Key West hiker becomes first woman to log 10,000 miles in a year

Madison “Peg Leg” Blagden closed out 2025 the same place she began it, finishing a 10,000-mile yearlong trek back in Key West around 7 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and becoming the first woman to log more than 10,000 miles in a calendar year.

Blagden covered about 10,070 miles in 365 days, averaging roughly 27.5 miles a day. She started the year with a goal of about 8,500 miles, then kept pushing as the miles stacked up across the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail, along with the connecting mileage needed to turn the effort into a true border-to-border journey from Key West to Canada.

The finish carried extra weight in Monroe County because the Southernmost Point Buoy is more than a photo stop for tourists. Erected by the City of Key West in 1983, it marks the southernmost point in the continental United States, and the city installed a temporary buoy at 1499 Duval Street in September 2025 while seawall and roadway repairs were underway. Ending there gave Blagden’s record a homecoming feel, with the iconic marker serving as both the starting line and the finish line for a feat that stretched from the Keys to the farthest reaches of the country.

The year was not smooth. Blagden said she was unable to walk for more than a week at one point and took 17 straight zero days to recover before returning to 30- and 40-mile days to finish strong. That recovery stretch makes the final total more striking, especially in a sport where many hikers struggle to hold together one long trail, let alone three in a single calendar year.

The achievement also places her in a tiny club. Only four other people, all men, are known to have completed a comparable 10,000-mile endeavor in one calendar year. Blagden’s run adds to a short list of endurance milestones that includes Heather “Anish” Anderson, who became the first woman to complete the calendar-year Triple Crown in 2018, and Brian Robinson, who completed the first calendar-year Triple Crown in 2001. For Key West, the finish line was not just symbolic. It was local proof that one of the year’s most punishing endurance feats began and ended at the edge of the continental United States.