Is sue norwoods speed record the fastest womens speed record on the AT?
ADAM BRADLEY
Re female at speed record
system
#2
I’m faster than you. Watch me break the record. I won’t notice anything but the speedometer, but who cares?
Sam Speedo
system
#3
These speed demons march right past some of the best views mother nature ever made…I don’t get it…
1n the Sun
system
#4
I read Sues account of her trip and it seemed like she had a wonderful time at 148 days. I wouldn’t really consider that a speed demon and who am I to judge anothers trip? The question was is her record still the womens speed record?
ADAM BRADLEY
system
#5
148 days is just under 5 mos. That’s a speed demon?
Most “fast hikers” aren’t fast, they just walk all day. I don’t know how walking 10-12 hrs is missing something vs. getting into camp at 5pm and hanging out in a shelter all night. 
Anyway to answer Adam’s question, on this very forum I have seen journals listed of people who have hiked faster than than that. The Virginia Creeper was known for her big mileage days back in the 90s. I doubt 148 days is the “record” (a loose term anyway).
I don’t known which woman set the supported record. Jenny Jardine is supposed to have done it in 88 days. OTOH, the ATC reports a 103 day hike as well.
For the supported record, try the ultra runners e-mail list. They may know.
For the “official” traditional method, I doubt there is any conclusive record.
Here’s a thread as well on BPL:
Paul Mags
system
#6
Adam,
Paul’s right, it’s virtually impossible to know who holds the record for an unsupported hike by a woman. There isn’t even agreement for fastest unsupported hike by anyone, anyway; though the best consensus is at 66 days. The problem is that most hikers just don’t think about statistics like that, only about their personal record of the journey (however they may keep that.) Paul recommends the only way I’ve ever found real authority for such records in the past, ask the ultra-runners. They live and die by records and statistics so they have that kind of info.
That said, I’ll note that people hike the AT in less than 148 days all the time, male and female, so I don’t think that’s exactly a jack-rabbit pace. As an example, take a look at the journal of Woodstock (AT’07) here on Trailjournals. You’ll see a really fast hiker but hardly someone who spends all his time worrying about how fast he’s going (quite the opposite in fact, he doesn’t seem to think about it much at all.) Yet he’s made it from Springer to Andover, ME between Feb. 26 and June 10. That means he’ll likely summit Katahdin the last week of June at the latest, so maybe 110 days for the whole hike. That means he’s only averaged a hair under 20 miles a day for the duration, though to actually get that he regularly did 30+ days down in Virginia and through the middle Atlantic. Yet he never seemed to rush, often hiked with other people, and was very sociable.
It just depends on how you hike in the end, not how fast you do it. But of course, I’m a section hiker so we get to be a bit sanguine about the subject of speed.
Strategic