Hiking the Appalachian Trail often takes 6 months. She did it in 40 days.

The first time Tara Dower set out to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, in 2017, she had a panic attack. She felt alone and overwhelmed just eight days after setting off from the trail’s southern terminus. Hyperventilating and battling migraines, Dower cut her expedition short and returned home.

“I vowed to myself,” Dower, 31, told the Washington Post. “I was like, ‘Never going to thru-hike again.’ ”

She broke that promise in spectacular fashion.

On the evening of Sept. 21, an aching Dower staggered to the plaque at Springer Mountain in northern Georgia that marks the Appalachian Trail’s southern endpoint – just 40 days after she began the trek at its northernmost point, in Maine.

The roughly 2,200-mile trail, which spans more than a dozen states, usually takes around half a year to complete. Dower covered around 50 miles a day en route to breaking the men’s and women’s records for the fastest known time of a supported run of the trail.

“It’s just like this huge full-circle moment,” Dower said. “And I wish I could look back at that Tara back in 2017 and just tell her, like: ‘It’s going to be OK. Great things are about to come.’ ”

Dower, who ran cross country in high school and played rugby in college, said she was not an experienced thru-hiker in 2017, when anxiety spoiled her first attempt at completing the Appalachian Trail. What unnerved her the most, she said, was being alone in the wilderness.

Slowly, Dower conquered her fear. She returned to the trail in 2019 and completed the trek in about five months. She wanted to undertake another thru-hike in 2020 but worried about disrupting communities along the way during the coronavirus pandemic. That led Dower to consider trail running, the grueling challenge of jogging or running on long-distance trails to complete them as quickly as possible.

She discovered that she had a talent for it. After finishing several ultramarathon races and setting a speed record for completing the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, a some 1,100-mile hike in North Carolina, Dower set her sights back on the storied route that once bested her. The record for the fastest completion of the Appalachian Trail, set by male trail runner Karel Sabbe in 2018, was 41 days.

“The goal from the very beginning was to beat the overall record,” Dower said.

How do you turn the fabled sprawl of the Appalachian Trail into a some monthlong sprint? Supported runs, the category that Dower and Sabbe competed in, permit a trail runner to receive help from an accompanying team. Dower recruited her mom and a fanatically devoted group of friends to pace her, feed her, transport her gear and keep her spirits up over the course of the run.

“Tara is our race car,” said Megan “Rascal” Wilmarth, Dower’s best friend who led the team supporting her. “We are her pit crew.”

All Dower had to do was keep up a preposterous pace of about 50 miles a day across thousands of miles of thick forest and rocky cliffsides. She started each day around 3 a.m., when Wilmarth fed her a breakfast of yogurt and oatmeal while Dower taped up her feet. She hiked for about 10 hours, meeting with her team around six times a day to change shoes and sprawl briefly on a folding chair.

While running, Dower snacked on packets of Goldfish crackers and Welch’s fruit gummies. Each day ended with a calorie-laden dinner and ice cream. When she was close enough to a road crossing, she slept in her van. Otherwise, she camped in a tent.

Rest, however, was often in short supply. Dower estimated that she slept for about five hours each day while on the trail – the only way to top the record of Sabbe, who she said was a faster runner.

“I would get to camp way later than him,” Dower said, “and I would sleep way less.”

Wilmarth and the other members of Dower’s support team faced their own challenges. While mirroring Dower’s schedule, Wilmarth tracked her progress and coordinated a rotation of other hikers to pace her. She also led a caravan of four to eight vehicles that carried Dower’s equipment, laundry and food.

But the hardest part, Wilmarth said, was watching her best friend take on such a taxing challenge.

“I knew it would be hard,” Wilmarth said. “I knew it would be scary. … This is, in my opinion, one of the hardest trails in the entire world.”

Dower initially fell behind her desired pace. As the team passed through Connecticut, Wilmarth upped Dower’s daily distance, even prescribing days where she needed to complete 60 miles.

Dower said she hiked the roughest stretches of the trail, at times, through tears. But her company and the beauty of the trail kept her going.

“A lot of people like to think this attempt was just grueling the entire time,” she said. “But I don’t think people realize that I absolutely love the Appalachian Trail and I wanted to be out there.”

Dower saved the most strenuous challenge for last. She said she completed the Appalachian Trail with a final 129-mile leg that she powered through in about 43 hours as she crossed from North Carolina into Georgia. Dower touched the plaque marking the trailhead 40 days and 18 hours after she set off from Maine, beating the previous record by more than 10 hours.

Her support team cheered her on at the end of the trail. Finally, Dower traded her protein shakes for a bottle of champagne.

“We both were bawling our eyes out,” Wilmarth said.

Dower raised around $30,000 during the trek for Girls on the Run, a nonprofit that organizes running programs for elementary-school-aged girls, she said. She added that she hopes her record-breaking run will inspire other women in the hiking community.

While Dower eventually plans to add to her list of records, she said she’s taking a break .

“Next, I have a nap,” Dower said when asked about her plans. “And ice cream.”