Called Again (32 page)

The next morning, Matt and Lily left, and despite their tremendous contribution, I didn't bat an eyelash at their departure. I had one thing—or rather one person—on my mind. Hazel.

I love my husband, and I love my friends and family, but all those relationships require work. There was something about loving our nine-month-old niece that seemed effortless. As soon as she was born, she instantly captured my love and devotion. I'm guessing the feeling of being an aunt is only a shadow of what it's like to be a mother, and if that's the case I am in trouble, because I would do anything for my brother's little girl.

Amid the shin splints, diarrhea, nausea, and exhaustion, one of the toughest parts of trying to set a trail record was being away from Hazel. At home in Asheville, we only lived six miles apart, and I spent many training runs going back and forth to see her. Knowing that my brother James and sister-in-law Lindsay were coming to the trail with Hazel meant that I was light-footed and light-hearted all morning.

But within a mile of the road where I was planning to meet my family, my furious pace came to an abrupt stop. That was because ten feet away in the middle of the trail was a large timber rattlesnake. This was not my first rattlesnake of the summer, nor would it be my last, but it
was
the only one that refused to move. As soon as it saw me, it coiled into a tight circle and started shaking its tail so fast that it blurred.

I stood there and tapped my hiking poles against the earth because usually the vibrations cause snakes to slither away—but not this one. Then I picked up a few sticks and threw them near the snake. Still, it refused to relinquish its position. I looked to my right and left, but I was surrounded by a mountain laurel thicket, and getting off the path would mean crawling through a jungle gym of branches.

I tried to be polite and talk to him in a very soothing tone so that he would know I was not a threat.

“Hi, Mr. Snake,” I said. “I would really appreciate it if you could slide off the trail now so I can keep going.”

If anything, the rattler's tail seemed to speed up after my comment. Then my tone became less soothing.

“Listen here, you camouflaged belly-crawler, this trail is for foot traffic only! I've come over 1,500 miles to see my niece, and I'm not going to let you get between us now!”

With that I launched another stick, which landed a few inches away from the serpent. The poisonous blockade now reared its head and lifted its flickering tongue higher into the air. After several minutes, I realized it was not going to back down, so I stepped off-trail and began to weave and crawl through the maze of branches. The snake simply turned its head and kept shaking as I gave it a wide berth. The snake had won, and that didn't surprise me. Whenever I tried to enforce my will upon Mother Nature, she always won.

My attention soon shifted. When I heard the distant sound of a car, I quickened my pace and began yelling at the top of my lungs, “Hazel, Ha-zel!” Within minutes I came out to a clearing where Brew, James, and Lindsay sat with Hazel, who was crawling on a blanket. I immediately scooped up my niece. She did not seem to mind that I was damp to the touch and smelled horrible. She simply smiled, then showed off her newest developmental skill by clapping her hands. Perfect timing.

I sat down in my camp chair and put Hazel on her blanket. Brew put food in front of me. I knew I needed to eat, but all I wanted to do was play with my little niece. It seemed that she was hungry, too, because she kept trying to crawl off her blanket to grab handfuls of dirt and shove them in her mouth. I could already tell she was going to be a hiker.

As much as I wanted to play with Hazel on the blanket all day, Lindsay picked her up after fifteen minutes and took her to the car, but not before promising they would both be at the next road crossing. Getting to see Hazel again was the only motivation I needed to grab a pack and start striding down the trail, this time with my brother close behind me.

It was really nice to have James on the trail with me; not just because he could fill me in on all the cute things that Hazel had done over the past five weeks, but also because he was my brother. Getting my family to support my love of long-distance hiking had been a gradual and arduous process.

Eight years ago, James was not thrilled when I first set out alone at age twenty-one to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. But he was there at the end to climb Katahdin with me and help me drive home. Now he was back on the trail, trekking with me through the open fields and pastures of Southwest Virginia.

I appreciated his help, but in a way he owed me because I had spent my entire childhood going to every football, basketball, and baseball game that my brothers ever played—and their teams were never even that good. By the time I had my own tournaments and matches, both of my brothers were away at college, so they attended very few of my athletic events.

That afternoon, I asked James to fill me in on all the pro sports results I had missed over the summer. He told me about the NBA finals and gave me a brief recap of Wimbledon, then he asked me if I had heard about the U.S. Women's Soccer Team, which I, of course, had not.

“It was awesome!” he proclaimed. “They had an amazing run in the World Cup this summer. It felt like the entire country was rooting for them.”

I had never heard my brother talk about women's soccer before.

So I asked, “Do you think you appreciate women's athletics more now that you have a daughter?”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” he said reflectively. “I want Hazel to play any sport that she wants, and I hope she'll have other women to look up to.”

“Yeah, I wish the media did a better job of portraying women as legitimate athletes,” I added. “It makes me really mad how
Sports Illustrated
features men on the front cover all year until it is
time for the swimsuit edition. What does that say to young girls? You have a better chance of landing a cover on
SI
by taking your top off than by excelling in an actual sport?”

I stopped talking, and James didn't respond. My brother has a quiet, pensive nature, which tends to make me more loquacious.

“It's not that I am against women being sex symbols,” I continued—this conversation had started to get a little awkward, considering I was talking with my brother. “I am fine with men and women being sex symbols; we are all sexual creatures. I just want women to have the chance to be taken seriously as athletes, as well.”

“Do you really feel like people give you less chance of setting the record because you're a woman?” asked James.

“Of course
they do!” I responded. “In ultra-running, when a guy gets beaten by a women, he usually says that he got ‘chicked.' It's common lingo at the finish line, and it implies that there is something inherently embarrassing about it. And I'm not arguing that most men aren't genetically stronger and faster than women, because that's a proven fact. But when it comes to endurance sports, the stronger, faster person doesn't always win.”

“Well, I'm glad Hazel's going to have an aunt who's a terrific female athlete—no, wait. Strike that,” James said. “I'm glad Hazel is going to have an aunt who is a terrific
athlete
to look up to.”

Having Hazel join us on the trail for a day and a half boosted my mileage and my spirit. At the road crossings, Brew would keep an eye on his watch, and after ten minutes, he would lift our niece from my arms and tell me that I couldn't hold her again until the next road crossing.

At some point along the journey, another hiker had asked in a skeptical tone how I could prevent a passion from turning into an
obsession. And I had answered that as long as I surrounded myself with people who loved me and held me accountable, I could give my all to this hike without worrying about compromising who I was. Brew and I both wanted to be good spouses, family members, and friends more than we wanted to set a trail record. I think the people who were closest to us knew that this hike only represented a season of our lives and did not ultimately define who we were. Knowing that probably made it easier for them to support our insane endeavor in the short term.

Hazel was a good reminder of where our priorities stood. But at the same time, her visit made me want to hike stronger and faster so that I could go home and be the best friend, sister, daughter, and aunt that I could be. Hazel
also
reinforced the growing notion that I wanted to finish so I could be a mom.

JULY 21, 2011—JULY 26, 2011

W
hen James, Lindsay, and Hazel left us, I was downtrodden, to say the least. As they departed, we were closing in on Damascus and the Virginia-Tennessee border. I should have been elated to leave behind the five-hundred twenty-five mile stretch of Virginia and to enter one of the last three states. But instead, I felt stuck.

When I met Brew at the next road crossing, he knew by my sullen look that something was wrong.

“You miss Hazel, don't you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I also hate where we are right now.”

“You mean because it is still the almost-end?”

“Yeah. It's as if we are in trail purgatory,” I replied. “I feel like I have given this trail everything, and I have made it a really long way, but I can sense that I am almost on empty and we are not anywhere close to the finish. I am hurting, and I am tired, and there is no end in sight.”

“At least you know that,” said Brew.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Brew said, “you know this trail inside and out. And so far you have paced yourself perfectly. Someone else might try to give too much at this point because they think they're closer to the end than they really are. But you know every mountain, valley, and river between here and Springer, and I know that somewhere in your subconscious, you've kept enough strength in reserve to make it through the last five hundred miles.”

I heard what Brew was saying, but it didn't help much. I was at a point on the trail where I really needed inspiration. Fortunately, I got what I needed when Maureen arrived.

Maureen was a life-long family friend, and she had been a small part of my first thru-hike in 2005 when I got off the trail in Hot Springs, North Carolina, to watch the NCAA men's basketball tournament at her house. During that visit, she prepared a huge dinner for me and a warm bucket of water with Epsom salts so I could eat, watch the game, and soak my sore feet all at the same time.

Maureen knew about endurance and efficiency. She was one of the toughest women I knew. When she was my age, she participated in a number of endurance riding events on horseback, including multiple hundred-mile rides in the back-country. Now in her sixties, she lived on a farm and trained her four border collies to participate in sheepdog trials—another sport where precision is key and the slightest mistake has huge consequences.

Whether at a national trial or at home, Maureen usually had two or three dogs trailing at her feet and an SLR camera hanging from her neck. She is the most gifted photographer I know. The only problem is that she refuses to shoot humans.