My Pseudo-date with an Extreme Adventurer

Our intrepid reporter goes on assignment to find out the truth: Can elite athletes actually make good boyfriends?
by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan

ANDREW SKURKA IS A HORRIBLE BOY-FRIEND. I know this because of something he said about halfway through our first date, a hike up one of the pointy foothills framing Boulder, called Bear Peak: “I’m a horrible boyfriend.”

This is a shame because Andrew Skurka is smokin’ hot. Not just looks-wise (he’s been compared to Tom Cruise, but it’s more like Mark Wahlberg with a dash of Eagle Scout); he’s hot because he’s a true adventurer. This is a guy who’s so great at wilderness travel that he actually gets paid to backpack—a guy who’s hiked upward of 19,000 mind-boggling miles in the past four years and who runs ultramarathons when he’s not plotting to rescue the world from climate change. He’s as inspiring as he is drool inducing.

If you want to get technical, we weren’t on a real date. I was there as a writer, not a girl, and anyway he does have a girlfriend (Anya, a lovely lady whose taste in men must tend toward the masochistic). Andrew, 27, had agreed to take me on one of his typical first dates to help me ponder a double-edged question: Can obsessed, high-achieving adventurers really be fantastic boyfriends too? And, if not, why are they still so damn attractive?  That’s how I found myself following his Grecian-sculpture calves up a brutally steep trail one Sunday afternoon. The fact that he’d placed second in the Leadville 100 (as in 100 miles) a week before had slowed him down enough to give me a fighting chance of matching his pace.

As we hiked it became clear that dating über-athletes isn’t like dating bankers or teachers or even the dude who works at the bike shop. First, there’s the worrisome fitness quotient: How can I ever keep up with him? Do cardio all-stars like Andrew even look twice at women without freakish VO2 maxes? His take: sure—what’s important is a love of the outdoors and a willingness to go out and play. But Andrew does employ a rigorous vetting process, and he likes to start on the first date. Turns out I’m the fourth girl he’s marched up this very peak.

Pass the athletic prowess test, though, and you’ve still got to deal with a sticky truth: to a guy who pours everything into being an exceptional adventurer, you will always come in second. Andrew, at least, doesn’t deny it. “Sometimes I feel like I’m throwing a Hail Mary with women,” he said. Every last one of his relationships has hit the skids because of his all-consuming hunger for unexplored terrain, and we’re not talking the your-body-is- a-wonderland variety. Part of it is that he’s simply gone most of the time. In the four months he’s been with Anya, he’s traveled to the Sierra Nevadas, Iceland, Seattle, Yellowstone National Park, Portland, and British Columbia. Even when he’s around, he’s obsessing over his next big project.

“At heart I’m a good guy,” he said, “but it’s difficult for women to carve themselves a piece of this lifestyle.” And Anya? “Anya is a girl who deserves to be treated like a queen, and I’m not the guy to do it.” Hmm. Does this mean it’s best to steer way, way clear of these extreme adventurers?

Anya told me to check back in a few months: “Maybe then I’ll say, ‘Don’t bother.’” Oh, but you know we will bother. The qualities that make elite athletes hard to love are the very same ones that suck us in like magnets. They’re passionate, exciting, and dazzlingly good at what they do—a potent combination. And when that single-minded intensity turns its high beams on you, well . . . C’mon, who among you hasn’t met a climber/ skier/mountaineer/ whatever whose muscled excellence made you bite your lip and sigh? Reaching the treeline, we scrambled for the summit. Boulder hummed beneath us; the Indian Peaks soared just ahead. Even after all Andrew had told me, the spark between us was undeniable.

No, seriously. “What’s that sound?” he asked. I heard it, too: my shoelaces were buzzing with electricity—the kind that portends a lightning strike, not imminent romance. As we turned tail and dashed for the safety of the trees, the hair around my face reached for the sky. “Wow,” he said when we found a sheltered spot. “That’s never happened to me before.” Oh, me neither, Andrew.  As the high-voltage cloud passed us by, I realized: That’s just it. That’s why these guys are irresistible: it’s the possibility, however remote, that lightning will strike, that you’ll be the one who finally tames his wanderlust and outranks the adrenaline fix on his priority scale. “We very rarely stop this lifestyle on our own,” Andrew had mused earlier that day. “It’s always a woman. Some guys are just sucker-punched by a woman.”

So date an obsessed adventurer if you must. He’ll probably break your heart, but maybe, just maybe, you’ll be his sucker-punching woman—and that’ll be an adventure for you both.

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