NEW YORK, Nov 4 — It was a busy summer on the Appalachian Trail. The movie “A Walk in the Woods” made its debut, the path received national attention for a perceived party culture and the well-known endurance athlete Scott Jurek set an overall record on the trail.
Then, quietly and relatively unnoticed, a woman named Heather Anderson hiked the trail by herself, averaging more than 40 miles a day. In doing so, she set the trail’s self-supported speed record.
There are two types of Appalachian Trail speed records: supported and self-supported. A supported record allows an athlete to travel with companions and resupply at road crossings using a crew. The self-supported endeavor demands that the individual walk unassisted, without emotional support on the trail or physical support at blacktop intersections and towns.
Records on long-distance trails are akin to cougar sightings on the East Coast: rare, controversial and hard to verify. Although these endurance records, recently titled Fastest Known Times, or FKTs, have been recorded on paths like the Appalachian Trail since the 1970s, there is no governing body to officiate or authenticate them. They are based on an honour system in which one’s word is generally accepted even if the feat itself is criticised. There seem to be just as many people who will belittle and berate an FKT for being too fast as who will be in awe of such a raw display of endurance.
46 days
On July 31, 2011, I climbed Springer Mountain in Georgia with my husband, Brew, having hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine. At the summit, we walked straight to a large rock where a trail plaque was firmly secured. I put both hands on it and stopped my wristwatch. It was unofficially official: I had hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 46 days, beating the previous endurance record by 26 hours. For the first time on an American long-distance trail, a woman had surpassed the endurance mark of a man.
In the wake of my record, I received numerous questions and even more comments. Some of the feedback suggested I must be either an exceptional woman — or an androgynous one — to be able to hike the trail so quickly. In my own mind I started to doubt my ability and my accomplishment. I wondered: What was different — or wrong — with me?
In 2012, the process of conceiving, birthing and nursing my daughter served as an abrupt reminder that I was fully female, genetically and hormonally. As a result, I recognised that I was not only all right, I was also specifically and spectacularly engineered to carry the approximate weight of a backpack for several months and endure excruciating pain.
The next summer, I was focused on weaning my child when Anderson, a newcomer to the FKT scene, set the unsupported record on the Pacific Crest Trail. Suddenly, there were female record holders for the two best-known trails in America.
In 2014, Karl Meltzer, a highly accomplished ultradistance runner, tried and failed to set the Appalachian Trail record — for a second time. Meltzer had a compelling running résumé, but his best finish on the Appalachian Trail was a full five days behind the record. Then, on May 27, 2015, Jurek, the United States’ most decorated ultrarunner, set out to tackle the feat.
Jurek’s exploits have been woven into best-selling books like “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall and Jurek’s own “Eat and Run.” Perhaps his best-known accomplishments are seven straight wins at the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run coupled with multiple victories at the 135-mile Badwater race across Death Valley and his US record for distance running in 24 hours — 165.7 miles.
The only place where I would come close to Jurek at an ultramarathon is at the starting line. When I learned that he was going after the Appalachian Trail record, I thought: Oh, man. I hope he doesn’t blow it out of the water.
Then 46 days passed.
A record falls, gently
July 12, 2015, was an idyllic day at Baxter State Park near Millinocket, Maine. Under bluebird skies, a cool breeze kept the biting black flies away. That afternoon, Jurek ascended the sun-kissed rocks of Mount Katahdin with his wife, Jenny, and support crew. And when he touched the worn brown sign that marks the summit, he became the supported record-holder.
I was not shocked that Jurek broke my record; I was surprised that he beat it by only three hours. And after rethinking every five-minute pause that I could have eliminated on my hike, I was left with a larger question: How could I — a woman who has never won an ultrarace — compete with Scott Jurek? So I asked him.
Jurek did not appear to be surprised at the 0.3 per cent difference in our finish times. “The gender gap diminishes and disappears over distance,” he told me. “When you’re traveling over 2,000 miles, it doesn’t matter if you are male or female. Superhuman powers are superhuman powers; they know no gender, no age.”
Jurek did say, however, that in traditional ultrarunning distances of 50km, 50 miles or 100 miles, he believed men still had a physical advantage.
Robert Deaner of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, has spent the past 10 years studying the psychological differences in distance running between the sexes. In an email, he said, “There is now strong evidence that in distance running (standard marathons and shorter), men are generally more competitive.”
But he acknowledged that men’s competitiveness might not always be beneficial. In a study that consisted of 92,000 marathon runners, he writes: Men “begin at a pace that could lead to a superb performance, given their own talent and training, but one that also increases their chance of crashing or hitting the wall. The longer the race, the more crucial it is to be conservative with pacing, since fatigue in longer races reflects slowly cumulating processes, such as glycogen depletion and tissue damage.”
Although data on longer distances is lacking, Deaner acknowledges, “since males generally have trouble making conservative decisions, they might be less likely to perform well in an ultrarun or hike.” In contrast, all three times a woman has attempted to set the overall supported or unsupported record on the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail, she has been successful.
Is endurance genderless?
On August 1, 17 days after Jurek reached Katahdin’s summit with an entourage of friends and support crew, Anderson climbed the same peak alone. In the early morning hours, she touched the iconic wooden sign that crowns the mountain, then started her journey southbound.
While Anderson is understated and under the radar, she is far from underqualified. Even before starting the Appalachian Trail, she had logged 15,000 miles in long-distance hiking. She had conquered hiking’s triple crown — the Appalachian, the Pacific Crest and the Continental Divide Trails — and in 2013 she hiked the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail for a second time, setting the self-supported record on it.
When she completed that hike in 60 days 17 hours 12 minutes, an average of 44 miles a day, she dethroned Scott Williamson, who had completed the Pacific Crest Trail 13 times and set numerous records on it. Williamson had logged more than 47,000 miles in long-distance hiking. Most FKT followers assumed that Williamson’s trail knowledge, athletic prowess and determination were insurmountable. Then Anderson broke his record by four days.
Over the summer, when Anderson tackled the self-supported record on the Appalachian Trail, she was once again taking on a titan in the FKT field. Matt Kirk had set numerous trail records in the Southeast, and when he broke the Appalachian Trail’s self-supported record in 2013, it was the first time the mark had been lowered in 20 years. Then Anderson broke his relatively new record by four days. Four days.
Anderson said that part of her confidence in going after the record stemmed from her personal observation of male and female hikers at the end of a long-distance trail. “Women appear to be better suited for walking long distances because it doesn’t seem to take the same physical toll on their bodies,” she said. “The women I see at the end of a long-distance hike look fit and badass, but the guys look emaciated.”
Still, Anderson hesitated to speculate whether women truly have an advantage over men in ultraendurance events. “I believe that endurance is most likely genderless,” she said. “As a species we evolved by traveling long distances and carrying what we needed. It’s a human trait.”
Samuel Cheuvront, a research physiologist for the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, agreed. “I can’t think of any reason why men would have an advantage over women at these lengths,” he said. “At distances over 2,000 miles, you are negating the benefit that males have due to increased muscle mass and aerobic capacity.”
Cheuvront was quick to point out that in long-distance swimming events measuring more than 20km, women consistently outperform men. In part, this is based on the increased buoyancy that women have, which comes from a higher body fat percentage.
This would not be an asset on land as it is in water, but Cheuvront sees two competitive advantages that women may have, especially in a self-supported effort where water may be scarce and where the athlete is constantly at a caloric deficit. First, they generally have smaller frames, which decrease heat production and produce less water loss. The second reason is that women have higher oestrogen levels, which give them the potential for greater use of more abundant body fat stores.
In other words, those extra 10 pounds most women would love to shed coupled with the frustrating fact that our recommended daily caloric intake is less than what it is for men could make all the difference in an FKT.
Despite my interviews and my own personal experiences, I am still not convinced that men and women are equal at these distances. There are times when the historic dominance of men combined with their physiological advantages in strength and speed lead me to believe that they will continue to outshine women in the longer FKT distances. At other times, when I talk to Heather Anderson and we discuss a similar and seemingly unique ability to pace ourselves, recover quickly and maintain body weight, I start to suspect that maybe women have a genetic and evolutionary advantage when it comes to enduring physical pain and stress.
Regardless, the one thought that remains apparent to me is that athletes who are pushing the boundaries of human endurance have more in common mentally than what separates us physically. — The New York Times
