An ultramarathoner recently passed through Franklin while attempting an incredible feat.
For the past five years Abigail West has traversed the Smoky Mountains, taking part in the region’s longest and most strenuous trail races. Recently West undertook a mammoth task: running all 112 miles of the Bartram Trail, which passes through downtown Franklin.
“I ran my first 50K [50-kilometer race] in January 2020. I had been training with a bunch of road-runner friends and doing half-marathon kind of stuff.” said West recently from her home near Athens, Georgia. “Around the time when I finished school I was introduced to trail-running by friends and by [West’s husband] Michael, whom I was dating at the time. I just was curious about what would happen if I ran an ultra.”
Since graduating from college in 2019, West has taken part in longer and longer trail races, eventually building her way up to the 58-mile Cruel Jewel race through North Georgia this May. Recently West attempted to break the fastest known time from Cheoah Bald near Nantahala to the Georgia-South Carolina border.
“The Bartram Trail is kind of where I was first introduced to trail running through the Rabun Half [Marathon], which is a race in North Georgia that runs partially on the Georgia section,” said West. “I met Brent [Martin, director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy] and his crew at the Bartram Trail conference last August, which was here in Athens ... I met them and they had their maps laid out, and it’s kind of the next step for a lot of ultra-runners to want to run 100 miles, and I hadn’t had that desire yet. Then I met Brent, and I was like, ‘Why not try to run the whole Bartram Trail?’”
Upon meeting Martin and other members of the BRBTC, West became fascinated with the idea of running the trail’s 112 miles in one fell swoop. With the help of her friend and fellow artist, Emily Cameron, West became the subject of an intriguing documentary film project.
“Emily is my best friend, and we wanted to do a bigger film project together,” said West. “I met Chris [Greer, co-host of the nature show View Finders on Georgia Public Broadcasting] shortly after I had this Bartram Trail idea, and so it all kind of came together like, ‘OK, let’s tell a story around this trail, and then I’ll also attempt to run the whole thing.’”
From there, West began a rigorous training regimen, running the trail in 10-to-20-mile sections across several weeks. With a View Finders camera crew including Greer and Cameron in tow however, West attempted the trail on one of the hottest days of the year.
“The heat was a factor for sure early on, but I managed it pretty well until later in the day,” she said. “Actually, where the heat surprisingly started to really get me was as the sun was going down, and then in the nighttime ... partially because I’d been in the heat all day, but also because the forest retains so much humidity at night, and so much of the heat that had been soaking in all day. ... I ended up stopping at mile 80 at sunrise.”
While West would have preferred to attempt the run much earlier in the year, scheduling conflicts with the View Finders camera crew forced her to run in midsummer, which coincided with a historic heatwave across WNC. While she was forced to stop after 22 hours having initially been on pace to break the trail’s fastest known time for women of 31:55, she said the attempt was not in vain.
“More so than any other race I’ve ever done, this was not about being competitive – it was about having this experience in connecting [with] this trail and following the rough path that William Bartram followed 250 years ago,” said West. “I was like, ‘I think I’ve done that,’ and I didn’t want to grind it out and risk any health complications. But, I think I surprised myself.”
Greer and Cameron are currently in the process of editing/raising funds to turn their footage of West’s run into a documentary film. The group hopes to premiere the film, sponsored by Outdoor 76 and the BRBTC, at Outdoor 76 this fall.