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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.

By: Siri David

Volleyball Day in Nebraska took place August 30, 2023. This was a historic day for Nebraska volleyball and female sports overall. Nebraska volleyball broke a world record this night. They broke the record of the most people to watch a female sport in person. There were a total of 92,003 people in the Memorial Stadium which is their football stadium.

The idea for this was created by the head coach of the Nebraska volleyball team John Cook. The goal was to beat the record Wisconsin had just created a few weeks before. The issue was there was no indoor stadium that could hold that many people, so they decided to do it outdoors in the Nebraska football stadium. The stadium can technically only hold 85,458 but has exceeded that number many times before. A lot of the administrators at University of Nebraska thought that this might not be successful but they were definitely proved wrong. The night tickets went on sale; they sold out in the first hour. Everyone was shocked by how fast they sold out.

The day of the game, the Nebraska volleyball team did a meet and greet with a ton of Husker fans. The goal of this meet and greet was to show the love the Nebraska volleyball team has for their community and the love the community has for them. The meet and greet was truly so special, so many young fans got to meet their idols in volleyball and it was amazing to see.

The game was against Omaha, and the University of Nebraska won in three sets. It was a beautiful night, not a cloud in the sky. Once the second set ended they found out the attendance number, and how they broke the record. All the players were trying to stay locked in for the game but could not contain their excitement. A lot of tears were shed by coaches, players, and fans. It was truly an amazing thing to hear and learn about as a younger volleyball player. Nebraska is the volleyball capital of the world and it truly is such an amazing atmosphere.