Train High, Run Easy: How Tara Dower Took On the Toughest Double in Ultrarunning
October 08, 2026 | By Stan Pillman
There is a short list of people who have run the entire Appalachian Trail faster than every human who came before them. Tara Dower is at the top of it.
In 2024, she covered all 2,190-some miles of the AT in just under 41 days and took the overall supported fastest known time, the fastest anyone has ever done it, man or woman. She was the first woman to hold that outright mark since Jennifer Pharr Davis back in 2011. If you know the trail, you know what that means. If you do not, picture running more than two marathons a day, over roots and rocks and mountains, for almost six weeks straight.
So when Tara tried altitude training for the very first time this year, we paid attention. Here is how it went.
Tara Dower at a glance
- Appalachian Trail: overall supported FKT, 40 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes (2024)
- 2026 Western States 100: 6th woman, 16:13:07
- 2026 Hardrock 100: 3rd woman, 33:02:04, just 13 days later
- Altitude method: run high, rest low, using a hypoxic mask on an inclined treadmill at home
- Next up: Western States again, then a Pacific Crest Trail FKT attempt
She already owns the most famous trail in America
Tara grew up in Wake Forest, North Carolina, which gave us something to talk about right away, since I am down the road in Greensboro. These days she lives and trains up at altitude in Durango, Colorado. Her trail name is Candy Mama. Her record shelf is ridiculous: the Appalachian Trail, the Colorado Trail, Mountains-to-Sea, a stack of hundred-mile wins. And she uses a lot of those runs to raise money for Girls on the Run, which tells you most of what you need to know about her.
The thing that struck me talking to her is how little of it is about ego. She is one of the best endurance athletes on the planet, and she mostly wanted to talk about how much she loves being a fan of the sport.
Then she signed up for the hardest two-for-one in the sport
This summer Tara ran "the double." Western States and Hardrock, back to back, thirteen days apart. She podiumed at Hardrock.
If you are not an ultra person, here is why that is nuts. These two races ask opposite things from your body. Western States is fast and mostly low and hot, closer to a track meet with a furnace attached. Hardrock is brutal altitude and endless vertical, averaging over 11,000 feet and topping out above 14,000 on Handies Peak. Training for one almost un-trains you for the other. Then you stack them two weeks apart and see what is left. (We broke down this year's race in The 2026 Hardrock 100: Records Fall in the San Juans.)
Tara went in clear-eyed about it. "I just enjoy a challenge," she told me. She had watched Courtney Dauwalter pull off the same double and wanted to see if she could thread it too. She did, and she came out the other side with a new appreciation for how hard it is. Ask her if she would do it again, and she is honest: not soon, and if she did, she would pick a year where the races were three weeks apart instead of two. "That extra week of recovery really makes a difference."
Here is the part where the altitude nerds lean in
This was the first time Tara had ever trained with any of our gear. She had thought about buying a tent a few years back with some prize money, then bought a treadmill instead. This year she finally put the two ideas together.
And her setup is the fun twist. Most people picture altitude training as sleeping in a tent. Tara does the opposite, because she already lives high. Her rule is run high, rest low. Sleep quality matters too much for recovery to mess with it, so she trains hard in thin air and lets her body actually rest at night.
What that looked like: the mask on, up on the treadmill at a 15 percent incline, thirty-minute uphill grinds. The mask looks a little like Bane from Batman, and it is about that forgiving. She started her sessions at 9,000 feet and crept the setting up week by week until she was running uphill at 12,000 and 13,000 feet, in her house, going nowhere, which has to be the least scenic way imaginable to prepare for some of the most scenic trails on earth.
Want to see what those settings mean in oxygen terms? Our altitude-to-oxygen chart shows exactly how thin the air gets at 9,000 versus 13,000 feet, and our guide to exercising at altitude covers how sessions like Tara's are built.
(Photos By Emily Cameron)
The payoff showed up where she least expected it
Here is what I love about her answer. She set all this up mainly for Hardrock, the high race. But she felt the benefit most at Western States, the low one.
It makes sense once she explains it. Western States still has something like 18,000 feet of climbing in it, and after weeks of running uphill at 13,000 feet on that treadmill, everything lower felt easy. "Anything under that is going to be easier," she said. By the time she was deep in the canyons at a few thousand feet, her lungs had already lived somewhere much harder.
"Your body already has that altitude context inside of it."
— Tara Dower
That is the whole thing in eight words. You are not hoping to adapt on race day. You already did the adapting, on purpose, before you ever pinned on a bib. (If you are planning your own summer ultra, here is the altitude training protocol elite ultrarunners use to peak.)
She lights up about altitude in general. "I love that feeling of going down to zero feet and being able to run so fast," she said. "I ran my fastest 5K in Phoenix. Altitude is an insane thing." You feel it, and then you realize your body has seen worse.
None of this is really about the medals
The part of the conversation I keep thinking about had nothing to do with times or podiums.
Tara uses her big runs to pull eyes toward causes she cares about, and she wants other people to do the same. Her pitch is refreshingly down to earth. Most people cannot picture running a hundred miles. But they can watch someone they know do it, and they can chip in for a good cause while they are at it. "If you can do some good while you are doing something like an ultramarathon," she said, "that makes it even better."
That is the same thing we hear from the athletes we are proudest to work with. The running is the hook. The point is somewhere past the finish line.
So what do you do after you have run almost everything?
You find a bigger trail.
Next up for Tara is a return to Western States, and then the big one: she is going after the fastest known time on the Pacific Crest Trail. That route swallows the John Muir Trail whole, which means climbing to 14,000 feet on Mount Whitney and running long stretches up around 10,000. In other words, exactly the kind of thin-air objective she has now figured out how to prepare for from home.
We will be cheering, and we will be helping however she needs.
I have interviewed a lot of endurance athletes for us now, and they share a certain quiet. They do these unimaginable things and then talk about them like they borrowed your lawnmower. Tara is right in that tradition. Fastest human ever on the Appalachian Trail, one of the hardest doubles in the sport in the bag, and mostly what she wanted me to know is that she loves the sport and loves being a fan of it.
Same, Tara. Same.
Follow Tara Dower's next chapter on the Pacific Crest Trail at Tara Treks, and if you want to do a little good with your own miles, check out Girls on the Run.
Curious what training high at home would look like for you? Explore Hypoxico altitude generators or try one first with an altitude system rental.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Western States–Hardrock double?
It means running the Western States 100 and the Hardrock 100 in the same summer, usually about two weeks apart. Western States is fast, hot, and mostly lower elevation, while Hardrock averages over 11,000 feet with roughly 33,000 feet of climbing, so the two races demand very different preparation.
How did Tara Dower use altitude training?
She used a "run high, rest low" approach: 30-minute uphill treadmill sessions at a 15 percent incline while breathing hypoxic air through a mask, starting at a simulated 9,000 feet and progressing to 12,000–13,000 feet. She did not sleep at simulated altitude, to protect sleep quality and recovery.
Does altitude training help at low-elevation races?
For Tara, yes. She set up her training for Hardrock but felt the biggest benefit at Western States, where climbs at a few thousand feet felt easier after weeks of hard efforts at a simulated 13,000 feet.
What is Tara Dower's Appalachian Trail record?
In September 2024, she set the overall supported fastest known time on the Appalachian Trail in 40 days, 18 hours, and 6 minutes, faster than any man or woman before her.
Stan Pillman is a content writer for Anley Media. He has been writing for nearly 30 years and is a former Hypoxico employee who still uses his Everest Summit II 3-4 times a week, which is how a hockey goalie his age keeps slamming the door on shooters half his age.
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