More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Because I’m so thankful for everything I have, and for just a little while I need to remember what it feels like to have none of it.
Contrary to having a death wish, he sought to push himself to and through the impossible. He was the most meticulously precise and calculated guy I’d ever known,
He was tough as nails but he knew something that was more important. El Coyote had the ability to laugh when he wanted to cry, the secret to longevity in ultrarunning.
What it did to JLu and me was make us actually come to terms with the sheer scale of what we were about to do.
That’s what all this was: a two-thousand-mile problem
Despite being so rugged, the Appalachian Trail is one of the most well-marked trails in the world.
Fontana Dam
This pain was taking from me. I was emptying. I felt like I was leaving pieces of myself on the trail. I was disintegrating. Very simply, I was failing, fast.
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.
But like execution and adaptability, will is just another ingredient in the recipe for success.
“Remember this, boy: This is who I am, and this is what I do.”
Jenny’s presence made it even stronger. So what if I knew I wouldn’t make the record? So what if she still thought I could? We were together, we were in the mountains, and we were alone.
That kind of austerity was important to Horty and fundamental to the ultrarunning ethos. Honor and integrity were everything.
To be a trail angel, in the parlance of long-distance hikers, is to offer one or many acts of kindness.
took a few tentative steps, felt the same stabbing pains…and kept going. I was back running. Not elegantly, not with fierceness, not with anything near the speed I’d eventually need. But I was running. If I could just let life happen, everything could work.
Like all epiphanies, that one was great while it lasted.
day. I survived the early Virginia Blues in the most tedious manner possible: by staying focused. No secret. No superpower. Miles became a moving meditation.
“It’s hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is.”
She never complained about pain to anyone—doctors, nurses, PTs. She never, ever complained.
(it was the little things that kept me sane).
Doesn’t matter how short it is—it all adds up.
“Always have something hot to offer him. He’s so sick of eating energy food.
Normally I do not like taking orders from people, but I had to hand it to him—he knew what he was talking about.
He was a no-nonsense kind of guy
Without sounding righteous or bossy, he initiated an overhaul of our go-with-the-flow, easy-breezy attitude.
The Appalachian Trail linked disparate places and feelings together in a way that was unlike any other trail I’d ever run.
He wasn’t even close to getting in my head; I had been shutting down the critics my entire racing career.
Hike your own hike and I’ll blaze my own trail. These comments only motivated me more.
Something in his makeup made him both ruthless and selfless,
Perspective can be both humbling and inspiring.
I don’t think he took a breath.
I’ve always loved hanging out with people who’d manifested their own destinies, people who have made things happen despite the odds.
“Hey, boy, better try and get some sleep, Vermont is gonna be real nasty.”
“I love the fight and when things are easy I hate it.”
“It’s me or the tracker!”
We were a team and there was no time for holding grudges. We had other things to worry about.
Dean told me it was about as close as he’d ever seen someone get to dying.
Nothing was gonna help me get through this muck except one shoe-sucking step at a time.
Even though I was eating upwards of seven thousand calories a day and plenty of carbohydrates, I was dangerously tapping into my essential reserves.
he would rather help a friend through a divorce than go to the wedding “because everyone will help you party but few will help you grieve.”
We often think we can’t go any farther and feel like we have nothing left to give, yet there is a hidden potential and strength in all of us, begging us to find it.
now you’re gonna work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life. The greater the price we pay, the greater the reward.
I lay down on our couch and put my hand over the place where the baby should have been thriving. I felt sick,
I was living my dream of designing running clothes for Patagonia and I wasn’t in a state of mind to slow down for anybody.
I suggested that he visit me so I could introduce him to my single lady friends in Ventura, but he ended up spending all of his time with me.
he found somebody who appreciated life the way he did, and he wanted to share that same joy with the next generation.
It was amazing how many people had advice for someone they didn’t know who was doing something they could never do.
In what was perhaps divine intervention, I accidentally spilled the contents of my water bottle onto my phone and completely fried it for the remainder of the trip.
even now, he still half hobbled on the trail, and his gait almost twisted him sideways.
And yet, even with how broken he was, he still took pity on me.
