Will I love To the Gorge?

I loved To The Gorge for a lot of reasons, one of which was that Emily’s story resonated deeply with me for personal reasons.

I too lost my mother to cancer, and I too grieved on trail. But in as many ways as I felt our stories to be parallel, they were also disparate. Running was something she and her mother had had in common, and she went out to set this record in her mother’s honor, which I just thought was so beautiful and powerful.

I loved the way she told the story, which carried her mom’s memory so… show more.

Having set numerous Fastest Known Times myself (including on the Pacific Crest Trail) Emily's story of setting the FKT on the Oregon section of the PCT was at once a return to something familiar, but also an entirely different journey.

She was heavily supported (I was not), and the way her community flowed through her experience was beautiful and touching. Having also lost a parent, as well as someone I love, to cancer, the backstory of losing her mother to cancer, which was interwoven through her run, resonated deeply. I cried more than once reading this book.