In 2024, while walking the Camino de Santiago, I stumbled across Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside by U.S. Senator Tim Kaine — recommended by Audible as I walked. The book lays out the Virginia Nature Triathlon — Kaine’s self-made challenge that ties together the Appalachian Trail, the James River, and Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

What caught me wasn’t just the idea — it was the familiarity. I already knew those places. I’d walked Virginia’s portion of the Appalachian Trail three times. I’d paddled long stretches of the James River. The Parkway from Wintergreen to the Peaks of Otter was a familiar stretch of road.

The idea stuck with me.

So I’m going to try to do it all in one continuous push.

Next month, I’ll set out to complete the Virginia Nature Triathlon end to end. The full route of 1,228 miles includes:

• 559 miles hiking the Appalachian Trail across Virginia, from the Tennessee border near Damascus to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
• 321 miles cycling Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Front Royal to the North Carolina border near Galax.
• 348 miles paddling the James River, from its headwaters at Iron Gate to Fort Monroe on the Chesapeake Bay.

Kaine spread his effort across several years. I’m aiming for something tighter — roughly 75 days, depending on weather, logistics, and how things unfold. I’m aiming to complete the trip in time to celebrate the Fourth of July in Washington D.C.

I grew up in Virginia between Lynchburg and Forest, where the Blue Ridge Mountains were basically my backyard. I was an outdoor junkie and spent as much time outside as I could — hiking, climbing, biking, paddling, then doing it all over again the next day. In my teenage years, I’d spend two months each summer in the mountains, moving along ridgelines and dropping into valleys, camping wherever I could. Outside of summer, a month never went by where I wasn’t spending at least one weekend in the wilderness.

At 14, I built a raft from scrap lumber and styrofoam and spent two days floating the James River alone.

After graduating high school in 2002, I joined the Marines and deployed to Iraq twice. Upon exiting the service, I worked a defense contractor gig in Afghanistan for three years. When I returned to the States, I fell into a pattern of taking extended backcountry trips whenever I could — usually a few months at a time — heading for long trails or remote places.

In 2013, I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. In 2014, I attempted to cycle the Southern Tier route from Florida to California, making it to Austin before stopping — enough to get my first real taste of long-distance cycling. I spent a summer wandering around Turkey and Egypt.

In 2015, I tapped my GI Bill to return to school and four years later earned a journalism degree from the University of Florida. In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, I abandoned my newspaper job in Tampa and escaped west to the border of Mexico and California to hike the Pacific Crest Trail to Canada. After finishing, I returned home and joined the faculty at my alma mater as a lecturer.

In 2023, after a cancer scare, I took a sabbatical and thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail for a second time. I’ve spent the past two summers in Europe hiking in Spain, Austria, Germany, England, and Sweden.

These days I live in the Tampa Bay area. I teach a few classes each semester, serve as the data editor for a state politics wire service, and run a digital public records warehouse used by more than 1,200 journalists across Florida.

Despite 20 years removed from my childhood home, Virginia has never really faded from my mind. The mountains, the trail, the river — they’ve been a constant reference point in my life. I’m very much looking forward to revisiting the landscapes of my youth.

I’ll post updates here and on social media channels as I go — conditions on the trail, what the river is doing, notes from the road, and anything useful for someone thinking about doing the same. If you’ve spent time on any part of this route — especially the James River or the cycling sections — I’d love to hear from you.

If you want more background on the challenge itself, order a copy of Tim Kaine’s book here. It’s a good read. He’s also given a multitude of hour-long interviews available through YouTube and podcast apps.