Colorado woman runs 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail in 40 days, beating fastest known time record

A woman recently ran the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, beating the fastest known time by 13 hours.

Tara Dower, a 31-year-old professional runner, recently ran the roughly 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail on the East Coast in about 40 days.

The woman from Boulder, Colorado, told Fox News Digital she had previously hiked the trail but not nearly as fast.

“In 2019, I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in five months and 10 days, and then, from there, I wanted to get into the fastest known time attempts to go faster on trails,” she said.

This time around, Dower decided she wanted to beat the fastest known time to complete the Appalachian Trail, which had been roughly 41 days and seven hours, she said.

Having been a runner her entire life, Dower said she was already in great shape prior to the attempt, but this effort was a challenge.

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“It was 40 days, and there’s just so much to experience out there,” she said. “There [were] really hard days where I couldn’t stop crying.”

Dower said she ran roughly 75-80% of the trail with a pacer, so she wasn’t alone the entire time, but she said many times she struggled mentally.

“I was just sleep-deprived, and sometimes I’d have little hallucinations that would come into play,” she said. She said she also tripped and fell many times throughout the journey.

The 2,189-mile route stretches through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.

The path typically takes a thru-hiker about five to seven months to complete, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

Her mom and her crew chief were by her side to make sure she was fed and taken care of throughout.

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Dower said she would sometimes run seven to 10 miles alone before seeing someone at a road.

“I viewed myself as the race car, and the crew was the pit crew,” she said. “So, they’re maintaining me, fueling me, doing whatever is needed to keep me going.”

Dower tried to consume about 300 calories an hour while running, anything from energy gummies to Goldfish crackers, pretzels or wraps.

At every road crossing, Dower would drink a protein shake within a few minutes while continuing to walk before starting to run the trail again.

“Maine and New Hampshire were really difficult,” she said. “The terrain out in the Northeast is pretty rugged and technical … and that makes it even harder when you’re in New Hampshire [and] it’s these rocks, literal boulders you have to climb up.”

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After 40 days, 18 hours and five minutes, Dower completed the Appalachian Trail in record time.

Although she and her crew knew she was going to beat the record, Dower said she wouldn’t let herself believe it until the last three miles.

“I didn’t let myself believe that I was going to get the FKT until like 3 miles out because I was falling so much and so often — and very violently — that I thought that at any moment I could fall and bust my kneecap or dislocate my shoulder somehow and not be able to continue,” she said.

As for how she’s recovering, Dower said she’s been dealing with a bit of brain fog and a glute injury.

“What’s next is eating more ice cream and sleeping more,” she said.

Before Dower’s accomplishment, Karel Sabbe held the fastest known time running the Appalachian Trail in 41 days, 7 hours and 38 minutes in 2018, according to outsideonline.com, an online magazine that reports on outdoor news and adventures.

Fox News Digital reached out to a representative of the Appalachian Trail for comment.

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