Tara Dower Signs Record-Breaking Deal with Altra – RUN

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Tara Dower, the ultrarunning champion who broke the overall record on the Appalachian Trail this September, has re-signed with her shoe sponsor, Altra. The multi-year sponsorship will allow the 31-year-old from Virginia Beach to focus full-time on running. She’ll play a key role in product development and marketing campaigns as the company works to expand its product line beyond its prototypical wide toe box, zero-drop shoes—and ultimately access to the sport.

“I wanted to partner with Altra just because the shoes have always worked for me,” Dower told Outside. “I’m super honored and I’m looking forward to what we can create together. They’re on board for authenticity and I hope to keep that going.”

Like most running sponsorship contracts, Dower’s comes with a confidentiality agreement. Abetted by her agent Kelly Newlon, it’s believed Dower negotiated a contract between $100,000 and $250,000 per year. It could be up to a double-digit-fold increase from her contract this year as a first-year member of Altra’s elite athlete team, and it could be one of the biggest in ultrarunning history. It’s a reflection of Dower’s meteoric rise through the sport, as well as the trajectory she and Altra believe she’s on.

The sponsorship includes additional benefits like travel and race entry support, safeguards around pre-race obligations, injury, and pregnancy, and a bonus structure. She may have access to products from the catalog of brands owned by VF Corporation, Altra’s parent company, which includes The North Face, Smartwool, and Icebreaker.

“What I love about Tara is how she does it,” said Jennifer McLaren, President of Altra and GM of North America Key Accounts at VF. “The grit, resilience, and vulnerability that she’s shown is so authentic and it’s such an amazing fit for us.”

When the Shoe Fits

For Dower, this deal is a four-year dream materialized and then some. She’s been a fan of the brand and believer in the shoes since she first thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2019. The one time she tried to deviate with shoes from another brand it did not go well. That was in 2021, when Dower attempted to set an FKT on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, a 1,175-mile route across North Carolina. After her experience hiking, she thought going fast might require something else on her feet.

“They just wrecked my feet. They were not a good idea,” Dower said of the other shoes. “They were so thin and narrow on my feet compared to Altras. I’m used to the wide toe box.”

A friend bought her a pair of Altra Lone Peaks mid record attempt. “All the pain I was experiencing went away,” Dower said. “At that point, I was like, ‘I am never straying away from Altras ever again because my feet just perform so well in them.”

Dower set that FKT (29 days, eight hours, and 48 minutes). When she started racing (and winning) ultras the following year, she dreamed of one day joining Altra’s elite athlete team.

“Everything I was doing was to get to that point,” Dower said. “Social media posts, building a social media following, then having a lot of experience in the shoes. And also reaching out to people to try to and create more of a partnership.”

After an up-and-coming 2022 racing season that included second-place finishes at the Cruel Jewel and Run Rabbit Run 100-milers, she reached out to Altra by submitting a query on its website. She got accepted to Altra Red Team, its former athlete development program which offered free shoes and gear, in 2023. She went on to have a breakthrough season that included wins at the Hellbender 100 and Run Rabbit Run 100. She advanced to the elite team in 2024.

Since its inception in 2011, Altra has gained a fervent following for its zero-drop shoes, shoes built on a level platform. But in 2023 the brand turned heads by launching shoes with a 4mm heel-toe offset for the first time. Dower, a self-admitted Altra “die-hard,” views the company’s product expansion as a way to “transition” athletes to the Altra way. In fact, she believes the shoes are a primary reason she managed to stay healthy on the AT while many of her record-breaking predecessors were riddled with injuries. She’s found success in a wide breadth of Altra shoes, including everything from the Lone Peak, Olympus, and Timp on the AT to the light, carbon-plated Mont Blanc Carbon and Mont Blanc Boa in races.

It may seem like a no-brainer that Dower signed with a brand she loves, but Newlon says you’d be surprised by how many pro athletes overlook that detail. (“I’m like, ‘If you can’t use the product, then why are you with this company?’”)

Tara Dower: Multidimensional Athlete

While Dower’s ultrarunning palmares stand on their own— she also won the Umstead 100 outright in April and took fourth at the Hardrock 100 in July—no ultrarunning race results compare to the cachet of setting the overall fastest known time on the AT. It’s simply one of the few ultra-endurance feats that transcends the sport. Nonetheless, Dower doesn’t define herself by that performance, and she’s certainly not resting on her laurels. Dower and Newlon intentionally structured her bonus structure around racing, because that’s what she’s excited about.

“She’s just such a crusher,” said Colby Gould, Altra’s elite athlete team manager. “Tara’s the real deal. She’s got a great sense of humor but she knows how to put her head down and work super, super hard. She’s collaborative and friendly, but she’s also singularly focused on her goals.”

Gould says her fun-loving, competitive personality clicked with Altra’s elite athlete team, a tight-knit group of ultrarunners that includes Jeff Browning, Amanda Basham, Justin Grunewald, and Careth Arnold—who Dower paced for 40 miles at Western States just two weeks before Arnold returned the favor at Hardrock. Teammate JP Giblin served as a key pacer on the AT.

While many high-profile ultrarunners have gone after long trail records at the swan song of their careers, including previous AT record holders Scott Jurek and Karl Metzler, Gould believes Dower’s just getting started.

“I see the potential for continued success and if anything, I feel like the AT just adds to the confidence and readiness for when those hard moments come,” he said.

Dower’s immediate goal is to earn a golden ticket into and race the Western States 100 either in 2025 or 2026. She’s signed up for the Black Canyons 100K, a golden ticket race in February. “I have to win Hardrock one day,” she added.

And yet, she was drawn to the fact that Altra has historically supported thru-hikers in addition to elite runners, and she has goals beyond pinning on a bib. “Every year I have a goal of not just setting an FKT but completing a long trail,” she said.

A Holistic Partnership

The terms of Dower’s deal reflect her desire for balancing peak performance with goals beyond racing, and even herself. After several years of living out of her van while traveling the country, scrounging for discounts at food banks, and working part time at REI, Dower will have the financial freedom to focus on the little things like strength, PT, and nutrition. (Unlike in track and road running, where top athletes may command over $500,000 a year, making a living wage from a shoe sponsor is far from a given for many “professional” trail and ultrarunners.) Her contract includes limits on how many hours and how many miles she will run during photo shoots the week of races, as well as limits on pre-race appearances.

“I’m excited to train full time,” Dower said. “Being able to focus solely on training and being the best athlete I can be now that I have full support, I feel like it’s only natural to just give my whole self to training.”

The partnership will allow Dower and Altra to double-down on the causes that Dower is passionate about, namely uplifting young girls through movement. (Dower raised $55,570 for Girls on the Run as part of her record-breaking AT run this summer—a sum Altra matched.)

“She was very adamant about making sure she was with a brand that was going to support her cause and that’s what we’re looking for, too,” McLaren said. “We are still a grassroots brand. It’s still very word of mouth. I personally love that because it’s about building real authentic relationships with people. We are the people’s brand.”

A New Face to the Brand

Altra is the most popular shoe brand worn by thru-hikers on the AT, according to a 2023 survey conducted by The Trek. Re-signing Dower allows Altra to fully capitalize on her success in its shoes. The deal also gives Altra a fresh, authentic face to lead the brand as it goes through an evolution.

“It’s an opportunity, of course, but it’s also a massive responsibility that we use our platform to drive change in the industry,” McLaren said. “We have the privilege to be able to do that. And it’s just absolutely incredible that the biggest contract we’ve been able to offer is to a woman and a woman in trail running. It’s going to go really far in supporting her cause and our cause, which is just magical.”

It’s a big responsibility, but one Dower sought out.

“What can you give us that’s equivalent to putting her on a Times Square billboard? That’s what she wants,” Newlon said.

Dower will play an instrumental role in key marketing campaigns. This will include a monthly video series, appearances at events like AT and PCT Days, and livestream commentary at the Altra-sponsored JFK 50. But authenticity will be at the core of it all, McLaren said. Dower, whose trail name is “Candy Mama,” has built her own brand and core following, with 33K followers on Youtube and 43K followers on Instagram. Her TikTok from completing the AT has nearly 164,000 views. She’s known for vulnerability, sharing her fears, insecurities, and hardships along with her success. Leaning into Dower’s unique voice will be paramount to her Altra partnership.

“What I love about consumers today is they see through the corporate posturing,” McLaren said. “They’re really looking for an authentic, real story. Having somebody as humble and inspirational but also willing to be vulnerable, looking for those real stories from the likes of Tara. And so we’re really wanting to push her into the spotlight and be able to share who she is, share the learnings, not just the results. Young girls see themselves in Tara and then they want to be part of that. They realize they can do things that maybe are deemed impossible.”

On the ground level, Dower will play a key role in product development as the brand moves to build woman-forward products. Altra recently brought in Kylee Barton, a 20-year veteran at Nike, to lead product. She’s keen to build products for their elite athlete team, McLaren says.

“You become a stronger runner through the way that we build our shoes. There’s really important science behind it all. The aesthetics is always the question mark,” McLaren said. “Kylee talks a lot about starting with designing for women because when you design for women, you design for all. Women are so much more discerning in what they’re looking for from a design and aesthetic standpoint.”

From product development to racing, marketing campaigns to diversifying the sport, both McLaren and Gould underscored the astronomical impact they believe Dower will bring to the brand. But make no mistake—they view their responsibility to Dower to be at least as big.

“It’s not about Altra. It’s truly about Tara and I just want to make sure that that is how we think about it,” McLaren said. “Because she is the changemaker. She is the one who’s really inspiring so much across the industry and we’re just here to support her.”