A journey of 45 days, 8 hours, and 37 minutes is tough to put into words. It begins as a dream and slowly becomes your reality day after day. I had so much fun beating up my legs and body through Maine and New Hampshire, and then after the broader reaches of a hurricane drenched me and all my gear, reality set in that this was going to be one of the most prolonged periods of suffering chasing a goal I wasn't even sure I could achieve. But, I sank into my daily mileage and pushed with consistency over speed.
The issues were plentiful but also engaging. A resupply box thrown out by Shenandoah NP, accidentally sticking two left shoes in a resupply box, followed by two right shoes. Food issues, over exertion, running out of food, this FKT checked all the boxes for adversity that I was looking for. The goal was always to finish in the best time I could muster, and given the circumstances, conditions, and my abilities, I achieved that and I get to submit this because it also happened to be fast enough to get the overall self supported FKT.
While the journey along the AT is usually social, mine was lonely. On a trail that is known for trail magic, I saw very little. But on the trail known to change lives, my second time thru hiking the iconic Appalachian Trail changed my life more than any other 45 day period in my life. Such change was brought. The perfect ending to the exact experience I needed. A painful one, but one that helped me grow in so many ways.
Podcast recap episodes to follow on the full experience of what I went through at "Free Outside podcast".
I had a few issues with battery power and only had my tracker die substantially one time. But, even when this occurred, I had a GPS watch as a backup to record things.