BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Samford grad Jennifer Pharr Davis on Sunday set the record for the fastest hike of the 2,185-mile Appalachian Trail by anyone -- man or woman.

Starting off at 4:06 a.m., June 15, atop Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine, the 28-year-old 6-footer hiked the trail in 46 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes.

The previous record for a supported hike -- where helpers supply food and drink at trail crossings and help set up camp each night -- had been 47 days 13 hours 31 minutes, set by Andrew Thompson in 2005. It took Thompson three tries to set that record, and he lost 35 pounds in his 2005 effort.

"It was a very, very difficult record to break," Pharr Davis said this afternoon, in a phone interview after finishing. She averaged nearly 47 miles a day for the entire endurance hike.

Three of her former Samford classmates and five people from Birmingham were among the small crowd of family and friends that greeted her as she finished her epic journey atop Springer Mountain in north Georgia.