For the final five miles on day 38 of Tara Dower‘s Appalachian Trail speed record attempt, she wailed into the night.

Accompanied by her crew chief, Megan “Rascal” Wilmarth, she cried uncontrollably. There would be no sleep that night. Instead, what awaited her was 16 miles through darkness. It was part of the 129-mile final push of Dower’s attempt to break the overall fastest known time on the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail. The record had been held by Belgian runner Karel Sabbe since 2018 with his northbound effort of 41 days, 7 hours, and 39 minutes.

The literal and figurative ups and downs of the journey weighed heavily on Dower. Sleep deprived, the emotions flowed out of her as she reached her crew. They took inventory and ultimately let her rest. She would get 20 minutes to sleep after a 59-mile day that would be followed by the final 70 miles to the trail’s southern terminus near Ellijay, Georgia.

As Dower, 31, prepared for her brief slumber, a crew member, Heather Quiñones, put the moment into perspective: “That is the wail of a woman making history.”

“It was a beautiful way to describe it because I felt like I was just complaining, crying, and sobbing,” Dower. “But I kept moving through it all.”

History is exactly what the full-time ultrarunner from Virginia Beach, Virginia, delivered. Over 40 days, 18 hours, and 6 minutes, Dower covered one of the most difficult and world-renowned trails faster than anyone had before, averaging a mind-boggling 56.4 miles per day. She did so in a supported style, buoyed by the likes of Rascal, her mom, Debbie Komlo, and a rotating cast of pacers, crew, and friends that in total Dower estimates amounted to 50 or 60 people.

Tara Dower Makes History on World’s Most Coveted FKT

The overall fastest known time (FKT) on the Appalachian Trail is one of—if not the most—coveted records in the endurance world. Like with Dower’s effort, most often the record has been set in a supported style with varying levels of assistance with shelter, food, pacing, gear, medical expertise, and moral support. And it’s captured the imagination of some of ultrarunning’s greatest athletes ever.

Seven-time Western States 100 winner Scott Jurek bested Jennifer Phar Davis’s overall supported record in 2015, stopping the clock in 46 days, 8 hours, and 7 minutes. Fellow ultrarunning legend Karl “Speedgoat” Meltzer shaved half a day off that mark the next summer, and long trail wiz Joe “Stringbean” McConaughy took over a day off that time the following summer by going in a self-supported style. But it was the dentist from Belgium and his crew of one who redefined what’s possible in 2018 when he became the first person to dip under 42 days.

Until now. To make Dower’s effort even more impressive, she slotted this feat into the middle of a full ultramarathon racing season. Just three weeks before starting her ground-breaking trek, she finished fourth at the grueling Hardrock 100-Mile Endurance Run—a 33:10 effort through the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado.

The AT speed record punctuates Dower’s meteoric rise through both the ultramarathon racing and FKT scenes over the past several years, including an overall FKT on the 288-mile Benton MacKaye Trail in 2022 and a women’s FKT on the 500-mile Colorado Trail in 2023. But nothing she’s done—or that anyone else has done, for that matter—compares to those 40 days through the green tunnel. Here’s how Dower and her team did it.

To Hell and Back Again on the Appalachian Trail

The waiting was the toughest part. Upon arriving in Maine to begin her southbound trek, Dower and her crew had to delay the start due to Hurricane Debby passing through the region.

When it finally cleared, the crew hiked up Mount Katahdin to the AT’s northern terminus on August 12. It was a place she knew well. In 2017, she first set out to thru-hike the entire trail but an anxiety attack forced her to abandon the effort after 80 miles. She returned to the AT in 2019 and completed the entire go in five months and 10 days.

It wasn’t until 2022 that she turned her sights to the record. Upon capturing the overall FKT for the Benton Mackaye Trail, a 288-mile route that was part of the original vision for the Appalachian Trail, she felt called to tackle the world’s most iconic long trail as fast as she could. She set a date for 2024, and here she finally was.

The first 10 days did not go as planned. By going southbound, Dower chose to start with what is considered the toughest part of the route. Maine and New Hampshire lived up to their prowess.

Three clear days turned into rocks, roots, and rain that welcomed her into the mountains of southern Maine. Her lowest lows arose quickly and early.

“I generally don’t like myself when it’s cloudy and rainy,” Dower said. “I know that this part was supposed to feel hard, but having to do these mountains over and over and over, it really tired me out.”

Slippery, rocky terrain led to hard falls. Her legs were scraped up and bloody. The mountains, absent of switchbacks, were constant ups and downs. Her feet began to form what she and her crew described as “craters” or “holes” in the soles.

It was as pure as a slog could get, and Dower reached her most demoralizing period on the Kinsmans, a pair of 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire.

She entered the rock fields as water cascaded down them. It was dark. There were still 5 to 7 miles before she would get to rest in the van. That meant hours left on the trail.

“This is going to take forever,” she thought as she checked the mileage on her phone while traversing a muddy pit. That’s when she tried to step on a log. The log sank under her. Dower fell to her knees in the mud. Her phone fell into the muck, splashing mud into her face.

“I just sat there,” Dower said. “It was so demoralizing, but all I could do was keep going. That’s what I did. I remember literally dissociating after that. Disassociating from this actual hell I was in. That sounds dramatic and it probably wasn’t as bad as that, but it sure did feel demoralizing.”

Those initial 10 days were tough for the crew as well. Komlo watched her daughter struggle. Rascal cried daily, trying to navigate the challenges of serving as crew chief for such an effort and trying to keep her friend’s dream alive.

When she finally crossed the border into Vermont, Dower was well behind record pace for the overall FKT. Her goal was to be 35 miles back of Sabbe’s pace. She was 100 miles behind.

“I had no idea how it was going to happen,” Rascal said. “But as her body adjusted to the daily miles, you could see she was strong enough. The crew began to anticipate her needs more. Then the sun came out in Vermont. It was going to suck sometimes, but she was going to get it done.”

“The Race Car”

Dower wasn’t fond of the first 10 days, and she also wasn’t fond of her initial trail name for this effort either: “queen” or “princess.”

“She was getting mad at me for calling her that,” Rascal said. “She’s like, ‘that’s not what I am,’ so we switched to just calling her ‘the race car.’ She was ‘race car’ and we were her pit crew. She really liked that.”

A high-performance running machine was what Dower needed to be for 30 days straight if she wanted a chance at the record. After recovering mentally through Vermont, the numbers needed crunching. With the help of AT legends Meltzer, Warren Doyle, and David “Iceman” Martin, it was determined that Dower needed to average 57 to 58 miles per day and put in a couple 60-plus days. That started immediately in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Rascal and Komlo decided they had to put their friend and mom roles to the side. To get the record, their tough love would have to push Dower to nickel and dime her way back to record pace.

“The most pivotal moment came near Pauling, New York,” Rascal said. “She was going 57 that day and I told her she should push to 60. She starts bawling her eyes out. It was so hard, but that was the night we realized we had to take emotions out of it. To get this record, I can’t let my feelings of knowing she’s in pain or tired hold her back.”

Long days became routine from there. Dower averaged five hours of sleep a night, waking up at 3 or 3:30 A.M. to begin her daily mileage. The first half hour was spent judiciously taping her feet while her crew spoon-fed her a breakfast of around 500 calories and prepped her gear for the day.

A second breakfast of 300 calories followed later in the morning and snacks flowed throughout the day. Her favorites were Rice Krispies Treats, assorted gummies, and Ultragen protein shakes five times a day. The goal was to consume 100 calories per hour.

Dinner was the toughest. The goal was 1,500 calories, but portion size was essential.

“Large quantities of food intimidated her,” Rascal said. “If we made a sandwich for her or we had a bowl of something, we needed to make sure it was either portioned out or it just looked really small.”

The solution was serving pasta or an egg scramble when she was sitting down and then giving her a handheld like a wrap to go.

Days blended together for much of the middle section through the Mid Atlantic region and into the lower third of the trail through Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Dower chipped away at the record pace until all of a sudden 39 days into the attempt she was on it and then one mile ahead of it as she entered Georgia.

As the long days added up, Dower adopted a mantra of, ‘Well, it’s going to suck, but I have to do it.’ She both despised and welcomed the challenge. Emotions ran high each day. But moments that were fights between Dower and her crew in the early going, such negotiating daily mileage, became taking a deep breath and moving one later in the run.

“I knew I was gaining on Karel, but it was just work, work every single day,” Dower said. “I didn’t know what the results were. My crew kept me in the dark and just told me how far I was going to run each day. I felt accomplished, but I didn’t know what would come of it.”

Jurek, Meltzer, Sabbe—nearly every successful record attempt on the AT has ended with a hollowed runner battling through injury to make it to the finish. Rascal watched in astonishment as her friend appeared to get stronger as she went.

“You think this person, this human body that is pushing so hard for so long continuously, would start to wear down and their mind and body would get weaker and weaker,” Rascal said. “With Tara, it was the opposite. Her mind got stronger, her body adapted to what we were doing. Now you can push more and we can not only beat the record, but we can beat it by a lot.”

Before long, the end drew near. In her conversations with former record holders and studying the efforts of people like Sabbe, she knew that she needed to push through, without sleep, the final 100 miles or so. She was ahead of record pace, but this would leave no doubt.

With 129 miles to go, she and her crew made the decision to go what would be the final 43 hours straight. Powering and wailing through, Dower put her head down and went for it.

Inside the Final Day of Tara Dower’s Appalachian Trail Speed Record

Dower awoke in the van from her 20-minute slumber. Weary from the 59-mile day and five miles of wailing, she pleaded for 10 more minutes. Her crew gave her an additional three. Then it was back out on the trail.

Slowly pulling herself together for the final 70 miles, Komlo climbed into the van and shut the door behind her. She had been there for her daughter’s highest highs and lowest lows from the start. This was the latter.

Seeing Dower in this state wasn’t easy at any point during the trip, but Komlo knew she felt alone in that moment. That she needed that push, that motivation to realize what she set out to do. Komlo entered the van where Dower was sitting and shut the door behind her.

Dower wouldn’t make eye contact with Komlo. Her mom lowered her head to Dower’s level as best she could to meet her gaze. Then, she spoke.

“You’ve got this,” Komlo said. “You’re strong. You’re powerful. You might not feel like you have anything left in the tank, but you do. We all do. In the times we don’t think we have anything more to give, you always have more to give, and you can do this. You can make this happen. Just get out there and do it. Make it happen. Just make it happen.”

With that, they both exited the van. Dower set out with her pacer, Hunter Leininger. The miles were long as Dower zombie-walked through the night.

Yet, it was still eventful. At one point, Leininger, who was positioned behind Dower, violently shook his headlamp. When Dower asked about it, he said he thought he had seen a snake, but it was just a stick. A few miles later, Leininger warned Dower to be aware in this area for snakes.

Finally, when the section was completed, he came clean.

“When he flipped out, he actually saw me step on a copperhead,” Dower recalled. “I was unfazed and so was the copperhead. That’s how exhausted I was.”

The rest of that day went over fairly smoothly. There were one-minute naps on the side of the trail every so often and hallucinations.

As the southern terminus grew closer, Dower still wouldn’t let herself believe the record was secured. That was her mindset throughout the run. An injury, weather, even a snake could derail the run in a second.

That fear followed her to the final two miles. She had been singing and reminiscing with her pacers, Rascal and JP Giblin, when Dower felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack.

Her pacers helped calm her down and keep her on track. Even when she requested a one-minute trailside nap with one mile to go, they kept her feet moving.

Finally, over that final mile, Dower let herself feel everything. The anxiety dissipated in one big release.

At 11:53 P.M. on September 21, Dower touched the plaque on Springer Mountain marking the trail’s southern terminus. Her historic run was over. Her final time: 40 days, 18 hours, and 6 minutes, faster than anyone has ever completed the trail. She surpassed Sabbe’s effort by 13 hours and topped Jennifer Pharr-Davis’s previous best women’s time by nearly six days.

Home at Last

Celebrations were brief in the late hours of the night. She still had to hike back down the mountain and drive an hour to her grandma’s house. Sleep was immediate. For a couple days, she and her crew ate, slept, and reminisced on the porch.

Now days removed, Dower said it’s been hard to comprehend the gravity of what she just accomplished. Brain fog has prevented her from realizing she just made history with one of the greatest ultrarunning or thru-hiking efforts of all time. Her groundbreaking achievement has been praised by the likes of tennis legend Billie Jean King, who founded the Women’s Sports Foundation.

“It’s exciting, but it’s exciting for more than just myself getting this record. It’s exciting for women and girls. I hope it inspires women and girls to do hard things and believe they can, even if it seems impossible,” Dower said. “For me, this seemed, frankly, impossible. Women have this endurance, this gift of endurance that we haven’t quite fully tapped into. I hope this inspires people who are called to the Appalachian Trail and I’d love to see more women going out there and just seeing what’s possible for them on this trail.”

Dower finally arrived home to Virginia Beach on September 28. For the first time in two years, there are no races or big efforts on the horizon. That’s the way she wants it for now. Nothing to do but rest her mind and her body, reminisce about what just happened and finally take care of her feet.

“I had two large caverns in the middle of my feet and blisters, sores, and my pinky toes are just not okay,” Dower said. “They’re black. You don’t know where the toenail starts. It was like this for most of the hike. We just let them do their thing.”

Her mom said she won’t be getting a pedicure anytime soon.

Dower’s Appalachian Trail record attempt doubled as a fundraiser for Girls on the Run, a national running-focused nonprofit for girls between third and eighth grades. She achieved her initial goal of $20,000 just after she finished and has since surpassed $39,000. A sponsor of Dower’s, Altra, will match the total when it closes on September 29.