By: Kara Fini

A record previously only held by men was broken last year by a woman.  In September of 2024, Tara Dower ran the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in under 41 days beating the previous record held by Karel Sabbe, a male ultrarunner, by a whole 13 hours.

Tara is a 31-year-old ultra runner from Virginia. She’s run thousands of miles in her life and attempted to hike the Appalachian Trail twice. Her first time in 2017 she didn’t make it due to anxiety, but two years later she completed it with her husband. This time she wanted to make history.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Appalachian Trail, it’s a long hiking trail that spans from Georgia all the way to Maine going through the Appalachian Mountains. This trail is 2,190+ miles long and is open to the public. There are many parts of the trail for doing shorter hikes. The total amount of elevation gain for the entire trail is 520,000 ft with the highest elevation being 6,643 ft.

Annually, about 3,000 people attempt to complete this 2,000 mile journey, but only about 25% of people complete it. For the average hiker, it takes 5 to 7 months to complete with several stops along the way.

With all of that in mind, it puts into perspective how crazy and amazing it is for Tara to run this in only 41 days. Tara was running the equivalent of two marathons every day across the mountains. She had different pacers, people who ran with her to make sure she was going the right speed, throughout the whole time who helped her stay encouraged and motivated. She completed it at 11:53 at night on September 21.

This moment is powerful for women and girls in sports, especially running. In most things related to endurance sports, men have the fastest time. Seeing a woman not only beat the women’s fastest known time, but the overall known time shows how capable and strong women in sports can be.

If you want to see more of Tara’s running journey, she has a TikTok and Instagram that you can follow. Her username for both is @tara.dower.