Ultra-journey runner Ed Wickersham is training to trek the entire East Coast
By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer
As the celebrated essayist and transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote regarding life, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”
Sixty-two-year-old Ed Wickersham, a retired union pipefitter from the southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia, has taken Emerson’s credo to heart in his recent years. Wickersham is an ultra-runner — someone who often traverses distances of 50 to 100 miles and more at a clip. But Wickersham is not a competitive ultra-marathoner. Instead, he’s part of a small niche of runners nationwide who practice what is called ultra-journey running, which entails running a long distance over a specific part of a state or region of the country over a period of days or weeks. You could consider Wickersham a tourist afoot — one who sightsees in perpetual motion, clothed only in running gear, with a small backpack full of water, sports drinks, and candy bars his only luggage.
Ed Wickersham’s latest ultra-running adventure is taking him the length of Route 5 in Vermont — from the Canadian border in Derby Line in the north to Guilford on the Massachusetts border in the south. The Standard caught up with him as he car-camped last Friday evening in Bradford, prepared to wake up early Saturday morning and amble another 20-plus miles to East Thetford, where he would take Sunday off to relax before running to Hartford on Monday and Ascutney on Tuesday.
The Standard connected with the ultra-journey runner again as Wickersham ran through Hartland and Windsor on Tuesday’s 25-mile leg of his second north-to-south run through Vermont since the first of the year. In January, the long-distance runner traversed the entire length of Route 7 from Highgate to Pownal, a trek of 176 miles. His current Route 5 sojourn, which began on Friday, Feb. 16, at the international line, will cover 192 miles before wrapping up at the border with the Bay State this Saturday.
Wickersham’s first ultra-journey took place in his native New Jersey in September of 2021, when he ran on the beaches and shoreline roads along the Garden State coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May, a junket of 125 miles, which he covered in four days. Why, Wickersham was asked, would he choose to follow that running excursion up with runs from the north to south in Vermont in consecutive months in the middle of winter?
Ed finishes Tuesday route Wickersham finished his sunny-day run of almost 27 miles Tuesday afternoon at the intersection of Thrasher Road and Route 5 in Ascutney. Kathryn Whalen Photo
His answer was straightforward. “In 1984, I saw in a magazine that there was going to be a foot race up the Mount Equinox toll road. I came up here from Jersey and did that,” Wickersham said as he enjoyed a light meal in his car at a Bradford campsite last Friday. “So I’ve been visiting Vermont for 40 years now. I’d actually love to move here and live in this state,” he says, stating unequivocally that he had no issues with running across the state despite the colder climes. The Equinox run was one of many distance races that Wickersham ran as a 23-year-old back in 1984, including what was then an annual ultra-marathon that covered 62 miles from Philadelphia to Atlantic City. But it was to be nearly four decades before the avid runner took to the roads with a vengeance once again.
“That run to Atlantic City was my first ultra-run ever. Then I met a woman and married her and we had eight children,” Wickersham reflected. “I could not run the way I wanted to run for 36 years and more. But once my kids got older, I got back into it and that’s what brought me to this ultra-journey running.” Next on Wickersham’s agenda? Another trip by fleet foot through Vermont, covering the fabled, scenic Route 100 for 216 miles from Newport to Stamford.
Wickersham contends that his Green Mountain State adventures are preparing him for what he hopes will be a far more epic ultra-journey. Although he hasn’t set a timeline for it yet, Wickersham hopes to run the length of the eastern United States. “I have a plan set,” he said nonchalantly. “This is all just training for me to run from Maine to Key West — the whole East Coast.”
The ultra-journey runner pulls off his long-distance jaunts with very little day-to-day assistance from any kind of support crew. On his inaugural Jersey Shore run, he relied on bed-and-breakfasts, motels, and Uber drivers to take him to and from his starting points each day and he laundered his running gear nightly at each stop. For his present-day Vermont treks, Wickersham is relying on volunteer drivers to take him back and forth to his car each day or to deliver his car to the next stop along his run each night. Thanks to that support, Wickersham is presently car-camping his way through the state, after running an average of 25 miles each day. Several of his volunteer supporters are from the Upper Valley, including, he noted, a couple from Springfield who are chauffeuring the runner/tourist at least five times during his current trip. “It’s amazing how nice they’ve been,” Wickersham enthused. “I’m guessing they are going to cover something like 800 miles over the course of these two weeks,” he added appreciatively.
Asked about those he meets along life’s path while he’s ultra-touring and how people respond to him, Wickersham was both modest and succinct. “I hate to talk about myself and my running because it sounds like I am boasting,” he explained. “I can do it — and if you want to do it, you’ve got to train and then you can do it, too. That’s all there is to it. But I wouldn’t recommend anyone else doing it.
“Maybe I have a few screws loose,” Wickersham quipped in conclusion, “but I’m just doing these smaller runs in Vermont to prepare for that run down the entire East Coast.”