Just before dawn on Tuesday, Tara Dower reached the southern end of Vermont’s Long Trail, stopping the clock at 3 days, 18 hours, and 29 minutes.
That time, pending official verification, makes her the fastest person ever to complete the rugged 272-mile route with crew support, besting the men’s record by more than two and a half hours and demolishing the previous women’s mark by over a day.
Dower, a Virginia-based ultrarunner who already holds the overall supported FKT on the Appalachian Trail, now becomes the first woman to claim the fastest supported time on both trails.
Her run began Friday morning at the Canadian border and took her southbound along the spine of the Green Mountains, with more than 68,000 feet of climbing along the way.
The Long Trail, built between 1910 and 1930, is the oldest long-distance trail in the U.S. and overlaps the final 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail. It’s notorious for slow going, with rocky, rooty, and often wet terrain, and few runners have managed to sustain a high pace for long.
But Dower went out hard, covering nearly 80 miles in her first 24 hours and passing the 200-mile mark by the third morning. After one last short sleep break Monday afternoon, she pushed through the final night to reach the Massachusetts border in the early hours of Tuesday.
She finished more than 2 hours ahead of the previous overall record set by Will Petersen in 2024 (3 days, 21 hours, 9 minutes) and nearly 32 hours ahead of the women’s record set by Alyssa Godesky in 2018 (5 days, 2 hours, 37 minutes).
Dower, who goes by the trail name “Candy Mama”, is no stranger to long hauls. In 2024, she set the overall supported FKT on the 2,197-mile Appalachian Trail, and she previously held the women’s supported FKT on the Colorado Trail.
In recent years, she’s also set records on the Mountains to Sea Trail and the Benton MacKaye Trail, often with the same tight-knit crew. This attempt was supported by longtime crew chief Megan Wilmarth (“Rascal”) and a rotating cast of local pacers and photographers.
The Long Trail wasn’t originally part of her racing calendar.
After a strong early-season podium at the Black Canyon Ultras 100K in Arizona, Dower was forced to pull out of the Western States 100 with illness and missed out on Hardrock 100 after sitting at the top of the waitlist. Instead of writing off the season, she pivoted, bringing her fitness, frustration, and usual fire to Vermont.
She also used the run to raise money for the Green Mountain Club, which maintains the trail. Her initial goal was $10,000, which she surpassed before she even finished running.
Dower’s Long Trail record continues a broader trend in ultrarunning, with women not only setting records on women’s leaderboards but frequently eclipsing top men’s times as well.
While Dower’s attempt didn’t come with prize money or a live stream, it was, by all accounts, one of the most dominant performances on a U.S. trail this year.
