North

by Scott Jurek

  Once he settled into our crew, he displayed the goods he’d graciously brought from Seattle—everything JLu had requested, and about five times the amount she’d asked for. It was generous—and overwhelming. He’d packed a giant box of delicate Japanese pastries that had already begun to spoil. He also brought the special type of vegan cinnamon roll she’d wanted for me, a two-thousand-calorie loaf that was shaped like a baguette. In fact, he had six of them. Because of the summer heat and the size of our compact cooler, many of his gifts had to be smashed, folded, and crammed into the cooler. It was a tragedy, but Castle Black was a war room, not a pantry. It’s funny in retrospect, but the situation challenged us at the time. Don—wonderful Don—had brought exactly what I needed most in that moment: stability, authority, grace, and groundedness. He almost instantaneously shook me out of my depression, and I was grateful once again for his ability to intervene in my life and make me focus on the here and now.

  And then…the reality of the AT overtook us all, Don especially. Within a day, it became clear that Bushido Don was not ready for the gnarly old AT—and we were not ready for Don’s unreadiness.

  To add more senseis to the mix, Horty had returned to the trail after biking the Tour Divide race for only a few days (“Stomach problems,” he’d said, and he ended the discussion). Now we had two AT veterans on deck, each with his own expertise and dogma. It was fun to watch them jockey for the title of chief officer. Although they probably didn’t want to admit it, we all knew JLu was the ship’s master. Prior to this, the two had spent little time side by side, although Horty was there when the Speedgoat pulled the plug on his own AT attempt in 2014. And of course, old Horty had his own opinion on that scene.

  If Horty wasn’t sliding open Castle Black’s door at 5:00 a.m. with a “Let’s go to Maine, boy” wake-up call, Speedgoat was simply knocking on the van wall ten minutes before he’d be back with a cup of hot coffee as he pointed me directions to his camping toilet seat somewhere deep in the woods, often engulfed in knee-high poison ivy. (Speedgoat was immune to its itchy oils.) He had started digging a hole despite grumbling to us later, “Dude, you think bears dig holes?” Speedgoat kept showing us his graphs and charts, explaining that I needed to cover more miles, to make it to this or that landmark or road crossing, if I wanted to own the FKT. Each chief officer brought something different to the table. One brought grit and irrepressibility; the other, obsessive calculation and strategizing. And they were both crazy as hell.

  On the afternoon of day twenty-eight, we left the Garden State and entered New York, which some hikers on the AT call “Little Maine” for its networks of ladders over mossy boulders, rock scrambles, and root infestations. The foothills of New York felt as remote as anyplace on the trail. I don’t know what special magic lived there, but the darkness was darker and the night was more solemn and more thorough than anywhere else. I couldn’t believe that New York City was just thirty-some miles away. Perhaps the trail’s proximity to the busiest place on earth made it that much darker. If the weather cooperated, the next day I’d be able to see the city’s vast skyline. I felt like I was on another planet, but in reality I was a short train ride from Times Square.

  To add to our problems, a fierce windstorm had recently plowed through the area and uprooted thick, towering trees that were now scattered throughout the woods—and across the trail. We had to climb over them, crawl under them, or wade into the dense forest to go around them. Just as in Maine, blazes on the trail were infrequent and tricky to spot, and the downed trees added another dimension to trail travel. If this was a little taste of Maine, I was in for a real treat in five hundred miles.

  As we crossed a slab of granite, Horty and I had roused a couple of very large, gorgeous emerald-tinted rattlesnakes. Even Horty marveled at their beauty. He had stopped crushing them with rocks years ago. I joked that he was turning into a peace-loving hippie. For someone so stubborn, old Horty surprised me with his potential for change.

  Like with Horty, this wasn’t Bushido Don’s first rodeo. He had supported me on numerous hundred-mile races and was a fully qualified and valued crew ninja. However, the crewing of an AT speed record is a whole different mission. Sometimes a team member’s qualities may have worked seamlessly on previous projects, but if you change the project scope, that trusted team member may struggle and affect the team’s dynamics. I needed Don’s presence, but he was adding another stressor. Not to me, but to the rest of our tight crew. He was constantly getting lost and couldn’t follow Castle Black even though it was the only large black van for miles and miles. At one trailhead, gracious Don offered to take trash from thru-hikers and asked Horty where the trash went. Horty said, “It goes nowhere.” Instead of nurturing us, Bushido Don needed his sword held. He was in over his head and was stressing JLu out. She confided in me that it was too much for them, that they didn’t have the bandwidth to take care of me and my sensei. With mutiny on the horizon, I had to tell him one morning that he needed to “bushido focus” on following Jenny; she couldn’t wait for him or give him directions to remote trailheads narrowly found. I felt bad. I probably didn’t have the best delivery and Don was the last person I wanted to hurt.

  Bushido Don meant well and he did well most of the time. I felt responsible; I hadn’t given him a warning of what he might walk into on the Green Tunnel. It was like jumping into the middle of a work project. I couldn’t give him a training manual ahead of time like he once did for me with copies of The Book of Five Rings by Musashi. And there was no time for JLu, Speedgoat, or Horty to do on-the-job training. Sometimes you keep a team member on because you know they are needed. Don was needed by me. So being the master team leaders they were, JLu and Speedgoat figured out a way to work with Don for the next few days before he left, giving him clear and direct instructions. Most often these were the Mr. Miyagi–style tasks of wax-on, wax-off, like peeling a case of mangos that we had been given—JLu knew plenty about single-minded focus. And I had plenty of experience with that too.

  * * *

  That storm Speedgoat had warned us about arrived and it had a name—Tropical Storm Bill. It rolled into York County, Pennsylvania, around the same time we did on day twenty-five. It was a Saturday, so there was a crowd of runners with Scott all morning. But as Bill started dumping almost two inches of rain, the locals rapidly thinned out, and I needed to come up with a plan. I knew Jurker would be finishing a fifty-two-mile day soaking wet, and he’d be lucky to be done before midnight.

  I looked in the guidebook and saw that down the road from our ending location was an organic farm called Common Ground Farm and Retreat. It sounded like our kind of place! Speedgoat had never heard of it—a rarity—so he couldn’t vouch for it. I knew Jurker would appreciate a hot shower and a real bed after this giant effort.

  Not only that, a vegan bakery in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had reached out about delivering Scott some treats. The owner dropped off two giant boxes filled with the kind of desserts you see at weddings and fancy hotels. I knew this organic sanctuary coupled with the vegan treats was going to soften the blow of this long and soggy nighttime push.

  We checked into the retreat that evening. I expected Jurker to arrive around 11:00 p.m., so around 10:15, I walked out of the room and looked for Speedgoat. He had parked (and leveled) his van in front of the main lodge, and I thought he was going to come with me so he could run back on the trail to meet Scott. But as I got closer to his van, I saw he was not in running clothes but freshly showered and curled up in his sleeping bag, reading his guidebooks and jotting down notes, so I decided not to bother him. I drove alone to the trailhead, but before I got there, my phone rang.

  I looked at the caller ID. It was Jurker.

  Panic. If he has time to call me, it means he’s not moving. He never calls me. The rain was coming down in sheets that the headlights were reflecting off, so it was difficult to see where I was going. I couldn’t answer the phone, and he left a voice mail. I kept driving toward the trail and a few min
utes later, I saw headlamps and people waving me down. It was Jurker and three other runners. They had been waiting for me for only five minutes, but I felt terrible. In this kind of weather after that kind of day, I knew how disheartening it must have been for them to reach the road and not see anybody there. I would have been so mad if the tables were turned. But not Jurker; he waved at me enthusiastically and thanked his local companions, and they left to run back to their cars five miles down the trail. He wasn’t mad at all; he’d just been worried about me.

  I drove us back to the farm. Our friend had driven down from New York, and he’d brought Thai food. After Scott took a hot shower, we ate pad thai noodles and curry together, and then Jurker finally lay down in a proper-size bed and dug into the pastries. Jurker was in paradise. While he was holding a Boston cream doughnut in one hand and a chocolate chip cannoli in the other, I put on my headlamp and started doing our nightly tick check.

  If I’d been in the van where it was a lot darker, I would have missed it. There on his left biceps was the tiniest tick I had ever seen, smaller than a pinhead. At first, I thought it was a speck of dirt, slightly raised, so I tried to flick it away. It didn’t move; the head was already buried in Scott’s skin.

  I let out a whispered scream. “Jurker! A tick!”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Yes!” I ran outside in the rain to Castle Black and dug around for our first aid kit. I found the tick-removal tool and followed the instructions, but the tick was so small, the tool was useless. I grabbed tweezers from my toiletry bag and carefully pulled it out.

  “Holy cow, let me see that thing. It’s so tiny; how did you even see it? I wonder if I got it when I took a nap in a pile of leaves off the trail.”

  “You did what?” I was stunned. That was the most idiotic thing he’d ever done. I threw the covers off him and doubled my efforts to find ticks on his hairy legs. I found two more that had burrowed into his shins. “How could you be so stupid? Have you lost your mind? What is wrong with you? Don’t you know that our lives go on after this trail? Hello! Remember me? I need you when this over. Lyme disease can mess you up and I need you; our future family needs you. I don’t care if you’re so tired you can’t walk, don’t you ever lie down in the leaves again.”

  The storm passed and it was hot and humid in our final days of Pennsylvania. Yes, it was rocky, but getting through Pennsylvania was a huge transition for us. We started to feel the population density close in around us. More people, more houses, more road crossings. And better food. It was in Pennsylvania that the vegetarian community really showed up. One lady brought us a dozen black-bean burgers, another guy made us raw vegan cookies, somebody else brought a bag of homemade granola, all comforts that we appreciated.

  But apparently, not everybody was up on the latest evolutions of plant-based foods. I heard from people about some chatter on Facebook that Scott wasn’t following a vegan diet anymore. I can only guess that some visitors saw things in the van that didn’t look vegan, like the cream puffs and burger patties. But I couldn’t worry about that. At every trailhead, whenever the van door was open, enthusiasts would stick their heads in, take photos and videos, and post whatever they wanted on the internet. I knew people were curious, but it basically sucked. Castle Black was our crew vehicle but it was also my home, with my underwear, sports bra, and running clothes hanging to dry, dirty dishes everywhere, our unmade bed, and so on.

  Keeping our tradition alive, on day twenty-seven, Jurker and I crossed the Pennsylvania–New Jersey state line together at the Delaware Water Gap. It was a bluebird morning and even though the trail paralleled a major highway, it was serene. After that, the border crossings came fast and furious. The next day, we were in New York.

  Good old Horty came back and found us in New York. Apparently, he’d ended his bike ride early; he didn’t say why and I didn’t ask. I had my own theories. You know when you spark up a new relationship and you make any excuse to see that person? That was Horty with the AT. Any chance he had to stop by and check on Scott’s progress, he jumped at the opportunity.

  On the morning of day twenty-nine, Horty and I met Jurker outside Harriman State Park. He was running with some locals, and Horty razzed them as they crossed the road and started climbing up a hill. Horty and I were discussing the game plan for the day when we heard voices, and this loud “Damn it!” Then we saw Jurker running down toward us with the group of locals trailing behind him. Apparently Jurker had been following the locals when he stopped and said, “Hey, I haven’t seen any blazes in a while. Are we still on the AT?” Before they could answer, he had already turned around. It wasn’t far, but they had climbed uphill for about a quarter of a mile on the wrong trail. We saw him retrace his steps back to the AT and cringed. Everybody means well, but you still can’t let your guard down. In the end, he was responsible for covering every step of the trail on his own.

  I drove to Bear Mountain State Park to meet Jurker. I hadn’t realized it was a steep two and a half miles to the summit where we planned to meet, and I thought for sure I was going to miss him. When I reached the top, there were news vans and a lot of runners hanging around. I found Scott sitting on a rock wearing a fluorescent yellow mesh vest that said GUIDE next to a guy wearing a similar vest that said BLIND RUNNER. They were doing an interview for a local TV crew. Jurker introduced me to his friend Thomas, whom he had guided at the Boston Marathon just a few months ago.

  From the summit of Bear Mountain, we could see the Manhattan skyline, such a strange juxtaposition. We’d been to New York City countless times and I’d never realized how close it was to the AT and its rugged trails. A doctor friend of ours who has a house close to the AT met us on the trail. She was a well-known ob-gyn in SoHo. We’d gotten to know her on a trip we’d taken to Tanzania earlier that year with an organization called Every Mother Counts, a nonprofit that aimed to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother, everywhere. Its mission became very close to us after my first miscarriage, when the nearness of the hospital (just a mile away) was critical to saving my life.

  I was relieved to see the ob-gyn, Dr. Flagg, because I’d started to worry about my own health. Two months had passed since I’d had my D and C surgery after the miscarriage, and I still hadn’t gotten my period. When I asked her what she thought about that, she said the average time for the uterus to heal could vary, but eight weeks was a bit on the long side. In other words: Don’t worry, but keep me posted.

  New England

  452 Miles

  I love the fight and when things are easy I hate it.

  —Ernest Shackleton

  Chapter 11

  Nasty

  Day Twenty-Nine

  “Bet you didn’t think you’d see a black dude out here in these woods!”

  He was up above me, sitting on a large rock that overhung the trail. I could make out his spiked dreadlocks and a green running singlet that had BLACK ROSES NYC printed across the front. We were about thirty miles north of New York City, in Bear Mountain State Park. I just laughed.

  “Remember me, brotha? We ran thirty-one miles around Manhattan when you were here for your book a few years back,” he said, climbing down.

  “Knox? No way! That’s crazy.” I was surprised to see him, but now I knew exactly who he was. Knox was one of those guys you just do not forget. I immediately thought back to the run we did together. He’d told me he had to meet me because I’d quoted Tupac in Eat and Run. I remembered how cool the Black Roses running group sounded. Knox was the leader, and he seemed to have a curator’s touch in bringing together interesting, disparate groups of people; it was part book club, part elite track team, part motorcycle gang. I wanted to be a member but I didn’t know if I was boss enough.

  We reminisced about that run we’d done in NYC years ago and discussed my state of the union and the FKT. The miles clicked by, barely noticed. We talked about the history of our sport, and we talked about someone we both deeply admired: Ted Corbitt, the legendar
y African-American ultrarunner and Olympic marathoner.

  Running with Knox gave a boost to my spirits. I set aside my way-of-the-warrior worldview and slipped into what might have been an even more powerful mind-set: having fun. Shooting the shit. We didn’t even stop when Knox bonked hard (he wouldn’t eat any of my gels), and we were only somewhat fazed when a thru-hiker named Karaoke joined us for eighteen miles, twenty-pound pack and all. Karaoke earned his nickname. He wasn’t exactly an opera singer, but we enjoyed his company nonetheless. There must have been something in the water up there in the Hudson Valley, because the trail was full of colorful characters. On the way to a little shelter near Fishkill on the east side of the Hudson, we passed one totally naked thru-hiker holding a strategically placed sign that read, HEY, SCOTT JUREK, THIS SAUSAGE IS VEGAN.

  The next day in Connecticut, I knew what Speedgoat was probably thinking, but I didn’t stress. I was having fun for the first time in a long time. I even guided my blind buddy Thomas for two miles to the summit of Bear Mountain, which inspired me.

  Besides all the new runners, there was something else changing around me; I could feel it in my bones. The rivers sounded different—stronger, louder, meaner. Evergreens were becoming more prevalent. Even the rocks were different. I don’t know how to describe them, although you’d think I would have been a geologist by this point, given all the billions of rocks I’d seen the past thirty days. The AT was shape-shifting, and I could feel it.

  I tried to share this observation with Speedgoat as we cut through the beautiful Housatonic Valley that runs through New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He was predictably unmoved. I was out here for adventure, but Speedgoat was out here with one thing on his mind. There was no time during an FKT for musing about the trees and rocks. To him, everything was another benchmark, another box to check. I wondered if there was time for him to wax poetic. On day thirty we’d crossed into New England, his homeland, but for him, Connecticut was just another state on the AT, one that we’d be through in a day. Just another chance to get a few more miles completed on mellower terrain before, as he ominously put it, “Shit gets real.”