“I was so close to passing out,” says Jasmin Paris, as she relives the moment she became the first woman to complete the race widely seen as the most devilish, daunting, and toughest of them all. “I felt I was going to reach the finishing gate, or collapse right in front of it. There was a tunnel of roars on either side. But I couldn’t focus. It was all a bit blurry.”
Since 1989, more than 1,000 ultramarathoners have attempted the Barkley Marathons in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. But only 20 have ever finished the 100-mile course, which includes about 16,500 metres of elevation – the equivalent of climbing Everest twice – within the 60-hour time limit.
However on Friday, Paris, a 40-year-old senior veterinary lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, sprinted across the line after 59 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds – 99 seconds inside the cut-off. Before collapsing in a heap.
“It’s not the fact that it’s 100 miles that’s the problem – it’s about the terrain,” Paris tells the Guardian in her first interview since arriving back in the UK. “Immediately after we set off we went up a slope so steep that at times my foot would slide back down, and I would have to go again. There were a couple of places we were climbing on our bellies. And this year, there was also a new section that used to be used for hillside mining, it was all covered in brambles so our legs got slashed to pieces.”
There is no time for sleep either – save for a three-minute power nap before the last of the five loops – which unsurprisingly led to hallucinations. “I saw quite a lot of people in black macintoshes,” she says. “They were climbing the same hill as me, always a certain distance ahead. And it was bizarre, they all had a sinister foreboding feel to them.
“I always see animals in races like these too,” she adds. “There were trees that looked like a mountain lion, or a big dog, or pigs lying down, until I got closer.”
Paris had attempted the Barkley marathons twice before, but had never managed to do all five laps. However this time she was confident throughout, till a wobble right before the end. “When I got about eight minutes out, I suddenly thought I really might not do it,” she says. “I had about a kilometre to go but up a hill. I was so desperate to stop. But my mind was telling me: ‘If you don’t make this, you will have to do it all over again’.
“It’s the toughest thing I have ever done. Afterwards I just dropped. I needed to breathe for five minutes hard before I corrected because I’ve never been so oxygen deficient.”
Along the way she fuelled with pasta, porridge, rice pudding and her secret weapon – bananas. “Bananas are the one thing that really works for me when I’m doing these crazy long things,” she says. “I also tried to keep a mixture of savoury and sweet, including cheese and pickle sandwiches, pizza, frittata, Snickers and flapjacks. It gets really hard to eat, so you have to eat what you can.”
Paris’s success was the culmination of months of training every morning from 5am to 7.45am, before her two children were up and she started work. “The most I ran was 90 miles a week, but probably with the walking it was more like 120 or 130 miles,” she says. “In terms of practising for the ascent, I also did 11-12,000 metres some weeks from hill reps or the stair climber.
“I was also doing strength sessions as well, which were a big help,” she adds. “Most people probably don’t know, but I’ve got no anterior cruciate ligament in my left knee, because I tore it when I was 17 and never had reconstructive surgery. I know some medics who are quite surprised I can do so much off-road terrain running. But I’ve really strengthened my leg up and my knee is really great at the moment.”
This is the second time Paris has made global headlines, having become the first woman to win outright the gruelling 268-mile Montane Spine Race, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders, in 2019. So what compels her to continually probe the boundaries of the possible?
“I still find it really exciting to push myself, especially when I don’t know whether I can do something,” she says. “It sounds a bit corny, but you also find out more about yourself, when you strip away all the stuff that makes life easier.
“In these races it is up to you to keep yourself fed, get water, and navigate the wilderness on your own, while doing tough climbs and descents. In these situations you also form relationships with other people that are impossible to do quickly in day to day life.”
Being alone also gives her valuable time to think. “I get a similar thrill, although not as extreme, from a week in the mountains,” she says. “It’s that feeling of being in the wilderness, having left behind civilisation, and getting a sense of perspective and calm.”
However Paris is uneasy at the thought of anyone hailing her as a superwoman. Instead, she just wants to inspire people to take up things they may have put aside.
“I hope maybe it encourages people to have some hobbies of their own when kids, work and life got in the way,” she says. “Because it has certainly been really good for my mental health.”
Paris reports she is already recovering from her extraordinary feat. “It is amazing what a night of good sleep can do,” she says. And yes, her next event, the Scottish Island Peaks race, a fell running and sailing race in May, is already inked in the diary.
