Tara Dower, full with scabs on the palms of her palms and googly eyes on her hat. All images: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
8 a.m., Horse Gulch Trailhead, Durango, Colorado
Tara Dower drives into the Durango, Colorado, trailhead a couple of minutes after 8 a.m. on a sunny spring morning. She provides us a heat wave as she eases her SUV into the small parking zone.
The trailhead bustles with mountain bikers, hikers, and runners. Not lengthy earlier than Tara arrived, we watched two girls end a path run, one sporting the now-famous “Right here for the Girls’s Race” t-shirt. The shirt is being bought to assist elevate funds for a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting girls’s presence in path working. It’s an applicable message to obtain forward of assembly up with one of the ascendant girls in path working.
Whereas the 31-year-old Altra athlete is probably finest recognized for setting the total quickest recognized time (FKT) on the two,197-mile Appalachian Path in 40 days and 18 hours final fall, she has loads of different accolades to her title in simply the previous 12 months. These embrace a win on the 2025 Lake Sonoma 50 Mile, second place on the 2025 Black Canyon 100k the place she earned a Western States 100 Golden Ticket, and fourth place on the 2024 Hardrock 100. And if we go a few years again, we discover different lengthy path FKTs and many extra high ultramarathon performances.
It’s the Thursday after the U.S.’s Memorial Day weekend, and Tara’s simply returned from the Western States 100 Coaching Camp, the place she spent three days working on the California course in preparation for the massive dance in a month. Tara’s anticipated to contend for the win, and we’re right here to shadow a day of her peak coaching in addition to to be taught concerning the particular person behind all these performances.
First on her agenda for the morning is an eight-mile simple run, ending with eight 30-second uphill strides. We chat as she loosens up with a sequence of leg swings, hamstring stretches, knee lifts, and different actions typical of a trailhead warmup.
Tara warming up on the Horse Gulch Trailhead in Durango, Colorado.
She laughs as she recounts a narrative from the coaching camp, the place she skipped stopping at an iconic spot to hang around with race supporters as a result of she couldn’t resist going into race mode with one other participant for the ultimate miles of the ultimate day. And he or she doesn’t appear significantly sheepish to confess that she ran sooner final weekend than her working coach Megan Roche suggested, “All the pieces’s an A race. Ultrarunners don’t have a central governor that stops them from hurting themselves.” As if to punctuate these phrases, she’s embellished with a giant, unmistakable case of path rash, pores and skin freshly scabbed over on the palms of her palms, elbow, and knee from a few run-ins with the bottom at coaching camp.
For all of the drive she clearly possesses, an interior levity can also be equally evident as she begins her run up the path. Along with a fireplace engine pink Altra shirt and a dusty pair of excessive cushion Altra Olympus 6, which she says are good footwear for a simple run, she’s additionally sporting her well-worn, trademark hat with googly eyes. The googly eyes have been glued on a number of occasions over the hat’s lifetime, and Tara has beforehand defined to iRunFar that she wears the hat backward at evening when path working to assist beat back mountain lions. Bouncing on her wrists and neck are a minimum of a dozen home made bracelets and necklaces of many colours and varieties. One spells out Sweet Mama, her path title on the lengthy trails, betraying her love of sweets.
Tara’s path title is Sweet Mama, as seen on considered one of her bracelets.
She’s again about 75 minutes later, simply jogging into the trailhead among the many mountain bikers and canine within the mid-morning solar. She pauses simply lengthy sufficient to drop her hydration vest on a bench earlier than turning again up the path for these 30-second hill strides. Driving her knees up and elbows again, she provides every stride a very good effort, her face crinkling into the laborious work. When she stops, she places her palms to her head to open her chest and gradual her heavy respiratory. Her knees buckle gently for the primary few steps again downhill, muscle groups momentarily occupied with recovering from the hassle.
A tattoo on her proper leg flashes from solar to shade with every stride. It reads “Undergo Effectively” and has barbed wire forming a coronary heart round her knee. “That is my Hardrock 100 tattoo,” she’ll clarify afterward. “An indication in Ouray [a small village through which the event passes] mentioned ‘Undergo Effectively, Mates,’ and I tailored it.” Lest anybody interpret Tara’s tattoos as solely symbolic, she’ll later chortle when pointing to a scab on the identical knee and say, “I fall on a regular basis. I’m hoping in the future, I’ll have blood dripping proper from the barbed wire.” The tattoo is each actually and figuratively piercing, although, so we will’t assist however marvel how emblematic it’s of her character.
Tara’s “Undergo Effectively” tattoo is a distinguished illustration of her 2024 Hardrock 100 run — and maybe a message on how you can stay life.
10:30 a.m., The Vault
We meet Tara on the entrance of The Vault, an area purposeful health fitness center. She’s modified out of the Altra Olympus 6 and into the Solstice XT 3, the model’s fitness center shoe.
The Vault is frequented by a number of different high runners within the space, together with Robyn Lesh, a very good buddy of Tara’s who’s simply completed her personal run and arrived for a exercise.
Tara and buddy Robyn Lesh work by a mobility train collectively at The Vault, a purposeful health fitness center in Durango, Colorado.
Tara and Robyn good-naturedly debate the deserves of every of the exercise rooms that we move whereas strolling down a hallway within the Durango Health Membership the place The Vault is situated. One receives bonus factors for being darker and thus extra atmospheric, one other is averted as a result of they thought it had a bizarre odor. We’re joined by The Vault proprietor, Donnis Dolso, within the giant, high-ceilinged room with partitions coated by mirrors. One facet of the room is open, permitting a great deal of house for athletes to creatively train, whereas the opposite facet’s received a number of energy racks, train benches, plyometrics containers, free weights, and different fitness center gear. It possibly provides the vibe of seriousness, however Tara and Robyn deliver fast shade to the setting, as does the regular stream of ’90s dance music enjoying from a big Bluetooth speaker.
The pair begins a sequence mobility workouts prescribed by Tara’s energy coach, Kameron More durable. Donnis stands by providing type ideas, clearly invested within the duo. Throughout the workouts, together with squats and band work, each Tara and Robyn look targeted on the duty at hand, however throughout breaks, they chortle and giggle. Right here to do a job, they’ll nonetheless have a very good time whereas doing it.
A toughness shines by in all that Tara does.
Quickly, Robyn heads off into one other room to do her personal exercise whereas Tara dives deep into hers. Right this moment, her energy exercise contains Bulgarian cut up squats, planks with leg lifts, lateral band walks, vertical jumps, and velocity skater leaps. It takes possibly half-hour for her to make her manner by the train sequence. She executes the whole lot to a T, watching YouTube video demonstrations of the much less acquainted workouts. Like through the hill strides a couple of hours in the past, she’s unafraid of occupying her primal facet to grunt her manner by a couple of of the harder last repetitions.
Throughout units within the fitness center, Tara has laser focus.
She is simply so plainly sturdy, each in physique and in thoughts, so we ask her how she received that manner. “Folks inform me I’m robust, and it’s simply who I’m. It’s not like I’m making an attempt to be robust,” she begins. As she rests between workouts, she explains that her toughness origin story could also be together with her brother, Derek Komlo, a U.S. Military Drill Sergeant, who, in response to Tara, “simply anticipated me to be robust.” She additionally says that energy was a attribute of her entire household unit. “We liked one another, and we confirmed care in numerous methods, however you needed to be robust.”
However realistically, one can solely take Tara so severely with the glued-on eyes of her ball cap googling round or when she and Robyn dance their manner by lateral band walks to the beat of some ’90s music.
Tara chatting between workouts at The Vault throughout her energy exercise.
Midday, a Sunny Picnic Desk
With two exercises carried out and dusted by excessive midday, Tara has a couple of hours of restoration earlier than her last exercise of the day, a 30-minute incline treadmill run in a warmth swimsuit to arrange for each the hills and excessive temperatures on the Western States 100. We sit at a picnic desk outdoors the fitness center for an interview. Half the desk lies within the shade of a tree, whereas the opposite half is uncovered to the now-hot solar. Tara chooses to take a seat within the solar and quips, “All the pieces is warmth coaching.”
With a microphone in entrance of her, she momentarily assumes the persona of knowledgeable athlete sitting down with the media for an interview. But it surely’s not lengthy till she loosens into open dialog, animating her tales with expressive eyes, frequent laughter, and her palms — at all times her palms.
It’s thus unattainable to not discover a tattoo of the Appalachian Path emblem on the center finger of her left hand, assuming the place of a hoop. She laughs and she or he says that she’s married to the path, which isn’t that removed from actuality, provided that her relationship with it stretches again to 2017 when she unsuccessfully tried a thru-hike of it, having to cease after solely 80 miles due to a panic assault. She says the try was her entire identification on the time, and that the failure grew to become a precious studying expertise in not being afraid to typically come up quick whereas making an attempt laborious.
Tara’s Appalachian Path tattoo represents her relationship with the path.
After all, everyone knows what occurred later: She not solely accomplished the thru-hike in 2019 however she set the FKT in 2024. That FKT efficiency, which was higher than everybody earlier than her, together with all of the ladies and men, produced a stratospheric degree of curiosity by the media. It’s doubtless that if you’re a sports activities fan of any form in America, your favourite information supply coated Tara’s accomplishment final 12 months. It’s in all probability protected to say that this path has thus been with Tara by a few of her highest highs and lowest lows.
Tara waxes keen about her gutsy run to take second on the Black Canyon 100k earlier this 12 months, the place she secured a golden ticket to run the Western States 100 solely six months after her Appalachian Path FKT, and the place some people questioned if Tara would be capable of run quick once more following that all-day, every-day, for-40-days effort. When requested about that turnaround, she defends an experimental method to endurance working, “We’ve simply been following the identical scripts for years [in sports]. And folks, due to their private expertise, put limits on others.” She goes on to say, “My entire extremely profession has simply been like, you don’t know when you don’t strive.”
Tara recovers after a hill stride throughout her morning run.
We discuss Blind Jerry, a stray canine with no eyesight who wandered his manner into Tara’s household’s hearts in 2014, accompanied Tara by most of her twenties, was at all times curious and playful regardless of his challenges, and misplaced a quick battle with most cancers in February of 2024. He’s now commemorated by one other tattoo on Tara’s arm. “Oh, Blind Jerry,” she says, her voice stuffed with emotion whereas she touches a scabbed hand to the tattoo. “I held him in my arms when he handed. It was proper after that 12 months’s Black Canyon 100k,” the place Tara completed eighth in what she had beforehand described as a tough race throughout a tough interval of her life. We are able to see — and really feel — that Tara fairly actually wears a part of her coronary heart on her sleeve for expensive Blind Jerry.
She displays on her growing curiosity within the Western States 100, which advanced whereas attending the race for the primary time final 12 months, to tempo Careth Arnold. She admits she didn’t perceive the hype across the occasion till she skilled it herself. “There are stunning locations on the path, clearly, however the course isn’t essentially the most stunning.” She was drawn as an alternative by the individuals and the occasion’s historical past: “I wished to go there for the neighborhood, and to check out the place I stand on this iconic race. So many individuals have carried out it earlier than me, Ann Trason and Courtney Dauwalter. I imply, everyone has carried out it, so it’s like, ‘Let’s see the place we degree up.’”
We discuss Tara’s comparatively latest transfer to Durango from Virginia, which she continues to be completely fired up about. Located at an elevation of 6,500 ft in Southwest Colorado and nestled on the base of the San Juan and La Plata Mountains, Durango has lengthy been a hub for endurance athletes. Of late, nonetheless, there’s a specific progress of the path working neighborhood, particularly girls. Rely Tara amongst this new progress, she having settled right here within the final 12 months. She selected Durango as a result of a few shut pals, together with her finest buddy Reese Barkley, stay right here. After which it wasn’t lengthy till she was coaching on the paths and at The Vault with extra pals like Robyn, Maggie Guterl, Sarah Ostaszewski, and Altra teammate Kyle Curtin. We additionally hear concerning the steadiness of her skilled group, which incorporates her supervisor, Kelly Newlon, and nutritionist, Vic Johnson, along with her beforehand mentioned run and energy coaches.
About her transfer to Durango, her pals, and the professionals she’s chosen to work with, she says, whereas making deep, unblinking eye contact, “I’m working actually laborious to encompass myself with good individuals who care about me.” On this second, extra is communicated in emotions than in phrases — messages about abandoning heartbreak, about studying to advocate for oneself, and possibly, presumably, about how typically will probably be the darkest earlier than the daybreak.
Tara placing within the work throughout her morning hill strides.
After half an hour or so, we wrap up the interview. Tara says she’ll head dwelling, cook dinner lunch, do some life admin, and edit movies for her YouTube channel till it’s time for that last exercise. She says she’ll do all that with out hardly sitting down. “I’m a doer, not a sitter. I can’t sit,” she says.
We’re lucky that she has chosen to take a seat with us, as a result of with these phrases, all of it begins to make sense. It wasn’t greater than two minutes in the past that she confirmed us one of many two matching tattoos she has of wings on the outsides of her ft. Wings connected to ft have lengthy been a logo of runners, and Tara says that’s why she has these. Her first tattoos, which she received straight out of faculty, had been very merely impressed by seeing wings tattooed on the ft of one other runner.
This image is believed to attach again to the Greek god Hermes, who was typically depicted as a messenger with wings on his sandals and who was additionally at all times in movement. In Greek mythology, Hermes moved swiftly amongst all of the worlds — of the gods, mortals, and those that’ve handed — and was in a position to talk in particular methods with everybody to ship essential messages. As Tara climbs into her SUV, she provides us a giant wave and a parting smile. We wave again, questioning, does Tara supply a message to us all?
Wings on her ft, becoming for an individual who doesn’t sit nonetheless.
Tara is experiencing a very meteoric rise in her skilled working profession. We now have discovered in the present day that a part of it is a results of enhancing on each facet of her life. However we additionally marvel, can her success even be attributed to the best way she seemingly embodies traits on reverse sides of the spectrum: seriousness with playfulness, following a coaching plan whereas nonetheless working laborious on unplanned events for the sheer pleasure of it, studying from failure as a lot as success, a willingness to comply with a vitamin plan whereas nonetheless loving sweets, being fiercely unbiased whereas nonetheless counting on neighborhood, and embracing the darkish whereas selecting to stay within the mild. Whereas so many attempt to discover steadiness, Tara thrives among the many extremes to create a life uniquely her personal.
In a world the place it’s simpler to comply with scripts, Tara Dower has tossed her traces within the bin and set off on her personal journey, as a result of as she says, “It doesn’t make sense to me why you wouldn’t simply strive.”
[Editor’s Note: This article is sponsored by Altra. Thank you to Altra for its sponsorship of iRunFar, which helps to make iRunFar happen and free for all to enjoy. Learn more about our sponsored articles.]
Tara Dower working amongst the solar and shadows — the sunshine and darkish — in Durango, Colorado.
