BRATTLEBORO — Most people would be satisfied just to walk all 273 miles of Vermont's Long Trail, the nation's oldest hiking path. So why did Nikki Kimball want to run it? In record time? With a film crew following her?
“There's something really spiritual about it with its highs and lows,” the 44-year-old nationally ranked ultramarathoner recently told ESPN of her sport. “For me, there's no better metaphor for life.”
Kimball's journey through tough terrain literal and figurative is the subject of a new documentary, Finding Traction, now on the independent film festival circuit and set to tour the state to benefit the Brattleboro-based Girls on the Run Vermont after-school empowerment program.
Raised in the Rutland County town of Chittenden, Kimball was born pigeon-toed and wore casts and braces as a child to correct her walk. Hoping cross-country skiing would help train her legs to stay parallel, she became a successful high school and college athlete. Adding a rifle to her gear, she finished an encouraging 13th in the U.S. Winter Olympic biathlon trials in 1994.
Then, inexplicably, Kimball began sleeping 18 hours a day. Lacking energy and barely able to eat, she lost nearly 30 pounds. Feeling hopeless, she cried hour upon hour.
“That's a really tough part of my life,” she recalls, “to live through not wanting to live.”
Realizing she was suffering from genetically predisposed depression, Kimball turned to running. She had no road map for what the exercise would lead to, just an understanding that focusing her body and mind helped her physically and psychologically.
By 1999, Kimball ran her first long-distance race, the Vermont 50 (as in miles across the ski slopes and ATV trails of Mount Ascutney), and set a course record. Competing around the world in sneakers, skis, and snowshoes, she went on to win multiple endurance races and sponsorships from such brands as Nike, The North Face, and Hoka One One.
Kimball then set her sights on her childhood backyard. Built a century ago, the Long Trail follows the main ridge of the Green Mountains from the Massachusetts-Vermont line to the Canadian border. Known by the nickname “footpath in the wilderness,” the track of rugged peaks - topped by Mount Mansfield, the state's highest - and ragged valleys is anything but a walk in the park.
Log onto the website of its steward, www.greenmountainclub.org, and you'll learn that the average hiker needs 26 to 30 days to travel all 273 miles. Kimball decided she wanted to join the list of more than 3,000 people who have recorded and received “end-to-end” certification. But rather than walk, she wanted to run the distance of 10 consecutive marathons in a record-breaking 4½ days.
Initially thwarted by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, Kimball finally set out in 2012 with Emmy Award-winning producer and director Jaime Jacobsen.
“We put these limits on what a human body could or should do,” the ultramarathoner says to start their resulting hour-long documentary. “I've been dreaming about running the Long Trail since I was a kid.”
Now a physical therapist in Bozeman, Mont., Kimball says the film is less about whether she achieves a specific goal (spoiler alert: she missed breaking the men's record but set a new women's milestone by finishing in 5 days, 7 hours and 42 minutes) and more about the personal challenges that motivate her.
The documentary is set to play this week as a benefit for Girls on the Run Vermont on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. at Brattleboro's 118 Elliot downtown arts space and continuing Friday, Oct. 2, at 7 p.m. at Rutland's Paramount Theatre and Saturday, Oct. 3, at 4 p.m. at Williston Central School. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for students and can be purchased at the door or at girlsontherunvermont.org.
“Nikki's character and strength in setting goals and chasing her dreams embodies the positive spirit we teach young girls,” says Nancy Heydinger, executive director of Girls on the Run Vermont. “She is an amazing role model.”
Kimball, for her part, says she isn't finished yet.
“I do not know where the cap of my potential lies,” she says to end the film, “so I just keep running.”