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To the Faraway, Nearby
August 19th, 2020 – Middle Carter Mountain, NH – Day 44 on Appalachian Trail The AT has been on my mind a lot lately, stemmed by a talk I just gave to Pine Cobble School about my hike. I spent some time digging through all of my photos and picking out what I thought would interest them the […]
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Someone in the Crowd: Boston Marathon ’22 Race Report
I don’t know if there are two more opposite endurance events than hiking solo for seven days and nights in the woods, to tearing down a paved course from Hopkinton to Boston for a few concentrated hours, elbow-to-elbow in a sea of runners. I never heard the starting gun since we were so far back, but […]
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Back to Before (Boston Marathon Preview)
Last Sunday, after crossing the finish line at the local Bridge to Brews 10K, I joined a throng of runners at the post-race party on the grassy waterfront park in downtown Portland. An energetic cover band was blasting some tunes, and my friends and I celebrated our completed races with commemorative plastic cups filled with beer […]
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Talladega Nights: My Thru-Hike of the Pinhoti Trail
It’s been nearly a week since completing the Pinhoti Trail, but I feel as though the journey hasn’t stopped! After a half day of rest at the Pinhoti Outdoor Center, I hopped on a flight back to Portland and dove right back into work the next morning (I’ve been helping out as a teacher aid in an […]
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Spring Breaker: Hiking the Pinhoti Trail
[Originally published Sunday, March 13th, 2022 via my newsletter] In less than a week, I’ll hop on a flight to Atlanta and embark on a new kind of journey, the kind I’ve dreamed about for some time but haven’t quite taken the leap to do. I’ve always wondered what I could do on a long […]
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Protected: The Complicated Pursuit of Happiness
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Who is Mercury?
Liz Derstine, trail name “Mercury”, is a distance runner, endurance hiker, writer, and musician residing in Boston, MA. She holds fastest known times for women on the Appalachian Trail (supported, northbound), Long Trail (self-supported), and Pinhoti Trail (self-supported).
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Mercury on the Run 