I met Kaiha on the first night of her yo-yo. I was three days from finishing the trail, and thought little of it. We also met Karl the day before, I got a picture with him. I'm not going to judge the merit of her attempt, but I will add to her folklore.
She rolled into camp around 8, pretty late for a hiker. We were hanging up our food bags, and she silently came over and hung hers on our line. I thought it was pretty odd for someone to come in southbound and know what they were doing so close to the start. The first thing that I found odd was that she asked if a smartwater bottle was hers. I said, it can't be ours, its way to clean. And she responded, that's interesting, because I've carried it since Georgia. As we got to talking, she told us about here NOBO hike. She got injured, and spent a month at a farmstead. We were told she was hiking to raise awareness for the farmstead, because they were going out of business. She also told us she wanted to hike in under 80 days, so the plan was to do 30 mile days, every day. The next morning I woke up, and one of my hiking partners told me that she had packed up her things and left around 10 pm. Naturally, we were all asleep by then.
I've met people that have attempted the unsupported record. One guy in particular who had put in 50+ mile days. He previously hiked the PCT and the Te Araroa (New Zealand's distance trail) in that calendar year. He was so wiped out by day 15 he abandoned the plan. He did finish the AT, but was very happy to bag his plan.
Why anyone would want to attempt a FKT is beyond me. But know this, the AT is not a walk in the park. I've run quick enough to be in better shape than most of the thru-hikers coming in to the trail. The only way to have trail legs, is to be on the trail, not thru 5ks, marathons, anything. It took one of the greatest ultra-runners of all time 3 attempts, and every mention I've heard from someone who saw Jurek in Maine, said he was a zombie. I hope that if she is reporting the FKT she is being honest, but she also signs shelter logs (if she does) with something along the lines of "do whatever you want, because nobody knows what the f^%# they're talking about." Either way, congrats on finishing your thru-hike.
-Ginger Patch, NoBo 2016