Jennifer Pharr Davis who set the record for fastest know time for a supported hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2011 has probably set another record- authoring the longest known essay about the same trail ever to be published in the New York Times. This essay consumes an entire page and a half, including pictures and will complement the long distance hiker and author’s previous record for her supported hike of the Appalachian Trail in 46 days, a record just broken by ultra-marathon runner and author Scott Jurek.

Pharr Davis, a serious long distance hiker but with minimal ultra marathon running experience, hiked the 2,100 mile AT in 46 days with the aid of a crew to provide her with food and a chair or van to get some rest at road

crossings along the way. Jurek, a 7 time in-a-row winner of the 100 mile Western States Endurance Run trail race which takes place each year in the mountains of northern California and a celebrated ultra marathoner, broke Pharr Davis’s record this past summer, but only by three hours, which is a surprisingly narrow margin over more than 46 plus days.

In a long piece supra titled ‘essay’ and titled ‘Gender Gap Narrows as

Miles Add Up’ which appeared in the sports section of the Times on November 4, 2015, Pharr Davis discusses the trail and the records for fastest known time on it. But her real subject is exploring the role of gender in feats of endurance. She recalls the incredulity she received after posting her AT record as she received suggestions that “she must be an exceptional woman-or, an androgynous one-to hike the trail so quickly”, comments, that she writes, caused her ” to doubt my own accomplishment. I wondered, what was different or wrong with me?”.

Pharr Davis recounts the successes and failures of other long distance hiking and ultra running superstars, such as Karl Meltzer and Heather Anderson, the latter of whom recently set a fastest known time for an unsupported hike of the AT, another record for a female. The author goes on to interview exercise physiologists and other experts, even Scott Jurek himself, who offer thoughts about the advantages or disadvantages of either sex when it comes to completing long distance endurance activities, debating the value of men’s strength and muscle build versus women’s lighter weight skeletal frames and increased levels of estrogen.

For herself, Pharr Davis surmises that “maybe women have a genetic and evolutionary advantage when it comes to enduring physical pain and stress”. Frankly, anyone who can go fast over 100 miles and especially 2,100 miles gets my attention and respect, and, this may indeed be one area where guts and grit make the difference more than an X or Y chromosome.