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As Joe McConaughy set up camp on his second to last day on the Appalachian Trail, he did some quick math. Just 46 hours remained before he would miss the record set by Karl "Speedgoat" Meltzer on his supported hike of the 2,184-mile trail, and 110 miles stood between him and the terminus at the summit of Mount Katahdin. He'd hoped for something more like an 80-mile final push, but after bleeding time through the rugged terrain of the White Mountains and a three-mile off-trail accidental detour that also added 1,500 feet of elevation the week prior, he was behind schedule.
McConaughy set out from Springer Mountain at 6:31 am on July 17 with plans to cover an average of 50 miles each day. If his plan held, he would reach the trail terminus in 43 days, shaving two days off the supported record set by Meltzer last year and more than 10 days off Heather Anderson's self-supported speed record on the AT of 54 days, 7 hours, and 54 minutes, set in 2013. But the trail had other plans for him. Some days, McConaughy missed his target by as much as 20 miles.
[...] Finally, after moving forward for 37 straight hours, at 6:38 pm on August 31, he reached the summit. Seventy mile-per-hour winds, hail, and mist met him as he stumbled out of the fog and into a long hug with his girlfriend. He'd completed the trail in 45 days, 12 hours and 15 minutes, setting a new fastest known time.
Source: https://www.backpacker.com/stories/joe-mcconaughy-appalachian-trail-record
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 18 2017, @03:24PM
They are two entirely different experiences.
Running the trail is a trance with rhythm, breathing, and pain that you transcend into euphoria. Work, the weather, worries fade away and there's only the next footfall. The first fifty steps are agony, and the last fifty you want to be another fifty, and then another. Serious runners do it because it's addictive. You get high and stay high as long as you can run. Doing it for 45 days in a row like that would transform you. Physically, of course, but mentally too. You could never go back to a 9-5 in your heart again.
Hiking the trail is savoring nature. You experience a string of vignettes, a field of wildflowers, a heron fishing on a still pond, a view that scores you. You can go back to your life again afterward, but with serenity.
At least, that's my experience of the Appalachian Trail, albeit in the much shorter segments I've done. I hope to do more when my kids get a little older.
One thing that amazes me about it is how close it is to the heavily populated parts of the country, and yet how few people actually hike it. You can drive an hour outside NYC, enter the trail, and be light years away from civilization.
Washington DC delenda est.