The Appalachian Trail (AT), one of America’s most storied thru-hikes, has a new Fastest Known Time (FKT). Lyla “Sugar” Harrod, 38, completed a southbound, self-supported FKT of the trail in 52 days, 18 hours, and 37 minutes, beating the prior women’s record by over a day and a half.
The record has been verified by fastestknowntime.com, the de facto arbiter of FKT records. Harrod has now become the first openly trans person to hold an FKT on any premier route, a classification given to high-status, well-known trails like the AT, PCT, and CDT.
Appalachian Trail FKT: Who Is Lyla ‘Sugar’ Harrod?
Harrod is an avid thru-hiker and athlete. She has previously hiked the AT, Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and already has several official FKTs under her belt. Among them is the unsupported women’s FKT for The Direttissima, a 230-mile traverse of all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot peaks.
She also created and coined the “Divide to Crest” route. This 3,000-mile hike connects the southern terminus of the CDT in New Mexico with the northern terminus of the PCT in Canada.
The AT was Harrod’s first-ever thru-hike, and it has always held a special place in her heart. Completing it in 2021 was an important part of her 2-year journey toward sobriety. It was a sign of the personal growth and stability she had achieved in her life. At the same time, since she was no longer in active addiction, it was her chance to begin transitioning.
“The thru-hike felt sort of like a celebration of all this change that I [had] just gone through,” she said. “It’s sort of like the metamorphosis where I became the person that I was supposed to be, somebody who’s healthy and sober and living in my authenticity and truth.”
After years and thousands of miles on other hikes, Harrod felt drawn back to the AT this summer.
“I was able to just think about how great it would be to sort of be back where it all started, amongst the community and amongst all the rich culture that surrounds the Appalachian Trail,” she said.
Harrod’s Appalachian Trail FKT Hike
The Appalachian Trail, the 2,198-mile hike that spans Georgia to Maine, is one of the crown jewels of American thru-hikes. The previous FKT for a self-supported, southbound run for women has been in place for over a decade. Heather Anderson set a self-supported time of 54 days, 7 hours, and 48 minutes in 2015. Harrod beat that time by more than 37 hours.
According to official FKT guidelines, “Self-supported means you may have as much support as you can manage or find along the way, but not from any thing or person just for you; any support you employ must be equally available to anyone else.”
Harrod chose to go southbound, from Maine to Georgia, so she could do the hardest hiking first. “In those first couple of states, really my goal was just survive and keep my body and my brain and my morale in the game so that once the terrain eased up a little bit, I could bear down, use the strength I just accrued through those really difficult states and situations, and build a series of high mileage days,” she said.
Overcoming Challenging Moments
During the roughest terrain and elevation changes in the Northeast, Harrod struggled with a painful quad injury. She devoted time off trail to resting and recovering, and managed to push through.
“My body was thankfully able to overcome that,” she said. “I think it was this sort of challenging moment where I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to continue on.”
Harrod averaged somewhere in the low 40s for daily mileage. She achieved significantly lower distances in the challenging mountains of the Northeast. Then, in the easier terrain of the Mid-Atlantic, she was able to bank some bigger days. She was actively moving anywhere from 17 to 20 hours a day.
At a certain point, her body just got used to the sleep deprivation, she said.
But a healthy mind is just as important for a thru-hiker as a healthy body. So, Harrod employed a very intentional strategy to keep her morale high.
“If I had a moment and I was able to stop and pet a cute dog, or if I had a fun animal encounter, to be able to sit with those for a minute, chat with people, [I would],” she said. “Allowing for human moments on trail was really important to my own morale, and it was easier to dig in to and use that as a reserve of energy and positivity when things got really hard.”
Check out Harrod’s Instagram profile for a deeper dive into her AT experience and more photos from the trail. Her gear list for the AT can also be found on her blog on the Burgeon Outdoor website.
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