The greatest endurance feat ever? Woman runs 3,500-km mountain trail in record time

Endurance runner Tara Dower smashed one of the toughest records in sport.

The Appalachian Trail (AT)  is the world's longest hiking-only path, at 3,535 kilometres from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia.

On Sept. 21, Dower finished running its entire distance in the fastest known time: 40 days, 18 hours and six minutes.

That is 13 hours faster than the record set in 2018 by Belgian runner Karel Sabbe. Prior to Dower's breakthrough, only 10 people had ever managed to traverse the AT in 50 days or less.

But while accolades like the greatest endurance feat ever are showered on the 31-year-old from Virginia Beach, Dower prefers to pass on the praise to her support team, which included her mother, who often had to exhort her exhausted, injured, hallucinating daughter to keep pushing just a little bit more.

"[My own effort] doesn't look that heroic, honestly. I remember some really tough days and some very messy days … it's very overwhelming to get that amount of recognition," she told CBC Sports.

Dower ran north to south, getting the highest and hardest mountains out of the way in the first 10 days. But those two weeks also included day after day of rain. A lot of stumbles and rocky landings. Dower developed brutal sores and craters on her feet. The physical agony and the overall effort led to some periods of hallucination.

WATCH | Dower explains how, why she was able to win 3,500+ km trail race:

Races that involve such long distances and times are not easy to understand, much less attempt. Dower ran more than 90 kilometres every day for nearly six weeks. That's 15 full marathons each week. In the mountains. On muddy trails.

Winning a footrace that spans 14 U.S. states demands physical excellence, but also mental strength that goes beyond the normal. Dower is no stranger to mental health challenges. Her first attempt at the AT in 2017 foundered after just 129 kms, when she suffered a panic attack.

Did the 2017 experience prepare her for this triumph?

"Out there [on the trail run], there's a lot of potential for a lot of anxious moments. I think now I feel like it's a full-circle moment. I have had a really long history with the AT."

Elite Canadian runner and high performance coach Dr. Sasha Gollish works in the Mental Health and Physical Activities Research Centre at University of Toronto. She marvels at Dower's toughness.

"It's not just the mental resolve to get up everyday to run really far, but the strength to overcome such adversity. It's the mental fatigue resistance that I think makes Tara's accomplishment so powerful," Gollish said.