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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie De La Garza Lillian Costello, 16, of Milo rests after walking 50 miles in less than a day from Houlton to the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone. Pictured next to Costello is fellow MSSM student Michael Nichols. |
By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — To understand what Larry Berz, Lillian Costello and Dr. Narayana Prasanna went through on Aug. 31, it would take more than walking a mile in their shoes. Try 50 miles.
Through sunrise and sunset, fair and foul weather, the group trekked from Littleton to the Maine School of Science and Mathematics campus in Limestone on the last Saturday of August, making the trip in just over 18 hours.
Led by Berz, who started preparations in March to answer a call made by President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago for renewed vigor and physical fitness of the nation, the group departed southern Aroostook at 4 a.m. They were five at the start: Berz, an astronomy instructor at MSSM; MSSM junior Costello from Milo; MSSM junior Grier Ostermann of Topsham; Dr. Arthur Selander of Caribou and Dr. Prasanna of Presque Isle.
Fifty miles later, an exhausted Berz, Costello and Prasanna hobbled into the Limestone school yard, greeted by over 100 elated students cheering, singing, and forming a two-by-two raised-arm tunnel for the journey’s victors to walk through.
His voice breaking at points, Berz addressed the crowd that gathered outside the dormitory on the night of Aug. 31.
“We chose 50 miles just as we chose to go to the moon, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard. Because that goal was served to organize the best of our energies and skills, giving the effort a high personal and collective priority because, in a sense, all of us walked those 50 together, and the strength of your cheers and the resounding … just joy … of your response and reaction to our return, it will stay with me all my life.”
“We love you Larry!” a student cried out, starting a chorus of enthusiastic hoops, hollers and applause from the students. “You’re the best astronomy teacher in the world!” another yelled.
Berz, Costello and others participated in other preparatory hikes, but the two had most recently completed a preparatory 40-mile hike on July 27. They covered the 40 miles in only 16 hours that day, and were in pretty good spirits for the future 50-mile endeavor.
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| Contributed photo by Luke Shorty Lil Costello, Larry Berz and Grier Ostermann prepare to set out from the Littleton Baptist Church on the pre-dawn morning of Aug. 31 with the destination of their MSSM campus 50 miles away, in Limestone. |
“My basic thought going into it was that it would be relatively easy — I knew how long it was going to take, I knew the route, and the last 20-15 miles I knew very well,” Berz described a few days after the adventure. “I was expecting it to be very straight-forward routine, which I would approach with my usual gusto and high spirits … and it was not that way at all,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean I’m negative or critical, it was very different and in some ways, infinitely more important,” Berz clarified. “I learned more about myself mentally, physically, spiritually, than I think I ever could have if it had been a straight forward hike — like the 40-mile hike.”
As Costello confirmed, the last 10 miles turned out to be incredibly draining, psychologically. It had started to rain and exhausted, the remaining 50-mile walk participants had slightly scattered during their collective march.
“It was just so crazy, so dark, and I just knew that I had to keep walking and eventually, I would get somewhere,” Costello recalled.
But that last mile, as she approached the school and started seeing familiar faces that had came out to greet them, she was filled with energy.
“I felt like Mr. Berz normally does — I was so full of energy and just ready to finish, and really happy,” she said. “I felt like I could have walked another 50 miles — but not really,” Costello joked.
While Costello found a surge of energy waiting for her in the last mile, Berz did not.
He credits Linda Torruellas, a walker who’d joined the trek at mile 35 along with MSSM history teacher Daniel Melega and student William Popov of Stratton, with rescuing him during those last 10 miles.
“It had reached a point where what was sustaining me wasn’t my own leg power, it literally was song,” Berz described. Walking together, the two were singing “Doe a Deer” from The Sound of Music, Christmas carols — whatever songs they thought up.
“There were times in those last few miles I didn’t see it ending, like a mathematical hyperbolic curve, it was just going out toward an isentropic infinity,” Berz said. “For the first time in the whole hike, I felt discouraged.”
While Berz and Costello had the magnitude of 50 miles weighing over their last 10 miles, Dr. Prasanna did not.
When he joined the group that morning, he had only intended of walking to Mars Hill.
“The maximum distance I’d walked before was only 16 miles, and I was not sure whether I would finish at all,” the doctor said, explaining that he figured if he walked from Littleton to Mars Hill, then he’d be ahead of the game.
“Then when I got to Fort Fairfield I was ok, so I said ‘lets go to Limestone now,’” he said. Prasanna has hiked in the Himalayas and hopes do so again in the future, and the walk was an excellent opportunity to build endurance.
“I was happy I was able to do it,” he said, adding that he’d do it again.
Ostermann, the MSSM junior from Topsham, made it 40 miles into the journey before bowing out — a move that both Costello and Berz expressed was a smart decision.
While the two were treading lightly for a couple of days following the adventure, Ostermann was walking around and standing for long periods of time without difficulty — attending soccer practice days later.
Ostermann had done some hiking to prepare for the 50-mile trek and had participated in 10 miles out of the 20-mile hike Berz led in May, but the psychological factor that comes with 50-miles was something he wasn’t prepared for.
“I didn’t have any mental training, but I wish I did because I felt very physically able to do it, but mental I just wasn’t there,” he said, mentioning concerns about the possibility of a false-step if he wasn’t thinking straight.
Though completing a 40-mile hike is a tremendous accomplishment in itself, Ostermann is quick to admit that he has his eyes on that 50-mile distinction.
“I’m thinking maybe next summer, if not sooner … but winter is fast approaching,” he said.
Costello isn’t sure if she’ll attempt something like this again, but admitted with a grin that she doesn’t know what the future has in store.
I think now that I’ve done it, I can say I’ve done it and that’s good enough for me … but maybe,” she said.
For Berz, the inspiration and the glue for a trek that won’t be soon forgotten, he’s started a club at the school called The Dream Society that will possibly aim to answer the challenge give by President Kennedy 50 years ago, or maybe just dare to view the world a little differently.
“There are lots of things in life, in this life, in this century that are really weird and unknown and futuristic and fantastic — we just walked. We didn’t need a special tool, or machine, or semiconductor or a smart phone … we were just walking. I thought that was the important lesson,” Berz said, “you learn we’re really important: just us. You and your body, you and your mind, you and your heart — those are the real issues here of life, they’re real life issues.
“That was the great bonus I thought of it all, it was a real confrontation with what living is all about,” Berz added.
Whatever the reason — personal, national, spiritual — the 50-mile walk has served as inspiration for the area, to the extent that another walk is schedule for Thursday, Oct. 3 from Caribou to Fort Kent called the Harvest Walk.
For those looking to participate in the northward adventure, a seasoned walker has this advice to offer:
“It’s the mind over the body, perseverance, and nothing comes free,” Dr. Prasanna said. “No pain, no gain.”
