Tara Dower | Appalachian Trail FKT Holder

The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman

Dylan Bowman

Ultrarunning, Training, Wellness, Endurance, Health, Running, Commentary, Trailrunning, Sports, Run

5 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2024

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tara Dower is a trail runner and thru-hiker from Virginia. Last week, Tara Dower managed to lower the overall Fastest Known Time on the Appalachian Trail (AT), previously held by the legend Karel Sabbe, by 13hrs. This is her first appearance on the podcast.

Topics discussed:

- Tara’s background

- Her failed attempt to thru hike the AT in 2017 and her struggles with anxiety

- Her relationships with former record holders like Karl Meltzer & Jenn Pharr-Davis

- Her decision to go southbound instead of northbound

- Doing Hardrock only three weeks before the attempt

- Her slow start and need to make up a lot of time

- We talk about her crew known as chump change and her crew chief Rascal

- The saying that “the trail provides” and what that means practically

- Compare and contrast her strategy with Karrel Sabbe’s

- The character of the trail itself, what makes the AT different

- We talk about the practical tactics of sleep and self care

- A lot more!

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Sponsors:

Use code freetrail10 for 10% off Speedland Footwear
Grab a trail running pack from Osprey
Use code FT15 for 15% off Gnarly Nutrition
Go to ketone.com/freetrail30 for 30% off a subscription of Ketone IQ

Dylan Links: Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | Strava

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, fam, welcome to the free trail podcast. Of course, I'm your host, Dylan Bowman, here today with the Queen of the Appalachian Trail,
0:22.0	the new fastest known timeholder on the AT. Tara Dower is here for her first appearance.
0:28.4	Tara is a very interesting person, a tough and talented athletes, and now the fastest person ever
0:35.0	to cover the 2,200 miles between Maine and Georgia, eclipsing the great
0:40.1	Carl Sabe's mark from 2018 by a whole 13 hours.
0:45.3	What a story it is.
0:46.7	What a performance it was.
0:48.5	Tara has been making her mark on the sport for a few years.
0:51.8	Several impressive performances in traditional races, along with multi-day
0:56.0	FKTs, including on iconic routes like the Colorado Trail. I've been following Tara for a few
1:01.9	years now, and I'm honored that she would come on the show, some topics we discuss. Of course,
1:07.6	Tara's background. We talk about her failed attempt to through hike the AT in 2017 and her
1:13.3	struggles with anxiety. We talk about her relationships with former AT record holders, Carl Meltzer and
1:18.7	Jen Fart Davis. We talk about her decision to go southbound instead of northbound. We talk about
1:23.9	doing hard rock only three weeks before the FKT attempt.
1:28.1	We talk about her painfully slow start and the need to make up time in the second half.
1:33.7	We talked about her crew known as jump change and her crew chief, Rascal.
1:38.4	We talk about the saying and the philosophy in the through hiking community that the trail provides and what
1:45.5	that means practically.
1:47.3	We compare and contrast her strategy with Carl Sabaes.
1:51.3	We talk about the character of the trail itself.
1:53.7	What makes the AT different?
	...

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