North Quotes

“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.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“The question became less and less theoretical in Vermont, where I started to come up against my own limits. I've heard it said that ultra marathons are 90 percent mental. And the other 10 percent? That's mental too. I was in the thick of that other 10 percent.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“Out there in the wild, on a long journey, you hike your own hike, blaze your own trail, and only you can find what you’re looking for.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“It was just numbers. I knew I could outrun numbers.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“Our existence is always like this: the same but different, light then dark, found now lost, here and there and back again.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“Perspective can be both humbling and inspiring.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“In the case of pain, perhaps the one we know hurts us less than the one we fear.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“Horty had a theory about motivation. He told me that a lot of motivation could be boiled down to this: How bad do you want it? He would ask people, "What's the furthest you can run without stopping?" After they replied whatever distance, he followed up with "Could you run a mile further if I gave you a million dollars? What if I was running behind you holding a gun to your head, could you run even further?"

He said, "It's easy to say you want it real bad when you're sitting at home on the couch. But when the going gets tough, do you want it enough?"

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. We arrive at it via different means---something reward, sometimes fear. There was something to Horty's motivational theory, and finding that desire was the most vexing problem. How bad did I want it?”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“Pain is a biological fact, and there's nothing short of drugs that can wipe it away. But we do have some control over how much one fact or another will consume our thoughts and attention.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“My roots are the calculus of who I am, but they are not only who I am.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“though man's soul finds solace in natural beauty, it is forged in the fire of pain”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“But at the end of the day, you have to want it. Plain and simple. The ego doesn’t have to be destructive, and it doesn’t have to make you lose sight of the real reasons you do what you do. It doesn’t have to go to your head. But when push comes to shove, nothing motivates like winning does. I remembered that electricity. I still felt the young athlete inside me who thrived on winning. I’d gotten wiser over the years, and that wisdom had made me a more complete person, a better partner—but it also made me slower. There was no way around it. The more perspective I got, the more disconnected I became from the pure drive to win and dominate. Without that drive, the discomfort and pain that racing took didn’t seem worth it.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“What matters most is how you walk through the fire. —Charles Bukowski”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“asked Jurker in frustration, “Why can’t I run fast?” He said, “You can, but you don’t like to hurt.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“Light and smooth was the name of our game. Quick, but easy. Desert hiking demands that you submit to paradoxes. You must move hastily through the sun and the heat, yet slowly enough to avoid producing too much heat of your own. You need to ration the water you haul on your back but not so much that you are burdened by its weight. Move too fast under the scorching sun and you’ll go through your water so quickly that you’ll wind up with dehydration and heatstroke. Carry too little water and you’ll shrivel up like a raisin, and the desert floor will swallow you whole. Out there, balance isn’t just a beautiful idea; it’s necessary for survival.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“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.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“He read a book a week and said 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.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“And in the case of pain, perhaps the one we know hurts us less than the one we fear.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“My roots are the calculus of who I am, but they are not only who I am. I was in a new place, at the beginning of a vast journey, and I felt myself grow lighter.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“In the past, the best moments in my life were when I reached down and found inner strength where I’d thought none existed. But I needed more than my own strength these days. I needed the strength embodied by the people standing by the side of the road, waving and calling out. This time, I really didn’t have any strength left. But my team did. And even if they gave it to me, it still wouldn’t be mine. It would be ours, collectively, just like the FKT would be—if we managed to get it.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“chosen to walk through the desert for purification”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“He read a book a week and said he would rather help a friend through a divorce than go to the wedding “because everyone”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“The mind of a warrior (or anyone performing a difficult task) should be so attuned to the moment that thoughts and emotions do not impede proper action. A mind in this condition is thought to function so optimally that the right decisions come naturally and pain and fear disappear. I often saw similarities between this mind-set and what elite athletes refer to as being “in the zone.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“But not all pain is the same. Pain can be high or low; it can be deep or shallow. Pain has more than one axis... Some of us are familiar with a whole bouquet of pains, each with its own special meaning and impact.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“These mountains were ancient here, which meant that I was hiking over a kind of graveyard of gigantic boulders. Over eons, the mountains had sunk into the earth and been worn down into low hills by unrelenting winds and rain. Now I clawed over their harsh, bleak remains, and I too felt ancient.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“AT legend has it that Pennsylvania hiking clubs and trail crews are proud of their state's nickname of Rocksylvania and don't remove rocks from the trail. In fact, some people claim they actually dump wheelbarrows full of rocks onto the trail.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

“When pondering elevation gain and mountains along the Appalachian Trail, most people think of the high peaks of New England: the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the Mahoosuc Range in Main. However, the highest mountains are actually in the South. In fact, seven of the ten highest peaks on the AT are south of Virginia, and four of them are in Great Smoky Mountains National Park; three of those are over six thousand feet.”
― Scott Jurek, North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail