In the final three days of his Appalachian Trail record attempt, Bozeman ultra-runner Jeff Garmire was hitting the wall.

As thunderstorms and near-biblical quantities of rain chased him across the lush climbs of North Carolina into Georgia, turning the once-dry dirt into standing water, it felt as if the trail itself was conspiring against him.

But with 42 days and 12 states already behind him, Garmire knew the only way through the torrential conditions, like every earlier setback and frustration, was forward. Step by sopping step, he inched toward Springer Mountain, the final climb and the end of his month-and-a-half quest to break the self-supported fastest known time of 45 days, 12 hours and 15 minutes set by Joe "Stringbean" McConaughy of Seattle in 2017.

The last 1,670 feet of elev

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