Niagara Falls | Mile 0 | Strava
I stood in an amphitheater of mist in the predawn light, surrounded on all sides by stampeding currents that trampled each other and
roared like a dozen freight trains as they hurled indomitably into oblivion. I was summoned that morning to Goat Island, Niagara Falls,
by the simple idea of connecting two points on a map. It had occurred to me, after
running nearly 500 miles across Washington earlier that summer,
just how little I knew about my home state. I remembered every inch of my journey out west - each energy-sapping grain of sand,
wind-buffeted bridgeway, and cracked sidewalk would forever be linked as a single continuous flashback in my brain.
I wanted to weave my childhood home, which sat halfway between where I stood and the crowded shores of New York City, into a similar
geographic memory.
I departed from Terrapin Point, the rising sun my call to action. Crossing a torrent of rapids on the way to the mainland,
the boundless fury of the cascades below was tangible. It was more than a little terrifying, knowing that without the
slick bridge, I would be tossed into thin air like a feather in a hurricane. I took out my GoPro, but the power of the moment was
lost in 2D. I stored the camera away. It was time to make for the Erie Canal, where a lazier spur of the same waterway would take me home.
Lockport | Mile 23 | Strava
On my journey through Washington I had been almost entirely alone, sometimes running for days without passing another soul on the trail. Arriving in Lockport, I was surprised to find the Erie Canal Path congested with hundreds of cyclists in colorful livery, chatting affably and eating ice cream. All of them had just ridden the exact route that I planned to take east. It was a group ride for breast cancer awareness, and I joined the throng for a hearty dollop of cookie dough ice cream and a shady respite. My expectations for the journey were quickly shifting, and as the afternoon wore on I explored further up the path. The Empire State Trail - of which the Erie Canal Path consists approximately one third - has dozens of free walk-in campsites for cyclists, and my endpoint for the day was another 13 miles away in the small town of Middleport. After the extreme landscapes and nerve-wracking stealth camps I'd experienced in Washington, my picturesque evening by the canal felt like a genuine five-star vacation. I settled in and prepared for a comfortable week on the canal.
Brockport | Mile 68 | Strava #1 #2 #3
My first couple days on the Erie were defined by easy running, cute towns with identical green-yellow drawbridges, and pizza dinner by the waterside. I took my time, called grandparents from shady underpasses and farms, and listened to podcasts when monotony got the better of me. In the afternoons the shadeless summer sun slow-boiled the gravel path. Reading this omen of days to come, I left my camp at 3:30am on the third day. I had 52 miles to cover (many trailside sites were spaced according to cycling efforts) and I needed a headstart if I planned to avoid the ceaseless gaze of the great orb in the sky. In Rochester I connected with an old friend that I hadn't spoken to since high school - he had seen on Instagram that I was passing through, and we met up along the canal for a picnic brunch. Refreshingly, he had absolutely nothing to say about my run. I had been entirely self-absorbed since taking the train to Buffalo a few days ago, and found I really needed our conversation, which took place as if everything about our meeting was ordinary.
Rochester | Mile 88 | Strava #1 #2 #3
The sun soon reminded me of my place - all was not ordinary, and my veritable vacation on the canal path was about to come to an end. Leaving Rochester with 20 miles left in the day, I wilted under 90-something degree heat and direct exposure and found a dark copse in which to siesta. I figured perhaps, if I was bold, I could extend my 50-mile day into an 80-mile overnight run, cutting off some bends in the waterway and earning myself a full day of rest in the town of Weedsport. Then, I could continue my crepuscular trek to Albany, from which rain and cooler temps would shelter my journey south. As dusk set in, I diverted from the Erie Canal Path and directed the stroller up a winding farm road to my "shortcut." The scheme was short-lived. Already exhausted from my early start, with eyelids lulling I redirected back toward Newark lock (my original endpoint), and collapsed near midnight.
Montezuma | Mile 143 | Strava
The Newark lock porta-potty was the least hospitable traveling John I'd ever seen. It had all the dismaying properties one might expect
from a public toilet, plus a healthy dose of vandalism, a door that swung permanently open off its hinges, and a sizeable (very active)
wasp nest in the upper inside corner. I found a flat-ish stretch of damp grass as far from the blue box as possible, mummified myself in
a tent I was too tired to erect, and fell asleep to the sound of nearby traffic. Earlier, I had read online that the lock allowed camping.
However, upon arrival I found no suitable site and struggled to corroborate my lodging with official material. So, to be safe, and to
beat the afternoon swelter, I once again rolled up my bags and set off down the canal in darkness.
As a child, my elementary school teachers
had drilled into my brain a local folk tune about a mule named Sal towing a barge "15 miles on the Erie Canal." As the morning light bespelled
fog from the path, I was delighted to see a giant mural of Sal had been tiled onto an old underpass. My own mule, the jogging stroller my partner had
dubbed "Fancy Nancy," reached 500 total miles that day (combined distance from Washington and New York) as I ran crosslots toward Weedsport.
The route took me through a two mile stretch of open sky, where countless acres of partially reclaimed farmland-turned-floodplain painted a
scene more resemblant of Spirited Away than anything I'd seen in New York. A slowly disintegrating building, grown through with ivy,
marked the gateway to this other world. My easy, monotonous days on the canal path were long forgotten. I had found what I was looking for.
Green Lakes | Mile 191 | Strava #1 #2
The next morning I celebrated under gray skies. I'd rested most of the day at a campground in Weedsport, and the high humidity promised welcome
afternoon showers. A garden of trees and semiaquatic flora lined the canal path, and small waterfalls and historic foundations crisscrossed
the trail through the small town of Jordan. After chatting with some other trail users and stopping to admire a large snapping turtle,
I posted up on a park's picnic table to munch a morning apple and rest. A group of four older cyclists came up the trail behind me. Two of them
immediately hopped off their bikes and, quipping at each other's creaking backs, ran to a set of swings with the playful, infectious glee of
boys fifty years their younger. We exchanged nods and they rode past my stroller, disappearing down the trail.
A burst of delightful afternoon showers soaked me as I entered Syracuse,
lasting not nearly long enough to shelter me through the city. Rather uniquely, the path east ran for many miles down a highway median.
It was entirely exposed to the afternoon blaze. I once again boiled atop the thin asphalt furnace, and pushed Fancy Nancy up the hill to Green
Lakes State Park, utterly spent. That morning, I had checked to confirm that two sites were still available for walk-ins at the campground.
When I arrived late in the day, someone had already taken one of the spots, and I was lucky to get the final space. I set up my tent and walked over
to take a cold shower, confused by a group of guys at the neighboring site who appeared to be looking and talking about me. Catching me staring back,
they gave a wave, and I returned the gesture to be polite. I figured my tired brain was playing tricks on me. My tent was half sleeping
quarters, half greenhouse, but darkness came with great relief.
Utica | Mile 234 | Strava #1 #2 #3
I was now less than 150 miles from home, officially over halfway across the width of the state, and I had a plan. This plan, predictably,
involved waking up at 3:30am (again) and pounding out the miles before the sun rose. My progress was hampered by a flat tire, which I patched,
bleary-eyed, from a bathroom at the campground, before striking out for the Seneca Turnpike on Route 5. This was a detour from my initial route along the
canal, but I had identified the highway as a shortcut. It had good shoulder and, crucially, cut a straight line across the map to shave ten miles
off my journey.
With the heat wave in full swing, I was prepared to sacrifice views for speed. The morning flew by - twenty miles gone in a blink
of highway noise and uneven sidewalks - and I stocked up on seven pounds of ice for the second half of my sprint. I tied the sleeves of my spare
running shirt, filled it with frozen cubes, and wrapped it around my neck. I added a fistful to my hat for good measure, though my dense mat of hair insulated
me from most of its cooling effects and left me looking like an alien with a lumpen, cube-shaped cranium. It worked. I siestaed in an old library
in Utica, thrilled with my progress, and assessed the state of my legs. They were the splotchy red of sesame chicken from extended untreated heat rash.
The best-rated burger joint nearby was a hole in the wall called Rooster's, and a few hours later I trundled over, rationalizing that it was high time
I had a proper meal. The cook's boisterous laughter echoed through the tiny space as he engaged with regulars at the bar, flipping smash burgers
across the counter, and I felt like I was stepping into a home kitchen as I lifted the stoller up through the doorway. I appreciated the atmosphere
but was too tired to engage it properly, and relished my crumbling burger (in the moment it was the best thing I'd ever eaten) before stepping back
out into the evening light.
That evening I made a last-minute decision to push another ten miles to the marina in Frankfort, where travelers were allowed to camp by the water for free. It was well after dark when I arrived, already half asleep. To my surprise, there were four other campers making lighthearted banter in the pavillion, and to my even greater surprise, they recognized me. This was the same group of cyclists I'd seen at the swings nearly two days ago, and the very same who had camped adjacent to me in Green Lakes the night before (they'd grabbed the second-last walk-in site). In my exhausted state I had been too fatigue-addled to recognize them waving, but now at last we were able to meet properly. They had been perplexed to see me follow them into the campground yesterday at Green Lakes, and were incredulous when I rolled up to the marina at 10:30pm. I had kept pace with their 60-mile daily ride along the canal, on foot. I learned that they were old friends. One, Paul, was from New York City, but the rest were from states out west. They were also riding the Empire State Trail, and doing so as part of an annual get-together. My new friends kindly offered me lasagna, which I declined in favor of sleep, and I went to bed marveling at the coincidence of our parallel journeys.
Canajoharie | Mile 276 | Strava #1 #2 #3
The past two days had reaffirmed to me just how readily the body can surprise the brain. Crawling into Green Lakes, I'd felt like I could
hardly take another step. A few drowsy hours later, my limbs had churned out more than 50 miles in mid-90 degree heat and high humidity. It's
in these such seemingly impossible situations that my multi-week adventures repeatedly remold my concept of difficulty. Most limits, when tested,
pop like a balloon, leaving the world and its possibilities more expansive than before. Unfortunately, this time it was me who was popping
like a balloon. I bonked hard the day after my push to Utica, molested by my greatest enemy: mosquitoes. At some, I spouted creative insults
- I was particularly proud of "I'll clap you so hard they'll feel an earthquake in Cancun" - but most got a string of explicatives and flailing palms.
My stomach was a bottomless pit that dragged on
the trail like a stubborn mule. I didn't have enough food, and my thighs were marbled from heat rash. Concerned about me spending another day in the sun,
my gracious sister picked me up in Canajoharie and drove me home. I cooled off on my parents' couch the next day, banked a few out-of-order
strollerless miles, and spent a second day making progress toward the Hudson before heading back to complete the missing piece of the puzzle three days after I'd left. These disconnected
segments confused the mental space I'd been in all week, tossing my narrative adventure in the blender. Home-cooked meals and
the familiar mattress of my childhood bed made me half forget I was on a quest across New York.
Albany | Mile 329 | Strava
The day before backtracking to complete my unfinished segment near Canajoharie, I met up with a family friend and
some boys from the high school cross country team. It struck me just how long ago I had been in their shoes - five to six years
felt recent in my memory, but with my sun-weathered road-scruffed appearance and mind struggling to piece together what I was doing,
there equally felt like a lifetime between us. Commisserating over the negatively banked turns at Capitol Hills (Albany's cross country
course), we set off down the path. Despite my efforts to relate, or perhaps due to the width of the stroller, most of the boys tucked in behind like
ducklings as they escorted me toward the Hudson. Our short time together was the fastest five miles of my trip.
Upon reaching the river,
I found a twenty-foot chunk of the pedestrian walkway I'd planned to use had been replaced with thin air, and as it began to drizzle, I searched
for an alternative route. I opted for the suboptimal but self-descriptive River Street, which had more potholes (now puddles) than road
and no real shoulder. Much of my journey south along the Hudson would have been made more pleasant if I'd simply allowed extra mileage
to drag me westward into farmland and the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Alas, I was dead set on taking the fastest route possible,
and detoured along crumbling, guardrailed bitumen that straddled the industrial zones by the river.
Hudson | Mile 398 | Strava #1 #2
After linking up my discontinuous miles from Canajoharie, I left home feeling like a new person on the road to New York City. My partner Rachel joined me via Subaru Outback on the road to New Baltimore, and after a day of running hilly farm roads (plus one last shuttle home for dinner, courtesy of my grandparents), I finally regained a contiguous journey south. It was fun to once again be in uncharted territory, running past historic coke ovens and exploring sky-spanning trestles that I never knew existed in my home state. I was feeling strong after a few days of easier running, ample rest, and fulfilling meals. Better yet, the heat wave had passed during my time in Albany. The week ahead would be filled with shaded trails, comfortable temperatures, and the occasional warm summer drizzle. I also got to share it with friends. As with my run across Washington, my family wasn't quite sure what to make of my current escapade, though they no longer worried as much for my safety. My friends were more enthusiastic, and I was looking forward to sharing some miles with them on foot. Rachel joined me at the end of the day for the Walkway Over the Hudson, and we sped across its mile-long skyward arch to the end of the rainbow in Poughkeepsie.
Breakneck Ridge | Mile 443 | Strava
We spent the evening at the home of my friend Remy, and in the morning he joined the run for his first ever half marathon. Coincidentally,
the 13.1 mile mark placed us at the stone-flanked entrance of a secluded museum called the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors - this, with its
runic inscriptions and cryptic moniker, we could only assume was some kind of cult. Actually, Remy and I ran more than 15 miles together, and Remy
kept up the distance (or hid his discomfort) admirably. We met with Rachel to load the stroller into the back of her Subaru, and she took
Remy's place as we jogged through the woods toward Beacon Mountain. At first I missed the stroller, since the pack bounced around my
chest with every step, but as Rachel departed and I hit the mountains I was immediately thankful for the freedom it gave me.
Reaching the summit, a cacaphony
of coyote calls rose from the ridgeline and echoed raucously off the heavy clouds above. I ran on. The rain passed just in time for me
to scramble up Breakneck Ridge safely, and I changed out of my wet socks while beholding a dramatic view of the Hudson below.
(The trick, I have found, is to carry two
extra pairs of dry socks, so the first dry pair can soak up remaining moisture in the shoes.) I descended into a confounding network of forested, mostly private dirt
roads - not at all what I had expected from the border of Westchester County - and met my friend Kaitlyn for the day's final six miles along
the Appalachian Trail. This took much longer than expected, as I had forgotten what it was like to run over dense terrain, and I would have been
an exhausted grump by the end if not for Kaitlyn's excellent company and our sense of shared adventure.
Peekskill | Mile 463 | Strava
It was dark and rainy the next morning when my Uber dropped me off at our pre-arranged roadside coordinates. I hadn't wanted to leave
Kaitlyn's living room, the hammering rain audible from the pull-out couch, but I dragged myself out into the night as the rest of the house
slept. I wondered what my quiet driver thought of this strange 4:30am rendezvous as I stepped out into the dense night and watched his
taillights pull away. Unable to check my phone in the black rain, I immediately took a wrong turn, and stumbled out in front of a mountaintop Friar's church
that looked like it had apparated directly from Medieval Europe. It bore quite the atmosphere, illuminated by yellow lantern light within
the drizzle and dark shapes of trees, but I tore myself away. My schedule this morning was tight for the first time on my trip, as I had six
miles to go to meet some friendly folks from the Peekskill Brewery Run Club at the edge of their local trail system.
I arrived in Peekskill after 6am, a little delayed
by my wrong turn, to a dozen jolly trail runners thrilled at my appearance. I was amazed and delighted at their enthusiasm to be a part of
my otherwise personal journey, and we took a photo with their banner before careening off into the woods together. It was a colorful, energetic few miles,
and a sharp contrast to the lonely Gothic scene I had inhabited just hours ago. Most members of the club soon left for work. However, two - Ed and Francesca
- stuck with me, and together we embarked on a scavenger hunt to navigate the overgrown singletrack and broken bridges of the Briarcliff-Peekskill Trail.
I didn't look at my map once, relying on the lead of my intrepid guides. Francesca ended up joining me for almost twenty miles, and with our
conversation the distance vanished into morning air. Rachel and I checked in early to another friend's house, and it struck me that in less than 24
hours my adventure would be over, my feet on the salty planks of the Coney Island Pier. It felt a million miles away.
Bronx | Mile 500 | Strava
There are over eight million people who live in New York City. As I ran down the paved bike path toward Yonkers, one of the first bikers I passed in the morning light swung his handlebars around to pull up beside me. It was Paul, one of the swinging cyclists I had inadvertently shadowed along the Erie Canal eleven days earlier. His buddies had finished their ride and flown home a week ago, but here he was, on a chance morning ride up from Brooklyn on the last day of my journey. We took a photo for his friends, and I figured I'd see him again soon. The path became crowded as I crossed into the Bronx, and for the first time since I'd started my run across the state, a pain in my legs forced me to stop running and amble along. I was sure it would abate, but frustrated to be plagued by even a temporary injury on my final day. Paul, who passed me in Van Cortlandt Park on his way home, seemed relieved that I was taking a break to walk.
Coney Island | Mile 524 | Strava
Soon enough I was running again, and as I passed Central Park, the full
chaos of Manhattan broke free as if from Pandora's Box. As a New Yorker, I consider J-walking a part of my DNA, and I wove through the
pandemonium with barely a falter between Midtown and the Brooklyn Bridge. There, Rachel met me for the last half marathon, and we charged
down the promenade toward Prospect Park. The final seven miles were mental agony. I was close, I could taste it, and I desperately wanted
to be on that pier. Rachel shouldered the pack for the last leg, remarking at its discomfort, which I had long ceased to register.
After what felt like an eternity of running along an empty, trash-lined avenue, the roller coasters of Coney Island appeared on the horizon at last. I dodged pedestrians, purse dogs, and
speaker-blaring partygoers in one final acceleration to the ocean. Rachel kept pace all the way to the pier. Standing on the railing
by the tossing waves, I was fulfilled. Some of the waves at my back had made the same journey as I - across the Erie Canal and down the Hudson, from the powerful
cliffs of Niagara a universe away.
I can't help but feel connected the path I just traced, as if invisible footprints remain smeared across the landscape
like butter over a 500-mile long slice of bread. In my mind's eye, I can
now walk out the front door of my parents' house all the way to Coney Island Beach, or to the roaring Niagara and cliffs of Canada.
Old friends and strangers exist along that path via experiences shared in movement. In Brooklyn, a plaid-shirted cyclist
named Paul rides north into the suburbs. West of Syracuse, a camo-clad man on his way to the gun range excitedly points out a snapping
turtle by a guardrail. To me, they are now just as essential to the fabric of New York as the bike path by my parents' house.
If I return to the Erie Canal, might I see a ghost of myself shuffling along the gravel ribbon by Green Lakes? How many other ghosts walk that
same path? I wonder if our overlapping footprints make us connected. In some way, I feel that they do.
