2,189 Miles, 40 Days, and 3 Showers

September 25, 2024 3:38 PM

Tara Dower Sets The Appalachian Trail Speed Record On a southbound run from Maine to Georgia, a new FKT trail record has been set by Tara Dower of Virginia Beach. She breaks Karel Sabbe's record by 13 hours, all while raising money for the non-profit Girls on the Run.
posted by drewbage1847 (22 comments total)

That's 2 marathons a day, every day for 40 days. Yow!
posted by tavella at 3:42 PM on September 25 [12 favorites]

Congrats to her, that's amazing and something I would never, ever ever ever want to do!!

I remember a friend telling me about someone they knew who was trying to do this trail in something like 45 days. He was basically a powerwalking machine, tended by a dozen people at all hours, and apparently seemed miserable the whole time after the first couple days, zombielike even. I admire these athletes but it just seems like such a... wearisome task to set oneself to! Still, hell of a thing.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:52 PM on September 25 [4 favorites]

It's clear to me that she cheated by going southbound so she could run downhill the whole way! :)

And from the article it's clear that she had a lot of support and crew helping out because I can't even begin to imagine how you'd do this without it.
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:57 PM on September 25 [6 favorites]

Seems like a silly thing
She would miss the visual glories of the trail. Slow walking is an undeniable pleasure.
posted by Czjewel at 4:03 PM on September 25 [9 favorites]

She already did a full trail hike previously over a 5 month period, northbound.
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:06 PM on September 25 [6 favorites]

Slow walking is an undeniable pleasure.

Sure, but so is accomplishing something that no other human being in history has ever done. It's not like by doing this she's foregone the possibility of ever walking slowly again.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:07 PM on September 25 [21 favorites]

Good for her!

She isn’t nearly as skinny and sunken-eyed at the end as I was afraid she would be, and it’s very gratifying to see that. She must have truly phenomenal physiology.
posted by jamjam at 4:38 PM on September 25 [1 favorite]

That's approximately 2 and a quarter miles per hour, which is close enough to a typical backpacking speed. The difference, of course, is that most people can only maintain that speed for a few hours, and then they have to sleep, and this is 2.25 mph for 40 days! A fit thruhiker can maybe manage a 30 mile day in 12 to 14 hours, day after day, which is a comparable pace, but then they have to sleep, and they are often constantly tired. She was doing almost 55 miles a day! Compare Heather Anderson, who has held a few self-supported FKTs with an average pace of a bit more that 40 miles a day, which is still astounding, but wow, that's fast.

It would only take her 12 years to walk to the moon!
posted by surlyben at 4:56 PM on September 25 [9 favorites]

Parasite Unseen...Good on her,...Now we wait for someone else to beat her record. It's gonna happen.
posted by Czjewel at 5:30 PM on September 25

She isn’t nearly as skinny and sunken-eyed at the end as I was afraid she would be, and it’s very gratifying to see that. She must have truly phenomenal physiology.

She had a support crew with her that was giving her food so in some ways she'd be better off than a normal hiker that was living off peanut butter tortillas or whatever else was easy to carry. It would still be hard work just consuming all the calories she'd need though.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:27 PM on September 25 [1 favorite]

Conventional wisdom is that thruhikers are burning more calories in a day than it's possible to take in. That's why they tend to lose weight despite having a diet of, like, fritos and pop tarts. Then they pull into town and eat two meals per sitting and all the desserts, and they still lose weight. They talk of constant hunger.

I can't even imagine the calorie situation for someone doing an FKT like this. I do wonder if people who are able to go this fast might be unusually able to process calories. It's certainly the case that they are able to get by on less sleep than normal, at least for the few weeks of thier hike.
posted by surlyben at 6:42 PM on September 25 [1 favorite]

I often feel that fitness is like wealth, no matter how much you have there are greater levels beyond imagining. What an amazing accomplishment.
posted by Long Way To Go at 8:37 PM on September 25 [3 favorites]

For Dower, the record also signifies redemption in many ways. Seven years ago, she was eight days into her first thru-hike attempt on the Appalachian Trail when she suffered from a panic attack. A novice to long-distance hiking at the time, the former college rugby player was forced to end her hike early and confront her anxiety.

In the years that followed, she worked on understanding the condition and found ways of coping with it. Dower put more effort into building a community of friends on the trails. She also adjusted her perspective on goal setting. Instead of feeling overwhelmed with reaching the final destination, she started to set smaller benchmark goals that lead up to a big goal.

Given what she was doing at the time, I think her panic attack probably had a lot more to do with low Ph in the brain due to high carbon dioxide levels and the accumulation of lactate than anything psychogenic, but there's no arguing with the success she's achieved or the methods she used to achieve it.
posted by jamjam at 8:52 PM on September 25 [4 favorites]

And from the article it's clear that she had a lot of support and crew helping out because I can't even begin to imagine how you'd do this without it.

There is an self-supported record, FWIW. You don't have to carry everything with you from the start, but you don't get any pre-arranged help. You can stash food along the way ahead of time or buy it from stores or whatever (both of these require additional, careful, planning).
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:03 PM on September 25 [5 favorites]

I have nothing but admiration for her. The AT might not reach the altitudes that the PCT and continental divide trails do, but they tend to be steeper, eschewing switchbacks for routes sticking to the fall line, and the summer weather is often tougher.
posted by morspin at 11:36 PM on September 25

Have couple close friends who did typical AT hikes and a roommate who attempted a speed run when he turned 19, I think? Before I knew him, probably 15 years ago. Anyways.

It's completely different beasts. Being able to support recovery from 50 miles a day is something a body cannot do at baseline. I'm actually pretty curious about nightly recovery routines she might've used. And so many through hikers, even with a lot of training, aren't prepared even for 8-15 miles/day EVERY day without off days until they are a few weeks into the trail. Speed runs have to hit the ground running day one.

BUT it's actually (per reports) kinda a luxury to approach the hike with a speed run mindset. Easier to time the run with nice weather (avoiding the trade off of frigid nights versus sweltering days that is often is part of the calculus of 4 month through hikes that involve GA and MA). The former roommate carried a fraction of the weather related gear compared to other friends. In some ways, 50 mile days with a 10-15 pound pack is nicer than a 12 mile day with a 35 pound pack. The prep is nuts though. Hitchhiking in to town for groceries can be a big time sink and so meticulous attention to food drops is a logistic feat in its own right.
posted by midmarch snowman at 5:16 AM on September 26 [3 favorites]

Mod note: Several comments and responses removed. Let's remember the Community Guidelines and allow people to express their views respectfully and avoid focusing on a community member in the comments.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:08 AM on September 26 [1 favorite]

This is such an incredible achievement. Folks who do this kind of thing are a huge inspiration. I'm currently training for my first ultra (a paltry 50K), and I honestly don't understand how the folks who run 50+ miles in one go, let alone do that day after or every weekend, manage to do so without their bodies consuming themselves. I know fuel, rest, and strength training are big parts of it, but the mental fortitude involved is incredible.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 6:16 AM on September 26

TKC, I know that the conventional explanation for why women have set a number of absolute records in these specialist long distance runs, like the Ramsey Round and the Spine Race in the UK, is that the universe of competitors is so relatively small, but I have to wonder if part of it isn't that at a certain point it's less about the absolute superiority of physique and more about the pure will to drive yourself onward for days of suffering.
posted by tavella at 8:59 AM on September 26

It would only take her 12 years to walk to the moon!

But, at the same speed, more than a billion years to walk to the nearest star, 4 light years away.
posted by dmd at 10:25 AM on September 26 [2 favorites]

I'm in this community and have been (quickly) passed by Candy Mama on trail. It really can't be overstated just how absolutely incredible this is. Sub 40 seems inevitable now. I wouldn't be surprised if she goes for it herself in a few years.

The physical part is surprisingly easy for most people on this journey - at my peak I would do 30+ miles and my legs would feel fresh as daisies. To grossly oversimplify it, you only really need to stop because you want to sleep or because night hiking is annoying on the AT because of the tree cover.

The mental toll is much, much harder. There's nothing like it. Her fortitude is incredible, even with a team supporting most of the base tasks. There's also, even for the best, a huge element of luck for it. In the last couple of years a few FKT attempts have been halted when runners get to waist-high flood waters and the like.

A few years ago I was talking with someone who ended up a couple of days short of the FKT, going NOBO in <50 days. He'd been on pace to break the record, but on day 32, after more than a month of doing 50+ mile days, had a mental low point "only" did 40 miles instead of the 55+ he'd needed to do. Those 12 slow hours caused him to break and end up Top 5, not 1st.

That said, my personal favorite FKT is David Horton's 1991 record of 52 days NOBO. Everything was heavier and far more brutal back then and to do it so fast with paper maps and far less help is insane. As far as his support, instead of a full crew carrying his gear, it was his friend with a van bringing him food a few times -- a totally different beast than what we see in attempts today. I've told him I would count it as unsupported if he did the same attempt today.

(For a bit more pontification, I'll say that IMO SOBO is always going to be the preferred route for overall FKT -- if you're on pace after the Whites you can really go all out for the rest of the trail. Going NOBO you know there's always a chance that those presidential assholes are going to ruin your attempt.)
posted by matrixclown at 12:43 PM on September 26 [7 favorites]

On a related note, if any female identifying folks out in the metaverse want to attempt an FKT, Women Who FKT is a great resource.
posted by rcraniac at 2:26 PM on September 26 [1 favorite]