For most of us, driving across Massachusetts is a two-hour trip on the MassPike or maybe a little longer on Route 2. But for our guest, it was a nine-day adventure spanning 160 miles… on foot. The journey was documented from route planning to surviving blisters and endless country roads. Joining us is the walker, author and Great Barrington resident Russell Samora, to share what he learned on the 368,000 steps it took to cross Massachusetts.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: You write that the idea for the walk was born out of compromise, and that when people asked why you were doing it, you'd joke ‘just for the heck of it!’ Can you describe what the real, deeper reasons were for embarking on this kind of adventure?
Russell Samora, author: Yeah, there were so many reasons. So, I ruptured my achilles in January, and I was couch bound for most of the winter. I was reading lots of books specifically about walking, and it just kind of planted the idea in my head to do something more adventurous than I typically would in my day-to-day life,
And that's where I came up with this idea to do something that was a little bit more adventurous than my ordinary routine. So, at the time, I was not walking at all, and through the course of my rehab, I went from just being able to take a few steps and then a few months later to be able to do, you know, like a mile or two, maybe in a day.
And, I don't know… I wanted to kind of push my progress as I was relearning to walk. So, I think honestly, just talking with people and saying it and I was like, ‘Oh, I kind of have to do it now’ because I've told some people! [Laughing] So, I feel like walking across the state seemed like a nice compartmentalized goal.
I'm thinking about unique moments of connection on this trek. You had a few companions on the early days of the walk, and then, at what, eight days in, you had your first roadside interaction with a stranger. Was there one specific human interaction or some unexpected moment of hospitality that resonated with you and changed your perspective during this journey?
I don't know if there was any perspective changing. I mean, I think most of my actual interactions came when I was at the end of the day, and had finished my walk and was out in the community having a meal or something.
So, I met someone else named Russell, and we bonded over some wings and beer at the bar. He was really nice. Just chatting about my walk [it seemed that] everyone asked different questions, which is the most fun part for me. I don't like to just proactively talk about it. I really like to see what other people are interested in and everyone has different interests or questions about what I was doing, some more about the physical side, some more about the people I talked to, etc. so that was kind of the most interesting thing for me.
Finally, you had mapped this out and planned it to take nine days, but then you had a surge of adrenaline kick in on day eight, and you just decided to push the extra 14 miles to finish the whole 160 miles in one go. So, you did what, 33.5 miles on the final day? So, what was it like crossing into Great Barrington on your final night?
It was lovely. I mean it was like one of those homecoming moments. I was like, ‘Oh, I'm back in this, you know, my comfortable environment that I'm familiar with’ I feel like that might have been my biggest realization at the end of the trip that I really could push myself physically a lot further than I thought I could, so it was one of those things just kind of see what you're made of.
And it was just really nice to know that I had something like that in me, which I guess I didn't believe in myself enough from that standpoint.
So now that you know what you're made of, are you going to do this again? What's next?
I don't think I'm going to do something like this specifically. Again, I say I filled my cup for my walking adventures. I would definitely do something that was more leisurely, or maybe with some friends or family. I think that would be a fun way to go on a walking journey, but probably less likely to chart my own adventure again. It was a lot of work trying to figure out, you know, where I could go in a somewhat safe manner because as we know, roads aren't built for pedestrians nowadays.
Author Russell Samora wrote "Walkachusetts" It was published at the digital publication The Pudding.
