Ironjen's Appalachian Trials Lists Part 1: Why am I hiking the Appalachian Trail?

I'm sitting here looking at a post from Appalachian Trials congratulating the hikers who have finished their thru-hikes this week!  I noticed two reactions as I scrolled through the photos.  First, I get really giddy and almost teary every time I see a photo of the sign atop Katahdin!  Second, I'm noticing that today is August 1, and I can't imagine wanting to be done this early in the hiking season!  I even had trouble finishing AWOL on the Appalachian Trail!  I put the book down for a couple of weeks when I had two chapters left, because I wasn't ready for the virtual hike to be over.  I wanted the experience to last.

Of course, that's no guarantee that I am going to feel the same way after walking over 2,000 miles!  Who knows, maybe by then I'll be tired of sleeping outside, walking through rain, communing with bugs and not being able to get away from the stench of myself, my gear and my husband! (Just the smell of you, hon!  I won't want to get away from you!)  It's that not knowing how I'll feel once I'm deep into the experience that makes me a little nervous, and I suppose that's at least part of what makes a thru-hike appealing.

I see the experience a little bit like my first Ironman.  When I decided that I wanted to do an Ironman, I was still sick with dermatomyositis.  I had just started running, as part of my "do everything they tell you you can't do" plan to get well.  I watched a friend do a sprint triathlon, because he insisted that I would love the sport.  I mostly went to make him shut up about it.

Back when I was sick

By the time he crossed the finish line, I was dead set on doing a triathlon.  I didn't want to do a sprint.  I had done the math in my head already, and I could have pushed my way through that distance that day if I had wanted to.  What was attractive about the idea of an Ironman, was that there was a big question mark on that.  The most I had ever run was 9 miles, I had no idea how to actually swim with a real swim stroke, and I owned a steel mountain bike from 1996.  Nothing about my situation in that moment spelled guaranteed success in my attempt to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles in under 17 consecutive hours.

Ironman Swim Lake Placid 2008

Ironman Bike Lake Placid 2008

Ironman Run Lake Placid 2008

In Zach Davis' book, Appalachian Trials, he writes about anticipating challenges, and being mentally prepared for them.  Part of the strategy is making lists prior to leaving on the trail.  I never wrote the lists on paper when I did Ironman, but I did catalogue the thoughts in my head, and I wrote a lot on my blog about why I was doing what I was doing, the benefit of crossing the finish line, and the drawbacks of quitting before.  When weather on race day turned into a downpour that lasted over 15 hours, when I faced the killer climbs of the Adirondacks on the bike and run courses, and when the midnight finish cutoff loomed less than 30 minutes ahead, I reminded myself what the finish meant.  It was a nail in the coffin of a disease I wasn't supposed to be able to defeat.  It was me claiming control over my life.  It was proving to myself that I am capable of anything. . . It worked.  I did all of that.  I went on to do it three more times.  I'll eventually do it again.  First, I need to do this other thing. . . this thru-hike thing, and I need to be prepared.  (Muskrat does too, but he's been busy with budget spreadsheets!  He likes that stuff!)

Ironman Finish Lake Placid 2008

Ironman Finish Coeur d'Alene 2009

Ironman Finish Arizona 2010

Ironman Finisher Medal Cozumel 2011

My reasons for this thru-hike are not as clear cut and easy to define as my reasons for doing Ironman.  Dermatomyositis is far behind me now that I have been well longer than I was sick, and my confidence in myself is miles beyond what it used to be.  My physical fitness is pretty stellar.  So, why DO I want to do this?

Here's the first draft of my first list:

I am thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail because:

• It has intrigued me for the last 25 years.
• I want a grand adventure.
• I want to make a photo book of the trip.
• I want to share an epic adventure with my husband.
• I want to live in the woods.
• I want to see if I can.
• I want to try a new kind of endurance activity.
• I want to take Magnuson Photographic in a commercial outdoor direction.
• I want to see New England, and on foot sounds good!
• I want to have something awesome to remember the east coast by.

I'm sure I will add to it, but so far that's what I have!

©2014 Jennifer Magnuson, All Rights Reserved, Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Required Reading: Appalachian Trials by Zach Davis

Over the years since I discovered the dream of a thru-hike (1989), I have read a good bit about the AT.  There have been books, blogs and journals, and countless articles.  I've met thru-hikers when I have been out on day hikes or on some weekend backpacking trips, and I have dreamed wistfully of the day when I could be the one telling the story of MY thru-hike!

Now, as Muskrat and I have decided to thru-hike, set a projected start date of March 15, 2015 and are delving into the actual preparation for the actual hike, we have been seeking out things to read that are more than a gear list or a step by step account of someone else's thru-hike.  Don't get me wrong, we LOVE Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.  It's inspiring, entertaining, and full of history and ecology lessons that gave me even more respect and reverence for the trail than I already had.  David "AWOL" Miller's AWOL on the Appalachian Trail, as I mentioned in a previous post, was short on introspection and emotion, but still an incredible account of his 5 million step journey from Springer to Katahdin, and we are eagerly awaiting the release of his The AT Guide NOBO 2015.

On one of our many Google searches for AT planning resources, we stumbled upon thru-hiker REQUIRED READING!!  Zach Davis aka "The Good Badger" is a 2011 NOBO thru-hiker who penned the book Appalachian Trials about mental preparation for a 2,181 mile journey on foot.

I can tell you that if this book isn't on your pre-hike reading list, it needs to be.  Muskrat and I have each undertaken our fair share of mentally and physically challenging feats in our lives.  I've successfully completed four Ironman triathlons, and Muskrat has participated in countless randonneuring (self-supported bicycle rides) of distances ranging from 125 to 400 miles, and he was a member of the 2011 four man team that won the non-stop, 860 mile Race Across the West from Oceanside, California to Durango, Colorado.  We both know from experience that even if your body is trained and your gear is perfect, that the mental game can make or break your event.

Davis' book addresses the mental challenges that you'll undoubtedly encounter on the trail, from the low points where you'll wonder why this seemed like a good idea at all, to the end of the honeymoon phase, to the social pressures on and off the trail, the unexpected and potentially catastrophic events (illness, injury, off-trail drama) to the best advice I have heard about pacing, gear choices, nutrition, and reintegration into life after the trail.  In less than 100 pages, Davis manages to spill more universal truth out of his pen than you could learn at a 30 day yoga retreat.

He touches on the benefits of making lists about why you're embarking on your journey, the consequences of quitting and the rewards of staying the course.  He delves into the ways meditation can help you overcome challenges, and offers up some techniques for those unfamiliar with it.  As someone who made a stunning comeback from an incurable and debilitating disease, I can tell you that Davis is SPOT ON when he writes of the strength of character and confidence you gain by persevering through the tough times, and the methods he recommends for doing it.

At the risk of going on and on, and telling you so much that you'll make the mistake of not actually buying and reading this book, I will leave you with this.  It's the best resource I have read so far on preparing for a thru-hike.  There were several times I actually cheered out loud in agreement with something Davis totally nailed.  This book facilitated several discussions between Muskrat and myself about our individual expectations, ideas and goals for this shared trip.  Some of this was stuff we may have neglected to talk about without the benefit of the book, so Appalachian Trials may have saved us some marital trials along the trail, since it's always easier to get on the same page and discuss things when you're sitting on your comfy couch than it is to do so when you're sweaty, hungry, smelly and tired!

Seriously, whether you're NOBO, SOBO, flip-flopping or even facing some non-backpacking related challenge, this is a fantastic resource and the best $11.69 ($8.99 for kindle) you could spend!

Also check out his website, which is also chock full of resources for all things AT!

©2014 Jennifer Magnuson, All Rights Reserved, Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Pre-Trail Reading and Reflection

This morning, as Muskrat recovers from some surgery he had yesterday, we finished David "AWOL" Miller's AWOL on the Appalachian Trail, his account of his 2003 thru-hike. I had always heard really great things about the book, and I loved it, though I was surprised at how clinical of an account it is. Maybe it was my projection of my own storytelling style that had me expecting to hear a more introspective and emotional story. Despite the book not meeting that expectation, I found myself drawn into the story of footsteps through the green tunnel. It was almost meditative, as I anticipate some of the hike will be. Two of the passages in the book that stuck out most for me were these:

"The payoff, though difficult to quantify, is much greater than I expected. I have no regrets about having gone; it was the right thing to do. I think about it every day. Sometimes I can hardly believe that it happened. I just quit, and I was on a monumental trip. I didn't suffer financial ruin, my wife didn't leave me, the world didn't stop spinning. I do think of how regrettable it would have been had I ignored the pull that I felt to hike the trail. A wealth of memories could have been lost before they had even occurred if I had dismissed, as a whim, my inkling to hike. It is disturbing how tenuous our potential is due to our fervent defense of the comfortable norm." -David "AWOL" Miller, AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

"Hiking the AT is 'pointless.' What life is not 'pointless?' Is it not pointless to work paycheck to paycheck just to conform? Hiking the AT before joining the workforce was an opportunity not taken. Doing it in retirement would be sensible; doing it at this time in my life is abnormal, and therein lay the appeal. I want to make my life less ordinary." - David Miller AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

"I want to make my life less ordinary." I have a feeling that this is one of the things people have judged me for the most in my life, yet it is one of the things that I am most proud of, and also one of the things that I wish I had done better when I was younger.

There was a time in my life, that due to the influences of parents, teachers, peers, religion, etcetera, that I thought that there was a checklist to happiness, a roadmap to fulfillment that I saw modeled all around me. My heart had always been drawn towards the outdoors, adventure, mountains, unconventional living, but the evidence of my actions clearly demonstrated that I felt far safer with "the conventional norm."

I mentioned how I felt shamed by my classmate's reaction to the one and only time I voiced my desire to go to the woods in lieu of going to college. Somehow that moment of honesty, and the shame that I felt from it, spurred me to a gorgeous engraved piece of paper that hangs of a wall matted and framed in walnut. It has an embossed seal, some foil lettering, a bunch of signatures, and at one time it gave me a sense of worth and value, and it made me feel as though I had done what I was supposed to do on the way to being happy and fulfilled. After suffering a less than exciting year in an office, an incurable and debilitating bout of illness, an ill-advised marriage and the subsequent divorce, I see it as a symbol of dreams deferred, and as a learning experience far more valuable than anything I ever did in the classrooms where I earned that degree.

I don't regret it, and it certainly didn't ruin my life, as life is pretty grand! I just wish that I could tell my younger self to quit looking at the people around me, many of whom I later learned weren't as happy and satisfied as they led me to believe, as examples of how to succeed. I'd tell myself to take the time to get to know who I am and what I really want, and to always follow that deliciously tense tugging that I feel in my chest when something ignites my passion. I lived by the checklist, and I almost died by the checklist in my mid-20s. Experience has taught me that there is much more risk in living "the comfortable norm" than there is in living a life "less ordinary." My 30s have been about living from my heart, and they haven't disappointed me yet.

My heart says it's never too late to hike.


©2014 Jennifer Magnuson, All Rights Reserved, Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.

Ironjen's Inspiration for a Thru-hike

When I was twelve years old, the son of one of my dad’s high school friends thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.  My mom mentioned it to me, and though the conversation couldn’t have lasted more than 5 minutes, it has stayed in my mind for 25 years.

Long before that list of life goals and dreams was called a “bucket list,” such a list was forming in my mind.  What an adventure it would be to hike over 2000 miles of mountains!

I’m someone who has always felt a deep desire to live unconventionally.  I used to tell my high school boyfriend that I wanted to live somewhere that “smelled far away.”  My favorite days were the ones where a spontaneous road trip took me to a meadow, a mountain, a place where there was space, and I could breathe.  My favorite vacations were in the mountains, and they involved communing with trees and rocks and dirt and icy streams.

As a senior in high school, a classmate asked me what I would be studying in college the following year, and I really didn’t know.  I answered that I really didn’t even want to go to college.  I wanted to go to the woods.  She looked at me like I was crazy, and some part of me felt wrong for what I wanted.

So, I went to college.  I finished a semester early with a solid GPA and a degree tailor made for my Washington, DC upbringing, Government and Politics.  That was 1999; 10 years after the idea of a thru-hike had entered my mind.

I rushed into a job, a marriage, and homeownership, and I woke up one day in the midst of my life wondering how I would ever do my thru-hike with all of these responsibilities.  I felt like I made a series of huge mistakes.

I'm not one to dwell on things I "should have" done, so I just aimed to live life a little differently a little bit at a time, and over the last 15 years, have managed to get my life much closer to how I want it to look and feel.  It took a divorce, an eight-year career in law enforcement, a five-year battle with debilitating and "incurable" dermatomyositis, a forced retirement, four Ironman triathlon finishes, and marrying Jeff/Muskrat to get me here, but I am FINALLY ready to take on the adventure that has been on my mind for 25 years!

To the trail!

©2014 Jennifer Magnuson, All Rights Reserved, Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.