Kim Levinsky

Age: 37
Hometown: Vernon, N.J.
Profession: Race Director, Sassquad Trail Running
Primary Sports: Ultra Running and Hiking

By Erin Quinn

Kim Levinsky is an ultrarunner, as well as the founder and director of Sassquad Trail Running, a grassroots organization that hosts trail races throughout the year in both New Jersey and New York: sassquadtrailrunning.com. The trail races she puts on encourage people of all places, paces, races and ages. One of the main goals of her race company is to create an atmosphere of inclusivity, providing generous cut-off times for beginning runners and making the trails more accessible to a greater range of athletes. 

The entire ethos of Sassquad is to create a celebratory atmosphere where events are more like trail parties than they are competitive races. Those looking to throw down some blistering times can certainly do so but as much attention is given to those back-of-the-packers or runners sporting tutus and costumes to liven up the trail. Kim is also a talented woodworker who handcrafts all of the awards given to finishers of the Sassquad races. 

Kim has also become an advocate for mental wellness in the trail running community. During the pandemic, like many people, Kim began to struggle with her mental health. With her races and livelihood being put on hold, her ongoing battle with depression was taking its toll. Despite being a runner, there was no way to outrun the darkness that was at times all consuming. Kim found her way to Bigger Than The Trail, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing counseling and education, using trail running as a platform to advocate for mental health: bttt.run. As she started going to therapy, she recognized that she was not alone and began to publicly share her experiences with mental health in an effort to destigmatize and prioritize getting necessary care and support for mental health issues. 

An avid trail runner and ultrarunner herself, Kim set out in the summer of 2023, to claim the fastest known time on The Long Path – the state’s longest contiguous trail, which runs 358 miles from Thacher State Park south of Albany to the 175th Street subway station in New York City: nynjtc.org/long-path. She wanted to utilize this FKT to help promote and support Bigger Than The Trail, as well as the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference – combining her passions for trail running, trail conservation, and mental wellness. 

She had a crew of 23 friends crewing and pacing and helping her through this epic journey of 9 1/2 days, which took her from overgrown trails filled with stinging nettles to the merciless Devil’s Path Trail in the Catskills, all the way to the white conglomerate cliffs of the High Point Trail in the Shawangunks, onto a marathon-length road section to her stomping grounds in Harriman and Bear Mountain state parks, and finally the dramatic traverse across the George Washington Bridge – where she was greeted by family, friends and supporters. 

She also had Shai Ben-Dor, a filmmaker, out on the trails with her to make a documentary of her FKT attempt. He spent 10 days filming Kim as she struggled through the highs and lows of the ultra-run, facing apocalyptic weather patterns that included 90%+ humidity, 100-degree heat, black flies, mosquitoes, and torrential rainfall that caused so much flooding and damage that it shut down Harriman State Park where she was slated to run. Kim must have a penchant for the drama because during her FKT there was more than eight inches of rainfall. 

Shai had met Kim while filming a documentary, Game of Hundos, on NYC native Michael Ortiz, who was attempting to complete a 100-mile run, every weekend for 100 consecutive weeks, to honor his late brother’s life philosophy: shaibendor.com/game-of-hundos-documentary. Kim was at the finale with a homemade wooden belt buckle for Michael, and Shai was struck by what an authentic and kind person she was. 

“I discovered that she was putting on trail races in places like Harriman, Bear Mountain, and Hudson Highlands state parks, where there was a real need for those kinds of events – and that she was building this organic trail running community.” He attended some of her races and began to follow her mental health journey that she was so candid about on her social media platforms. Shai began therapy around the same time as Kim and appreciated her advocacy for mental wellness and her support of the Bigger Than The Trail organization. “When she announced that she was going to go for the FKT of The Long Path, I knew I had to call her!” he said. “Every film needs a great story and a really cool character and this had both of those elements. I cold messaged her and said that I thought what she was doing was beautiful and that I’d like to make a film about her Long Path FKT attempt.” Shai laughs when he thinks about it, realizing that he could have come off sounding very strange, but that she was kind enough to give him a call and talk about it.

“The first thing she said to me was ‘I don’t understand why you want to make a film about me? There’s nothing exceptional about me.’” 

“That’s exactly why I wanted to make the film! There are people, like Kim, who work really hard to make their community a better place and have no want for credit or attention.” Shai said that Kim was kind enough to “let me tag along in my Prius,” and film her. 

Like Kim, Shai had to put up with the bugs, heat, flooding and uncertainty of whether or not that FKT attempt could continue. “There was a moment,” said Kim, when thinking about her Long Path attempt, “when we didn’t know if we would be able to get through Harriman due to the flooding. If we were told ‘no’ that would have ended the attempt.” What was so seminal about this moment, that Shai captured on film, was how it compared to a mental health journey. “It’s about deciding to go on even if we don’t know the outcome,” said Kim. “A woman who watched the film, a friend of mine, related to this, not because she ran 350 miles but because she was diagnosed with cancer that was terminal. She said she knew that she wasn’t going to make it but that she also wasn’t going to give up.”

Kim and her crew were allowed to travel through the washed-out trails of Harriman and she was able to complete her mission, despite the obstacles that were in front of her. Shai was there to capture many moments, some with his camera and others just with his phone because the rain was unrelenting. He became part of the crew, and found not only a beautiful community of people, who were all holed up in an RV in the pouring rain on the side of a trailhead, but he also found that magic mixture of a compelling personal narrative set in an exquisite and often dramatic landscape.

“The Long Path is close to my heart,” said Shai, noting that he was a cross-country runner as a child and grew up on stretches of The Long Path. “I’ve also hiked so many portions of The Long Path like the iconic Escarpment Trail in the Catskills, Kaaterskill Falls, Verkeerdkill Falls at Sam’s Point, Harriman State Park – so I knew where I wanted to get certain shots.”

Both Kim and Shai share a love of trail conservation and The Long Path itself. “There’s something for everyone along The Long Path,” said Kim. “There’s the rough, burly Catskills and the beauty of the Shawangunks, as well as sections that are on road or rail trails. For me, the best I felt on The Long Path was during the Devil’s Path Trail, but the most beautiful moment was watching the sunset on the High Point Trail in Minnewaska State Park.”

Asked what she learned from watching the film, Kim said that she “realized how much it mirrored my mental health journey.” Kim’s first few days on the trail were tough and she wanted to quit, several times a day. Then, of all places, she had a resurrection on the Devil’s Path, one of the hardest foot paths in the entire country. “I felt great on the Devil’s Path!” she said. There were moments of despair when she thought her journey was going to be cut short by the closure of Harriman State Park, and then the beauty of seeing the sunset from the High Point Trail at Minnewaska State Park. There was chafing and blisters and dehydration and nausea and sleep deprivation and the entire cornucopia of the physiological depletion that happens from a 358-mile push. 

“There was a moment when I realized that I wasn’t going to get what I was looking for on The Long Path,” she said. “In these ultra-endurance spaces there is a wonderful community but there is also sometimes a message about pushing through the pain and there are somethings that we can’t just push through. We need help.”  Even the topography of The Long Path mirrored her mental health journey with gnarly trails filled with rocks and roots, rural farmlands, scenic vistas, washed out carriage roads, and then the GW Bridge into the heart of New York City.

The film, The Long Path: A Journey of Becoming premiered this past May to a sold-out audience in Hawthorne, N.J. “Shai captured the journey so well and made it digestible,” said Kim. “The message stayed the message throughout the entire film. Mental health is health. And you don’t need to run 350 miles to understand that.”

What Kim and Sassquad and this film are also about is the importance of community and of having not only a crew to help you run, but a life-crew. “We do a lot of Q&As and we’ve brought in a counselor from Bigger Than The Trails and talked about the different crew roles.” There’s learning how to ask for help and knowing how to provide help or to listen or to empathize and support. There are the mechanics of getting care for mental health issues and learning that it’s okay to not be okay. 

“What’s been so rewarding is hearing people share their own stories after they see the film,” said Kim. “That’s been an honor.” Both she and Shai are also happy to give what they believe is well deserved credit and attention to the 2,000 hard-working volunteers of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference who help build, maintain, and protect hundreds of miles of trails for the public to utilize. Kim hopes that by setting the first FKT on this trail it will only encourage other women to go after it as well. 

There are several upcoming screenings of the film including at the AREEP headquarters in Albany, on Aug. 15 at 7pm. It’s free ($10 suggested donation to BTTT), followed by conversation with Kim of Sassquad and Vinny Capadora of Happily Running. The event is co-hosted by Albany Running Exchange, and Allison Marinucci’s Racing Thoughts Counseling – who’s directing the Serenity on the Trails 4M Trail Run at Central Park, Schenectady on Aug. 16. Screening RSVP is required due to limited space: form.jotform.com/251954834873167.

There will be another show at the Phoenicia Playhouse on Aug. 29 and at the Wild Goose Trail Festival in Vernon, N.J. on Sept. 13. To watch the trailer, go to vimeo.com/1076621502. For upcoming showings, to host a screening, or stream it online for only $3, go to: thelongpathfilm.com.

Erin Quinn is a journalist, lifelong trail runner, outdoor enthusiast, mother of three, and lover of life. She’s a certified UESCA Ultrarunning coach, and head coach of Hawks Swimming, a USA age-group swim team. She enjoys writing about tales from the trail, endurance athletes, and connection and protection of the natural world. Reach her at erinmaryquinn@gmail.com or erinmaryquinn.com.