Samford University graduate Jennifer Pharr Davis is nearly halfway through a speed record attempt on the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail.

In her first 23 days of hiking, she has gone 999.9 miles south from Mt. Katahdin in Maine, the northern end of the trail. She has now reached the rocky ridges of Pennsylvania, and her average daily distance of 43.5 miles puts her close to her goal of becoming the fastest woman -- or man -- ever to finish the AT.

"That's unreal," said Tom Cosby, a hiking enthusiast who is vice president of investor relations for the Birmingham Business Alliance, when told of the feat Thursday. "I think it's super-human."

Pharr Davis started her trek around the summer solstice, so she would have good weather and long hours of sunlight.

She first hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2005 at age 21, just after graduating from Samford University. She did it the traditional way -- four months of carrying a heavy backpack from Springer Mountain, Ga., north to Mt. Katahdin.

Since then she has hiked more than 9,000 miles of long-distance trails, including the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail.

In 2008 she set the supported Appalachian Trail record for women of 57 days, 8 hours --averaging 38 miles per day. In the supported hike, friends and her husband, Brew, set up camp each night and supplied her with food and water wherever the trail crossed a road.

As Pharr Davis said on her blog, "My previous AT hike in 2008 taught me that setting a record wasn't about being fast or strong. It is all about fortitude, intelligence and perseverance. The fact that women give birth and live longer than guys makes me think that we might even have an evolutionary edge."

On her first day of the record attempt this summer, Pharr Davis started hiking at 4:06 a.m. and didn't stop until 9:15 p.m., 56 miles down the trail.

Her longest day of hiking was 18 hours and 5 minutes, when she did 46 miles on day three. On day eight she hiked 34 miles through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, with 13,700 feet of elevation gain.

Her toughest hike was 36 miles on day 12, according to her husband's blog at

. She had excruciating shin splints and suffered diarrhea all afternoon. Her stomach problems continued the next morning but she still managed to knock off another 42.5 miles.

The Appalachian Trail snakes along mountain tops from Maine to Georgia, including the 5,267-foot Mt. Katahdin in Maine, the 6,288-foot Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, the 5,729-foot Mt. Rogers in Virginia, and the 6,643-foot Clingmans Dome at the North Carolina-Tennessee border. It also goes over every hill and hillock in between, which hikers call PUDs, or pointless ups and downs.

Cosby, who has hiked every mile of trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, including a section of the Appalachian Trail, said his longest day hiking was 20 miles.

"I was wrecked," he said. "This is not like walking down 20th Street for 20 miles."

The men's record for a supported hike of the Appalachian Trail is 47 days, or about 45 miles a day.

Before leaving her Asheville, N.C., home to start her attempt, Pharr Davis wrote in her blog, "The trail is innately difficult, regardless of whether you are trying to day hike, thru-hike or set a record."

"There are mountains to climb, storms to endure, and lots of bugs to tolerate," she said. "But the thing is, the HARD is what makes it GREAT. The hard is what makes you grow as a person, connect with your surroundings, and appreciate the people who help you along the way. The more hardships I endure on the trail, the more I love hiking."

Brew Davis is a school teacher, which gives him the seven weeks to support his wife on her hike this summer.

In her first 23 days, Pharr Davis' average starting time has been 4:58 a.m. and her average stopping time was 9:31 p.m.

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