North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail by Scott Jurek. 

4/5 rating. 

Book #98 of 2019. Read August 16, 2019.

This book is about Scott Jurek’s attempt at breaking the fastest known time (FKT) to complete the Appalachian Trail. Since I have been hiking some of the trail, I can get a very small taste of the difficulties he went through. As I was hiking 10 miles yesterday, some of what I had read was spurring me on. If you are at all interested in trail running, hiking, or the AT, I would definitely recommend this book!

Quotes:

“And I know this: You rarely ask why when you win. It’s a word you can outrun and out-perform. Applause makes it hard to hear yourself. But just because you ignore it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And why doesn’t get old and tire. It catches up, and it gets louder. It churns up thoughts that are best kept down in the dark.”

“After such a beautiful and brutal odyssey, that white trail blaze is branded onto his soul forever.”

“That’s how it should be. Out there in the wild, on a long journey, you hike your own hike, blaze your own trail, and only you can find what you’re looking for.”

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