the crossing. “Let’s get down to the van. Jenny’s made you some sandwiches and she’ll get ya some dry clothes. Will found some ibuprofen. Got a real nice, long climb ahead. It’ll get you feelin’ better. Those eccentric contractions are the worst for that quad and knee. These downhills are naaasty!” I let out a big sigh of frustration and said, “Horty, I don’t...