Earlier than daybreak on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, Tara Dower reached the southern terminus of the 272-mile Lengthy Path on the Vermont-Massachusetts border, setting a brand new general supported quickest recognized time (FKT) on the route with a time of three days, 18 hours, and 29 minutes.
This bests the earlier general supported FKT, set by Will Peterson in 2024 at 3 days, 21 hours, and 9 minutes, by 2 hours and 40 minutes. Alyssa Godesky held the prior girls’s supported report with a time of 5 days, 2 hours, and 37 minutes.
Tara Dower cheered on by followers throughout her 272-mile run alongside Vermont’s Lengthy Path. Photograph: Pete Schreiner
Dower accomplished the path southbound, beginning on the Canadian border close to North Troy, Vermont, at 10 a.m. on Friday, August 15, 2025. The path carefully follows the primary ridge of the Inexperienced Mountains, overlaying some 68,000 toes of elevation achieve. Constructed between 1910 and 1930, it’s thought-about the oldest lengthy path within the U.S. and is credited with offering inspiration for the development of the Appalachian Path (AT). In reality, the Lengthy Path shares the ultimate 100 miles with the AT, which, after all, Dower is intimately aware of, having set an general supported FKT on the two,197-mile path in 2024.
This Lengthy Path FKT comes after a little bit of a irritating summer time for Dower, who was on a steep upward trajectory within the ultrarunning world when she acquired sick the week earlier than the 2025 Western States 100 and finally needed to drop from the race. She then languished as the primary particular person on the waitlist for the Hardrock 100 and finally didn’t achieve a last-minute entry.
As a substitute of dropping out on the season, she turned all that health and motivation round into an extremely quick time on the Lengthy Path.
The Lengthy Path maintains a repute for being rocky, tough, and sluggish, however Dower began off quick, overlaying almost 80 miles within the first 24 hours. She was about 140 miles in with 48 hours on the clock, and had coated about 200 miles when the clock ticked over on three days elapsed, on Monday morning, August 18. As Monday afternoon rolled round, she took yet one more fast sleep earlier than beginning the ultimate 37 miles to the end through the in a single day hours of Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
After 3 days, 18 hours, and 29 minutes, Tara Dower units a brand new general supported FKT on the Lengthy Path. Photograph: Pete Schreiner
Historical past with Lengthy Distance Trails
Dower, who places collectively a carefully knit crew for these kind of efforts, was supported by her crew chief, Megan Wilmarth, a.ok.a. Rascal, who served in the identical position throughout her AT FKT, in addition to photographers and videographers Pete Schreiner and Emily Cameron. The core crew was assisted by a number of pacers, lots of them native to the realm, and it seems that Dower was accompanied by many runners within the space, all excited to come back out to assist the monumental effort.
The Lengthy Path is maybe the shortest FKT effort Dower, who goes by the path title Sweet Mama as a nod to her love of sweets, has undertaken. Along with the AT, after which she mentioned her efforts with iRunFar in an in-depth interview, Dower additionally briefly held the ladies’s supported FKT on the 486-mile Colorado Path in 2023. In 2020, Dower set the ladies’s supported FKT on the 1,175-mile Mountains to Sea Path, which travels from Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park, Tennessee, to Nags Head, North Carolina, and went on to set the ladies’s supported FKT in 2022 on the 288-mile Benton MacKaye Path, which travels from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Large Creek in Nice Smoky Mountains Nationwide Park in Tennessee.
Operating for a Trigger
As with the AT, when she fundraised for Women on the Run, Dower additionally used her Lengthy Path effort to lift cash, this time for the Inexperienced Mountain Membership, the group that maintains the Lengthy Path and publishes guidebooks and different assets for the path. She’s already exceeded her aim of elevating $10,001, and you may add to that by donating right here.
