“We are the sum total of our experiences.”

No matter if these experiences are positive or negative, they create the person we are at a given point in our lives. In other words, we change over time. Hopefully, we reinforce ourselves with the positive experiences and learn and rebound from the negative ones. But what if they are tied together? What if an amazing, life-changing experience always has to be followed by a low?

Let me introduce post-trail depression. The time after a trail when the world feels overwhelming. You have changed and come out a different person, but the world is still the same, and you have to refind your way in it. That is where I am.

On the trail I had a why that felt so certain and concrete it drove me to embrace the challenges and uncertainty of chasing a record on the Appalachian Trail. It was a personal rewiring of my brain out there. The Fastest Known Time was my compass for nearly a year, guiding my efforts and choices and giving me the chance to test myself. But it was the simplicity of a monumental goal, of movement and primal decision-making, that kept me present.

On the AT, I was immersed in the emotional roller coaster of rewalking the trail that had saved my life. It was difficult, rewarding, and impactful. Every step jogged a new memory. This 2,200-mile trail is where I fled after quitting a career in 2014.

The Contrast Hits Hard

Coming home, the contrast hits like a wall. Out there, life was stripped down to what mattered: food, sleep, forward motion. Every mile had meaning. Every sunrise was a small victory. I loved the small moments, like when the birds started chirping in the morning. Back home, emails matter, gossip fills the air, and I am supposed to have a roadmap stretching deep into the future. It feels absurd to move forward when I do not even know where I stand in the present.

I felt extreme emotions on the trail, emotions I had locked away since childhood and deemed off-limits. Anger was scary, so I avoided it. But for forty-five days, I let myself feel everything in its rawest form. I could rewrite my internal code. Anger in adulthood is not dangerous, but it can be motivating and energizing. When my resupply box was not at Shenandoah National Park, it was anger that pushed me through thirty-two miles on a handful of peanuts. Out there, emotion was not something to control, it was something to use.

And it was not just anger. I felt pure joy cresting Franconia Ridge just as the sun was setting. It was the kind of joy and happiness that feels too loud and embarrassing to show in real life. It was the kind of happiness that would make me self-conscious if anyone saw it. But alone on the ridge, it was not embarrassing. It just felt really, really good. I could shout into the wind, laugh at nothing, and no one was there to quiet it down. That kind of unfiltered joy is rare in the real world. It is hard to recreate when the stakes are not as simple as getting to the top of the mountain.

After what felt like a masterclass in self-awareness, I came home and could not find that compass. The emotions were quiet and life was loud. Everything is fragmented, attention is scattered, and so are emotions. I did not need the world to care about what I had felt, but I also did not know I would feel so stuck in the past. It felt more real than the present.

Success and failure suddenly are not concrete or linear. Should I be angry at what is happening in the world, or sad to watch the last leaves fall from the trees? Proud to have the Appalachian Trail FKT, or afraid of talking about it too much to people who do not care?

Real life is full of questions and far fewer answers. It is like being paralyzed by choice and going through the motions while realizing that the new person I am is not better or worse in this world, just different and inexperienced.

Integration

I have spent about a thousand days thru hiking, roughly twenty percent of the last fourteen years. Some of those were FKTs, others were just me walking at my own pace. Every one of them changed me.

I have raced about three thousand miles in ultramarathons over the past five years. Every new style of race pulled me in, and each one changed me too.

These are a major chunk of the experiences that shape me, and right now they also feel like they distance me.

Each experience has layered something new on top of who I was before. Hiking taught me simplicity. Racing taught me precision. FKTs taught me grit. They all taught me presence. But when all that quiet and focus fade, I realize how much noise the world has built up in their place. It is not bad, it is just different. And it takes work to stay grounded and present in it. Emotions can feel silent in the deafening sounds of the world.

Trail running, FKTs, and hiking give instant feedback. If you do not eat, you bonk. If you stop, you get cold. If you resupply poorly, you go hungry. In real life, the feedback is delayed, messy, and often invisible. You can be kind but still be ignored or taken advantage of. You can work hard and not see progress. You can do everything right and still feel lost. That is what I am learning now: how to apply the patience of the trail to a life that does not have mile markers.

Maybe this is what integration really means. The goal is not to hold onto the trail version of myself forever. It is to let pieces of him show up. It is trusting that the person who thrived out there can still exist, and even grow, in the real world too. But that also takes trusting people, and maybe that is a whole different piece.

I still miss the simplicity, the rhythm, and the clarity. But the lows are not a punishment for the highs. They are a reminder that transformation always leaves you exposed for a while, until you figure out who you are on the other side and how you fit back into the social dynamics that our world is built on.

And that is where I am: location unknown.