Tag Archives: running

Getting To Know/History, Sports

Tara Dower

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By: Kara Fini

Appalachian Trail sign

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.

Events, Local

Turkey Trot

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By: Kara Fini

For many families the Turkey Trot is an annual Thanksgiving tradition. Usually held on Thanksgiving morning, people of all ages and running ability participate in local fun runs held all over the United States. The races differ in lengths, but the most common length today is a 5k.

The Turkey Trot originated in Buffalo, NY back in 1896. Only 6 people ran, all men, and they ran five miles in downtown Buffalo. Only 4 of them finished after one dropped out in the first two miles and the other couldn’t keep down Thanksgiving breakfast. They continued to hold this race as it gained more and more popularity over the next couple years. They thought it was a way to burn off calories before eating a bunch for Thanksgiving.

Every year since then, the Turkey Trot in Buffalo has been held. It reached cities like New Orleans in 1907, and Cincinnati in 1909. Even with the quick growth of the race, it wasn’t until 1972 that a woman raced the Buffalo Turkey Trot.

Now the Turkey Trot is a family fun run in many local neighborhoods and towns. From toddlers and babies in strollers to grandmas and grandpas, there are nearly 1 million people in the United States who run this fun run every year.

If you want to participate in the future, Highland Park hosts their own Turkey Trot that is 5k long. It costs around $35 for adults and $15 for kids under 17 to participate. The route starts and ends on the north side of Highland Catholic School. It goes south on Cleveland road and then turns to the west where you will run on River Road. Then you follow Highland Parkway back up to the start. Afterwards you are able to stop at Tiffany’s, a local restaurant, and have a free breakfast for participating.

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Getting To Know/History

The story of Gobi

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By: Kara Fini

The story of Gobi is a story of a dog who ran 77 miles of an ultra marathon in the Gobi Desert of north-central China back in 2015. She is a small female chihuahua who ran with the runner Dion Leonard. Dion Leonard is from Edinburgh, Scotland and traveled to China to race one of the toughest races in his life.

On day two of Dion’s race a little stray dog started to follow him and run alongside him. It annoyed him at first, but his attitude changed on day three. Right before he was about to take the lead, there was a huge water crossing he had to wade through. He started going through the water, but heard whimpering behind him, so doing something he had never done before, he turned back and carried the dog across. After that day his main priority changed from winning the race, to protecting and running with Gobi.

When the race ended, Dion asked to see if anyone was her owner, but when no one claimed her he decided he wanted to take her home to Scotland. Because of policies that stopped Dion from just taking her, he went back to Scotland and left Gobi with a local family who offered to take her.

After a few weeks apart Dion got heartbreaking news that Gobi went missing. Dion was heartbroken, and decided to fly to China to start a rescue team to try and find her. They set up posters and searched everywhere. By this time, the story of Gobi and Dion had gone viral in this area so many people were wanting to try and help find Gobi.

Dion wasn’t convinced that Gobi had just escaped and thought that someone would take her because of how viral she had become. He started to lose hope when someone claimed to have found her, but it was the wrong dog.

Then one day, a person on Dion’s search team came up to him and showed him a picture of a dog that people had sent to him thinking it was Gobi. Dion glanced at it, but was not convinced that this was Gobi. He decided to go and meet with them anyway. They got there and as soon as the dog saw Dion it came sprinting towards him. It leaped into his arms and Dion knew that it was Gobi.

They spent a couple months living in Beijing while Gobi was waiting for the necessary paperwork, so she could go to Scotland with Dion.

She now lives there full time with Dion and his wife. She is retired from running, but they travel the world to inspire others to run.

If you want to hear more about Gobi’s story, Dion wrote a memoir called ‘Finding Gobi’ where he talks about his whole experience in running with Gobi and the journey to take her back to Scotland.