Jennifer Pharr Davis and her husband Brew Davis

Take a moment to consider this accomplishment: in 2011, Jennifer Pharr Davis set the overall speed record on the Appalachian Trail by hiking its entire length of 2,181 miles -- from Katahdin, Maine to Springer Mountain, Georgia -- in 46 days. As the first woman to hold the record, she covered an average of 47 miles (nearly the length of two back-to-back marathons!) per day.

Along the way, she had support from her husband Brew Davis, and help from friends, legendary ultra-runners, and veterans of the Appalachian Trail. Since she first fell in love with the Trail during a solo thru-hike at the age of 21, she has traversed more than 11,000 miles on six continents on routes including the Pacific Crest Trail, Vermont's Long Trail, the Colorado Trail, Mount Kilimanjaro, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and the 600-mile Bibbulmun Track in Australia.

In her new book Called Again, a follow-up to her 2011 memoir Becoming Odyssa (a reference to her Trail nickname), she explores her record-setting journey in all of its grit and transcendence. If you’ve ever wondered about the Trail or considered hiking it, all of your questions should be answered in these 300 pages. As the owner and founder of the Asheville, North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Hiking Co. and the author of three hiking guidebooks, Jennifer Pharr Davis has the expertise and insight you’ll want to consult in advance of such a commitment.

Yesterday she joined us by phone from Cleveland, where she was speaking on a national book tour. Over the coming year, she plans to hike in all 48 states of the continental U.S. with her husband and their seven month-old baby Charlotte.

Biographile: The title of your book refers to your feeling of being called to hike the Appalachian Trail. Do you also feel a calling to write?

Jennifer Pharr Davis: I've always enjoyed writing. I didn't think I would do it professionally, but after my first hike on the Appalachian Trail, which was so unique and changed me in so many ways, I just felt compelled, like I have to write this down. At that point, it wasn’t necessarily to write a book, but it was in case my kids or grandkids ever wonder why their mom or grandma is the way she is. I need to be able to tell them, and writing is the way to do it. I journaled on my first hike of the trail, and it was just an artistic expression of what I was experiencing physically. It took about five years for my first book Becoming Odyssa to be published, and it was such a good experience. The lessons of the trail were so well received -- they’re so universal -- and feedback was so positive, that it led to other books like Called Again.

BIOG: How did you decide on Called Again’s mostly chronological structure?

JPD: Because of the nature of the record, having a chronological story made sense because there's suspense built in. You want to know the end result. But we also wanted to have flashbacks or memories where I could recall previous lessons and experiences. The first part of the book, which is really a bridge, is trying to take readers -- regardless of whether or not they’ve read Becoming Odyssa -- to the point of understanding why would someone ever want to try for a record on the Appalachian Trail. I understand it’s a valid question, and it can be hard to wrap your mind around it. But we needed to keep the beginning as short as possible, because the meat of the story is about the record.

BIOG: Did you know early on that the Mumford & Sons song ["The Cave"] that inspired the book’s title would figure so prominently in your book?

JPD: That came to us at the end. With all of my books, the title is the last thing we settle on. It’s hard writing a memoir, because sometimes you think, "I want to enhance this part to make it a better story, or I want to leave this out, because it seems really corny." But I believe in trying to tell a true story. One of the values of Called Again is that it’s a very authentic sports psychology story: What is someone thinking about when they’re doing something so difficult? Now I read that section, and I think, “That’s so corny, that song is so old now.” I still love it, obviously, and it was a big part of that summer. My connection to it made so much sense, but taking the title from it was never part of the plan.

BIOG: I’m surprised you didn’t listen to more music along the way. Was it a conscious choice not to?

JPD: I don’t like wearing earplugs on the trail because I want to be aware of my surroundings at all times, and I’ve learned that nature has its own music, its own soundtrack. So that’s what I’m tuned into. But I do like to sing out loud, and more than that, I like it when my husband sings out loud. He has a really good voice.

BIOG: He sounds like quite a catch. Remind me, how did you two meet?

JPD: I have two older brothers, and my husband knew both of them in college. I think the essence of the story is that Brew loved me so well on that record and served me so well and was so selfless. We have a wonderful marriage, but like any other couple we argue and disagree and have times that we don’t want to talk to each other. That's what made our experience during the record so unique: in order to accomplish something great, people need to work together. The way we worked together during that summer was so incredible. And that, to me, was the most amazing part of the record. It wasn’t the final mark or the numbers, but it was the way so many people, but especially my husband, put their own needs second and put me and the goal first and helped me the entire way.

BIOG: You don't go too deeply into family dynamics in Called Again, but I got the feeling that your motivation for hiking the trail was somehow related to your relationship with your mom. How did you decide how to handle that subject in the book?

JPD: That’s where the story is probably enhanced if people read Becoming Odyssa first or after reading Called Again, because a lot of the story lines are continuous from one book to the next. The emotional issues or family dynamics are as much a part of the trail as walking day to day. I’ve had so many people come up to me after reading the book and say, "My parents don’t want me to do the Trail, but reading your book helped them so much." I’ve been doing these long distance hikes for a decade now. From the beginning, my dad’s been very supportive, and my mom’s been hesitant and negative and worried, and that hasn’t changed that much, but we’ve learned to love each other despite the differences that we’ve had. One wonderful thing about writing a book is that it will take months if not years to go to press, and writing can be part of the processing of what happens. When you take the time to write it down and are writing about other people who are part of the story, I think you’re more inclined to see their perspectives and understand where they’re coming from. Writing has made me more compassionate for the characters that are also people in my life.

BIOG: It seems that you weren’t taking notes on the trip. Did Brew keep a journal of the record journey?

JPD: Yeah, he did make journal entries that we posted as a blog during the journey. He’s sort of become my living journal. Together we can recall almost everything that happened. Remembering was never a problem, not only because I had Brew helping me with the account, but the experience is so painful, and so trying, and every mile or hour is so hard that you remember it in vivid detail. You feel so alive or are struggling so much that it’s not hard to remember the difficulties that you faced or to highlight the kindnesses that you received because they stand out so much against the daily hardship.

BIOG: What lessons from the trail -- like persistence, consistency, and collaboration -- did you apply in writing Called Again?

JPD: I often say that hiking long distance trails and writing books are very similar because they’re long, arduous, and trying. You need a lot of help to do both, and usually the financial rewards aren’t that great, but they’re fulfilling and rewarding, so they’re very similar journeys. Writing my second book was a lot like going for the overall record, because I had experience and had written the other book, and it made it easier to ask for help and to trust other people. I feel like on the trail I had my crew, and writing my book, I had a team. My publisher Beaufort Books was a huge part of that. I had an incredible editor, Margot Atwell, who was the book version of Brew. On the trail, Brew made sure I was going in the right direction, giving me what I needed, but I still had to walk every step. Margot, in the same way, helped me to be a better writer and to tell a better story by showing me the path. A finished book would not be possible without an army of people, and the record was the exact same way.