Long Trail FKT: How Ultrarunner Tara Dower Broke the Record

She's redefining women's ultrarunning one step at a time

🏃‍♀️‍➡️Just ask FKT Queen Tara Dower...
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🏃‍♀️‍➡️In 2024, she snagged the 2,197-mile Appalachian Trail overall Fastest Known Time (FKT) from ultrarunner Karl Sabbe, besting him by 13.5 hours.
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🥇If anyone was questioning if she could replicate that incredible effort...

• Tara gave her answer in August of 2025 on Vermont’s 272-mile Long Trail—a rugged, root-laced route known for its relentless technicality and brutal climbs. 
• ⌚She completed the route in 3 days, 18 hours, and 29 minutes, slicing nearly three hours off Will Peterson’s 2024 mark.

While the intrinsic motivation to conquer big goals drives Tara, so does her love for the trails themselves. 

• Her Long Trail FKT was about more than racing the clock, she gave back to the very trail community that makes it all possible. 
• During the effort, she fundraised for the Green Mountain Club, the stewards of the Long Trail. 

Tara Dower

“With the amount of friends and people I care about who spend so much time there, it seemed right. We were out there with sometimes three pacers at a time — that felt impactful on the land. So I hoped to give back…”

And give back she did. 

• Her contribution to the Green Mountain Club now stands at $17,000, bringing the Long Trail Day Hike-a-Thon fundraiser closer to their goal of $80,000. 
• If you’re interested in donating, click here.

• From turning the sting of Western States and Hardrock setbacks into fuel...
• To experimenting with sleep deprivation, to the crew, snacks, and gear that carried her through. 

What emerges is more than just a record attempt — it’s a story of resilience, community, and the pursuit of possibility.

Every year, Tara Dower sets her sights on a long trail — not just a casual route, but a major objective spanning hundreds of miles. In 2024, it was the Appalachian Trail.
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So by the time 2025 came around, her focus turned to Vermont’s Long Trail...

• The oldest long-distance footpath in the United States, established in 1910 by the Green Mountain Club.
• The trail runs 272 rugged miles from the Massachusetts border to Canada, winding through the heart of the Green Mountains.

After earning a coveted golden ticket at the Black Canyon 100K in Arizona back in February and stacking plenty of bricks through training...

• She was forced to withdraw from the Western States 100 just a week before the race due to illness. 
• Then in July, she watched her Hardrock 100 hopes fade as her position at the top of the waitlist never translated into a start line.

Hungry for redemption, she redirected that energy toward her annual FKT tradition.

Tara Dower

“My body was just ready to go and I was ready to go mentally, and when it didn't happen, it just felt like this, like emptiness. I need to compete. It's all in me and I need to compete… So I definitely think once I got there, after not racing at Western or Hardrock, I was ready to freaking cook. I was ready to get out there and just boogie down the trail.”

But redemption alone doesn’t fuel 272 miles.
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For Tara, success also came down to smart choices in gear and nutrition — and the flexibility to adapt when things went wrong.

Long FKTs demand more than just grit and fitness...

• They also rely heavily on making the best possible gear choices and a performance-focused, adaptable fueling plan. 
• While a lot of testing is done during training runs, there are no guarantees for how gear and fuel translate to a 3+ day nonstop effort.

For Tara, the Long Trail FKT required some problem-solving and gear swaps...

👟SHOES

• She started in the Altra Timp 5, but as the miles stretched on and her feet swelled.
• She shifted into the Altra Olympus 6, only to find them heavy and clunky on Vermont’s more technical stretches. 
• The solution? A late-breaking addition to her arsenal: the Altra Olympus 275, a lighter, more nimble version of the Olympus that hadn’t impressed her in training but ended up being the perfect match once she was in the thick of the Green Mountains.

Tara Dower

“I did the Timp for the first part… switched to the Olympus but they felt very heavy. Luckily Altra just came out with the 275s — the lighter version of the Olympus. They were perfect… At the speed I was going, they didn’t fold in on themselves like I worried. They were just perfect for the terrain and how light they were.”

• Related: Topo vs Altra Running Shoes, Altra vs Hoka Running Shoes 

⛽FUEL
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Fueling was another puzzle.

• Tara planned to hit around 80 grams of carbs per hour, a mix of sports nutrition and real food. 
• But the execution was messy, in part because she was moving so fast in the first 100 miles that she was dropping pacers.
• And sometimes, her nutrition and hydration along with them.

Over time, specifically on the Appalachian Trail...

• Tara found that her gut doesn’t do well with liquid nutrition during long efforts; the 2-day mark on the Long Trail was no different. 
• Her crew eventually swapped the SIS Beta Fuel drink mix for more agreeable fuel that would keep her forward momentum going. 
• In its place, she started using Precision Fuel and Enervit gels alongside her Precision salt caps and some homemade chicken and rice from “FKT nutrition queen”,  friend, and crew member Amy. 

Tara Dower

“With nutrition, you gotta just be ready for anything, and luckily the team was. They’re very experienced.”

If gear and fuel kept Tara’s body moving, her crew kept her spirit afloat.
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Known collectively as Team Chump Change, the group’s name harks back to her very first FKT, when her friend Rascal would encourage her to break the challenge into small pieces:

• “Just chump change.” 
• That philosophy has carried Tara through every major trail since.

Her Long Trail crew embraced the same spirit, even finding humor in being unceremoniously dropped by Tara’s blistering pace in the first 100 miles. 

Tara Dower

“They eventually named themselves the Floppers—the ones who were getting dropped… but they’d walk in from other trails, bringing food and water.”

The effort wasn’t just about efficiency, though. Team Chump Change kept Tara’s spirits high with moments of levity...

• Like the surreal encounter with a man they thought was Mad Tom, a local folklore figure.
• Dressed in muck boots and old-timey garb, he granted Tara “safe passage” and later reappeared with honey in hand, cheering her on like some apparition from Vermont folklore. 
• “It was just so fun and silly,” Tara recalled. To this day, the team has no idea who the man was. 

But even with Mad Tom granting safe passage, Tara’s battles were far from over. Sleep deprivation took hold around day 3. 
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Fortunately this wasn’t Tara’s first rodeo; she had a few tricks of the trade up her sleeve. 
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Equipped with a “Sleep Deprivation Bag”, Tara and her pacers—who had to step in with some tough love and deny Tara a few trail naps— pressed on, using...

• Smelling salts
• Caffeine pills
• Music
• And even some incredibly sour lemons

Tara Dower

“The lemons were just so sour. And you know how your tongue gets weird during ultras? This extra felt not so good.”

Yet, those items only get you so far when pushing the limits of human potential. 

• Her brain begged for rest.
• Her mood sometimes slipping into frustration and exhaustion. 

Still, she leaned on perspective:

Tara Dower

“There were moments where I was just so tired and so moody and emotional… but with that knowledge it’s just like, it will get better. It sucks really bad right now, and we don’t know how long this is going to last, but it will get better.”

Just as she leaned on her crew, Tara also sees herself as part of a bigger network of women pushing boundaries in ultrarunning.

Tara’s record on the Long Trail is more than a personal achievement...

• It’s part of a growing trend of women chasing and claiming overall FKTs. 
• Names like Heather Anderson, Jen Pharr Davis, and Courtney Dauwalter have paved the way. 
• Tara holds a bottomless reservoir of belief that she and other women in the sport haven’t even touched the ceiling yet.

Tara Dower

“I don’t think women have gotten there yet. We haven’t discovered our limits… On these larger endurance scales, we are competing with men. The difference is, there aren’t as many women going for it — but the women who are going for it are doing it.”

Tara Dower

“I can’t wait for the time that a woman says, ‘I was inspired by Tara during her FKTs to go after this overall record.’ That’s what we need — women constantly encouraging each other. I just want to be a little rung in that cycle.”

As for what’s next? Tara won’t be slowing down. The Mammoth 200-miler is already on her calendar, along with more premier routes for her 2026 FKT.
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But her message resonates beyond the specifics of routes and races:

Tara Dower

“I think we’re afraid of failure, afraid of putting everything into something and it not working out. My answer is: you never know if you don’t try. You might surprise yourself. At the very least, it’s an adventure and a worthwhile experience.”

For Tara, chasing FKTs isn’t just about records...
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It’s about proving what’s possible, for herself and for the runners coming next. We can’t wait to see where her journey takes her.

Would you ever take on a through-hike or test yourself with a multi-day effort like Tara Dower? 
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What big goals are you chasing right now — on the roads, trails, or beyond? 
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Share your story in the comments and join the conversation!