The fastest known time (FKT) on the Appalachian Trail has never been held by a woman—until now. Just minutes before midnight on Sept. 21, Tara Dower became the fastest known person to hike the Appalachian Trail, reaching Georgia’s Springer Mountain 40 days, 18 hours and 5 minutes after she began her journey in Maine.
Women are drastically underrepresented in outdoor endurance sports. For most of the Appalachian Trail’s history, women represented less than 15 percent of people to complete the trail. However, Dower’s accomplishment may be a part of a larger shift for women in the outdoors; according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, women now represent a third of thru-hikers (those who hike a long distance trail from one end to another).
Averaging 54 miles a day, Dower crossed 14 states and hiked 2,189 miles with 465,000 feet of vertical gain—dropping 13 hours off the previous record set in 2018.
Ms. spoke with Dower about being a woman in ultra-endurance sports, her recent FKT and love for the Appalachian Trail.
The interview below has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Livia Follet: Can you tell me a little bit about how you entered the sport of ultra running and hiking and how you got into it?
Tara Dower: It’s a pretty long story. It started actually with the Appalachian Trail, and wanting to attempt a thru hike on the Appalachian Trail. I had been a runner before middle and high school. I did distance events, track and cross country. So I was doing the 5k in high school, and then did a couple fun marathons after that. I think it really started after I completed the thru hike on the Appalachian Trail. I wanted to kind of see more of the trails and see them quicker.
And so I got into FKTs—generally FKTs, not the Appalachian Trail one. I got into the Mountains-to-Sea Trail; that took like 29 days. And did the Benton MacKaye Trail in the fastest time, and did the Colorado Trail in the fastest time for women supported.
After the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, I just wanted to do the 100-mile race. I thought it was just really cool that people just do that. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll see how that goes.’ I did it and fell in love with it. I completed a year after doing the Mountain-to-Sea Trail. From there I just dove head first into the sport in 2021. I mean, it all started from just my love for the Appalachian Trail.
Follet: Walk me through a typical day out on the Appalachian Trail for you. I know you have a whole team of people working with you—what are those relationships like? What does your day looks like?
Dower: So the day would generally start around 3 a.m. and I would wake up.
Rascal, my crew chief, was the first one up, and she would get breakfast ready, and she’d come over and start hand-feeding me, and I would begin by putting my feet back together. I put Leukotape on them, and put my socks on and my shoes on, which took a very long amount of time, because normally your feet are pretty sore and they hurt a lot. I had a lot of sores, and I had a lot of blisters, and I had a hole in my foot. So I had to prepare my feet, and that took around 30 minutes. I would do some leg swings, and I was usually on the trail between like 3:30 a.m. and 3:40 and I would either have a pacer with me or just be on my own. About 20 percent of the time, I’d say, I had a pacer carrying my stuff with me.
Then I’d do like anywhere from eight to 15 miles. Pacers would switch out through the day, but I would just keep going for about like 17 and a half hours. During that time, I ate around 300 calories per hour, and did around six to seven protein shakes. I’d end anywhere from like 8:30 p.m. to like 10:30 give or take an hour. The first day I got in at 7:30 which never happened again. One of the last days I got in around, like 11:30, and I was towards the end there.
It all started from just my love for the Appalachian Trail.
Tara Dower
We did half tent-camping and half van-camping. I have a camper van. We have this whole caravan of people following us. Rascal, or my mom would drive the van to different road crossings to meet me. At the end of the day, if it lined up to where I could stay in the van, I would be in the van. The idea here is you want to have the average amount of miles. You don’t want to exceed your mileage by having to get to a road crossing. Or you don’t want to have to hold back and do like 40 odd miles just because you’re at a road crossing and there’s not another one for 20 miles. So, we wanted to stay as close to an average mileage as possible.
So on some days, my crew chief Rascal and a pacer JP would hike up my camping gear, and they would stay with me and kind of do a standard backpacking trip. It was on average, five miles.
One day they had to go around 10 miles in the Smokies, but on average it was like five miles that they had to hike up and then set up the stuff, and then I’d get there kind of right in time, and they would feed me. This was at both road crossings and at the tent. Rascal or JP, or my mom would start hand-feeding me. And then somebody would be working on my feet, getting the Leukotape off, washing your feet as best you can. And then I’d be in bed by like, if it was a good day, like 9:30 to 10:30.
Follet: How long did it take you to plan all of that?
Dower: I mean, like loose planning, every other day I would do, a little here, a little there. It took about a year and a half for this.
Follet: When you set out to set this record, what was going through your head? Like, how do you decide you want to achieve such a momentous goal and then go out and crush it?
Dower: It just goes back to the Appalachian Trail being the start of what I call my trail career. I have a lot of mentors who are involved with F.K.T.s and they’ve done them themselves. I have a friend who’s done it. So I had gone into F.K.T.s, and the Appalachian Trail was always a special place and had a special place in my heart.
It was more of a curiosity. People have asked me, ‘Oh, did you know you’re gonna get it?’ And I didn’t have a lot of confidence that I was gonna get this record. It was more What can I do? And I was just going out there with a level of curiosity.
Follet: Women in sports, especially in ultra endurance events, are often underrepresented. So what does it mean to you to be a woman at the forefront of such a demanding and historically male dominated space?
Dower: It’s really neat. I would say it’s overwhelming in some ways, because I benefit so much from women mentors in endurance sports and the way I look at them, it’s in very high regard and veers on the side of obsession almost. So to then think, ‘Oh, you know, maybe, maybe that’s how some people view me now.‘ I think it’s overwhelming, but also I hope I can be a good role model. I think that’s also why it’s a little overwhelming, because it’s like, you want to be like a good person.
I hope I’m doing a good job. I know nobody’s giving me pressure, like, ‘Oh, you have to be a certain way.’ It’s just my own personal pressure that I’m putting on myself. But it’s really neat that together, that this FK team, we were able to incite something in women and young girls. I’ve heard personal stories from people that we have inspired some people and that’s really encouraging and exciting. I’m incredibly honored to be at the forefront of that.
Follet: You’ve raised over $50,000 for Girls on the Run. Can you speak for your decision to raise money for them, and sort of what that process looks like?
Dower: I had a goal of $20,000, hoping that the community would come together. Even then, it felt like a huge number, like so much money, and I didn’t know if it was possible. And luckily, in like the last day, I think we hit $20,000. Then as the story reached more corners of the general population, people really resonated with the story, and we were able to conjure up another $30,000. That was really awesome because I know that program provides a lot of necessary support for young girls.
As a former young girl, I think it’s a really cool program, and it’s something I would definitely like to do as a kid. So it’s a really good program for doing a lot of good work for that age group. And Altra is actually going to give, I think it’s another $44,000 so we’re right there at $100,000 and I’m just really excited for what that money is going to do for the young girls.
Follet: Your achievement is obviously an inspiration to so many young women and girls. Is there a specific message that you hope your record sends to women, especially those who might feel intimidated by physical challenges?
Dower: This is good advice generally, but I know it can apply more to women just because of how society is. The pressures that are put on women… my path to success, if that’s what you’d call it, hasn’t always been linear. I’ve had failures that have really taught me a lot about myself.
First time trying to do that Appalachian Trail I quit, and that was a big failure, and it caused me a lot of grief, but also helped me look inward at my motivations. I look at that at the time, it really stumped me. I look back and I learned a lot about myself and learned a lot about my anxiety. I would say, to people in general and also to women—this will probably apply to a lot of women—don’t be afraid to make those large goals and go for it, even if it frightens you. Because the fear of failure, I think that’s prevalent in a lot of people’s lives, and in my experience failure has kind of opened my eyes to who I am, my motivations and helped me work through anxiety.
Follet: Do you have a specific moment or memory out on the trail that you would like to share?
Dower: I would say just moments with my crew and with my pacers. I look back at those moments specifically, the last day, the last 10 hours. It was really tough because I had a huge push at the end. It was really, really tough. But it was really cool to see the community come together and see all my pacers and people who were inspired by the story of the FKT and the crew all together, and we’re having a really good time.
It was definitely a team effort. The importance of people around you, that know you, and are able to encourage and push you beyond your limits. I think that’s really important.
Tara Dower
At this point too, I wasn’t fully confident that I would get the F.K.T. I feel like everyone else knew it was going to happen, and I wasn’t allowing myself to get there. But the last mile, the last eight miles, I had this weird, panicky anxiety going on. But the last mile, I kind of let that melt away as I started allowing myself to feel. The emotions associated with this felt so big, the feeling of panic and anxiety melted away, and I was able to just feel all those feelings. I was able to cry and just thank my pacer JP and Rascal. I’d say seeing how the community came together, even online like social media, but then also in person was, you know there are many memories that stick out.
I think it’s important to give a lot of credit to the crew and my pacers. Maybe I’m trying to deflect this success and get all the attention off myself. Maybe that’s why I try to focus on the crew so much. But this wouldn’t be possible without them. They were crucial to the F.K.T. It was definitely a team effort. The importance of people around you, that know you, and are able to encourage and push you beyond your limits. I think that’s really important.
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