North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

by Scott Jurek

Elective suffering is such a strange thing. At its essence, pushing his limits was a way for Jurker to learn more about himself and our relationship. Like Dean Potter once said, “I willingly expose myself to death-consequence situations in order to predictably enter heightened awareness.…And [it] often leads to a feeling of connectivity with everything.” Albeit less extreme, we had gone in searching for heightened awareness and connectivity with ourselves, each other, and the trail. I think that’s what drew so many people to follow our journey. It was like Scott was in a fishbowl; people could watch him in his most vulnerable state and laugh at his humiliation and cry at his defeat. They had a feeling of connectedness to what Jurker was doing, as if they were a part of the journey. Back on day two, Jurker had told a reporter that this would be his masterpiece. I’d cringed, but in a way, he was right. He’d gone to the graveyard and come back; he’d messed up and learned along the way; he’d pushed his body beyond what was possible and put it all out there for the world to see. In one sense, it was the most beautiful expression of his running career.