Called Again (39 page)

The walk to the top of Springer was filled with silence. I alternated between taking deep breaths and choking up on tears and emotions. Brew gingerly walked by my side, watching his foot placement to avoid reinjuring his ACL. This was farther than he'd hiked all summer. My mother and brother followed a few dozen yards behind.

At one point, Brew asked, “Do you want me to tell you who is waiting at the finish?”

I shook my head. I wanted it to be a surprise.

Brew then asked, “Do you want to hug any of your friends before you touch the rock?”

I looked at him like he was crazy.

“First we touch the rock,” I said.
“Then
we visit.”

“Okay, okay,” he said with a quiet laugh. “That's why I'm asking.”

When we came within a few hundred yards of the summit, we saw a collage of bright colors through the trees. We entered the clearing that marks the top of Springer Mountain. The exposed granite leading to the plaque that marks the southern terminus was hidden by a group of people. I heard the cheering and noticed the crowd, but I maintained my focus and walked straight to the boulder that bears the worn bronze sign that signifies the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

Together, Brew and I placed our hands on it. Then we embraced each other once again. I looked at the watch on my wrist, which was draped around my husband's neck. Through smiles and sobs, I did the math. Forty-six days, eleven hours, and twenty minutes after I left Katahdin, we had reached Springer Mountain. Now
that
was a positive number.

We had beaten the previous record by twenty-six hours. I couldn't decide if twenty-six hours seemed like a fleeting moment or an eternity. I guess in the end it didn't matter. I had done my absolute best and I could walk off this mountain never wondering what might have been.

My tears increased as I sat down beside my husband and buried my head in his seven-week beard. They weren't sad tears—not entirely—nor did they flow from joy or exhaustion. I think they were “everything” tears. For the past month and a half I had suppressed all of my feelings—pain, happiness, fear, disappointment, excitement, anticipation, and every other emotion that might have threatened to take my mind off the ultimate goal. Now I could finally let them out. Unfortunately, the emotional cocktail created a confused, blotchy, tear-streaked expression on my face. There would be no glamour shots at
this
finish line.

Brew and I stood there and cried for what was probably an awkwardly long amount of time for our bystanders. Eventually, I rubbed my eyes and started to look around and make out individuals in the crowd, one by one. I saw my college roommate, my pen pal from summer camp, our neighbors from home, my in-laws. There were dogs, digital cameras, and babies—lots of babies. I was amazed that so many of our friends had brought their infants and toddlers to the top of Springer in ninety-degree heat. Trail friends were there—including Warren, who stood off in the distance to take it all in. And there were a few faces that I didn't recognize. But out of the fifty or so people on top of the mountain, almost everyone had come because they were somehow interwoven into our lives.

Looking out at the crowd, it almost felt as if Brew and I were back at our wedding weekend. The people who meant the most to us were all there. There were pictures being taken and congratulatory hugs being exchanged. Our friend Alice even uncorked a bottle of champagne that she'd carried in her purse.

The scene—and probably the champagne, since it was the first sip of alcohol I had consumed in a month and a half—caused me to reminisce about our wedding ceremony. The event that had taken place in Virginia three summers ago had been beautiful and memorable. But I think I preferred the occasion we shared on top of Springer Mountain even more.

There was no pomp and circumstance. I wasn't wearing a beautiful dress, and Brew and I did not exchange traditional vows. Instead, we professed our love through the actions of the past forty-six days. The trail had brought to life passages from Scripture that had been recited at our wedding.

First Corinthians,
chapter 13
, says, “If I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing . . . if I give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing . . . [Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

The past 2,181 miles had consummated the vows Brew and I had made to one another. We had found a way to love one another for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad. It was clear that my husband had been the stalwart in our relationship out here and a true example of unselfishness. But there was no quantifying how much I respected him in return. I had never felt more in love with my husband than I did on top of Springer Mountain.

I did not want to leave.

Even when our friends started walking downhill to begin their long car rides home, I still had no desire to move. For one thing, I never wanted this feeling to end. I was dirty, smelly, and exhausted, but I was also more in love and at peace than I had ever been. Also, I was not sure I had the strength to make it a mile back down the mountain to the parking lot.

This is what it was
supposed
to feel like. This was one-hundred percent.

AUGUST 2011—THE PRESENT

T
he weeks that passed after Brew and I set the record were a blur. I can remember only bits and pieces of our post-trail experience, and even those memories are wrapped in a mental haze. It is hard to remember clearly what takes place when you are recovering from such an all-consuming endeavor.

The first few days after the hike, it felt as if I had just undergone a major surgery. I did not want to leave the bed, and when I did it was only to move to the couch or the hammock. I slept thirty-two of the first forty-eight hours that I spent off the trail. I didn't even have the energy to read or talk on the phone. Then came the media requests, which were surreal and sometimes frustrating.

There were reporters who chastised me or even decided not to interview me when I didn't immediately return their calls. Then there were the writers I actually spoke with, who simply printed the numbers even after I tried to give them a more holistic view of our journey.

No one seemed interested in what I'd learned or what the most valuable part of the experience had been. Instead, everyone wanted to talk about how I averaged 46.93 miles per day, or managed to consume 6,000 calories per day. They asked me if I was scared to see thirty-six bears this summer. Scared? Not at all. That was one of the highlights of the trip!

Why didn't anyone ask about the notions of living in the present or choosing something purposeful and fulfilling over something fun and easy? What about the necessity of asking other people for help and of not succumbing to the fear of failure? Or the idea that persistence and consistency can be more valuable than speed and strength? Why didn't they ask about everyone else who had helped us? Wasn't it clear that this was a group endeavor? And what about Brew? Why did no one realize that the most miraculous part of the summer was not the record, but how well my husband had loved me?!

Many of the media outlets told the story of our record without ever touching on the most important parts of the journey. Perhaps the lessons of this past summer were so counter-cultural that reporters didn't think to ask the right questions. At least the misrepresentation made it easier to disconnect from the feedback.

Opinions about our hike started to appear on websites and in my inbox, and were occasionally broadcast through the radio. The responses we heard ranged from those who questioned our record because they didn't believe I could physically cover the 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail in forty-six days, to those who decided it was really rather underwhelming, and that given the chance, most people without a full backpack could do the same thing. Just
as dangerous and misinformed, but far more pleasant, were the people who thought we could do no wrong.

I think I was relatively unaffected by both the criticism and the praise. Having Brew by my side helped me to value what we had accomplished and hold on to the truth. Anyway, widespread attention is fleeting, and for the most part, I slept through our fifteen minutes of fame.

There was one incident that happened our first week off the trail, though, that I remember with striking clarity. Beyond my husband, the man I had thought about more than anyone else in recent weeks was Andrew Thompson. I went back and forth between being completely in awe of him for being such an amazing athlete and despising him for the exact same reason. But the last thing I wanted to do was talk to him.

I now knew how meaningful the overall record could be, and how difficult it was to achieve. As much as I embraced our accomplishment, I wished that it could be shared with Andrew and the other record setters of the past. I would never have been successful without studying their approaches and learning from their separate attempts. It was clear to me that a record holder never really stands alone, but rather climbs on the shoulders of the ones who have gone before him—or her.

I dreaded the call or email that I would receive from always-gracious Andrew, congratulating me on my record. I was sure he would feel compelled to say things that he didn't wholeheartedly mean. I had just taken something away from one of my heroes— how could this not be awkward?

The fateful day came when I saw his name pop up in my inbox. I did not want to click on the message, but the smiley face in the subject line encouraged me to just get it over with. When I opened the text, it contained just two words:

You bitch . . .
Followed by another smiley face.

I laughed so hard that I started to cry. It was the most physical
exertion I'd had since leaving Springer. I had never in my life been so proud to be called that name. Andrew had given me the most honest compliment imaginable. I knew right then that things would never be awkward between us.

I was fortunate that I could focus on rest and recovery and ease back into my work schedule because the physical effects of the trail remained for months. The initial symptoms were consuming fatigue and a decrease in appetite. I had lost about twelve pounds on the trail, but I lost another three or four the week after I finished. My metabolism was still raging but my stomach and my mind refused to eat as much as they had on the trail. I was transi-tioning from eating for survival to eating for enjoyment.

The next major phase of recovery was marked by dizziness and brief blackouts. I could not stand up without my head spinning, or my vision momentarily clouding over in a dark veil. I learned that I needed about ten full seconds to successfully transition from sitting to walking without passing out.

I didn't want to go to a doctor because I was convinced that I was improving, and I was scared that I might discover I'd sustained some major damage somewhere. Instead, I researched online and self-diagnosed my condition as athlete's heart. It not only explained my chest pains on the trail, but it also provided an explanation for my dizziness. According to numerous Web searches, athlete's heart is caused when the heart expands and strengthens.

The heart is a muscle, and like other muscles, it can grow. This increase in volume can cause an ache in the chest. It can also cause light-headedness because a larger chamber takes longer to fill with blood when there are sudden vertical changes.

In other words, I was like the Grinch. In the end, my experience had literally given me a bigger heart.

The calluses, blisters, and corns on my feet took about three months to harden, then peel off. At times, I picked off purple, silver-dollar-sized scales from my feet. They were dense, stiff, and always a different shape. I asked Brew if he thought we should keep a few as mementos, but he said no.

It took a long time before I had any desire to run or participate in prolonged exercise, but it was just a few weeks after I finished that my heart longed for the trail. I started by taking short two- or three-mile hikes. In direct contrast to my record hike, I enjoyed traveling down the trail at a mile and a half per hour and taking as many seated breaks as I wanted along the way.