British Jasmin Paris wrote sports history when she became the first woman ever to complete the Barkley Marathons in the American state of Tennessee on Friday evening. She was only 20 finisher of the race since it was expanded to a distance of 160 kilometers in 1989, and the first woman. “I wanted to push my limits and inspire others,” she tells BBC.
Paris said she ran the race not only for herself, but also for other women around the world. “Not just to inspire runners, but for any woman who wants to take on a challenge and may not have the confidence to do so,” said the Scottish woman. “The idea that I might have inspired them to believe in themselves… that’s huge. Especially for all the young girls – you know how hard it is to keep them playing sports.”
99 seconds
Her arms and legs may be covered in scratches, but the experience, according to Paris, was “mind-expanding” and has given her enough self-confidence for the rest of her life. The ultrarunner arrived just one minute and 39 seconds before the 60-hour time limit and collapsed exhausted after the finish. During the Barkley Marathons, she also lost her voice due to the heavy breathing.
“In the last kilometer I started to doubt whether I would make it. At that moment I really wanted to stop running,” the British woman admits, “but I realized that I would not reach the finish in time. Then I would have had to come back and do it all again, because I could never leave it like that (it was the third participation for Paris, ed.).”
“I only had a few minutes left to walk up the hill, so I finally decided to just sprint. At that moment I was so deprived of oxygen that I saw or heard nothing around me for the last hundred meters. There was a lot of noise around me, people cheering me on, but I was focused on the finish. Everything else was a blur,” Paris reflects.
Mount Everest twice
During the Barkley Marathons, participants must complete five identical loops of approximately 20 miles, alternating clockwise and counterclockwise. They are given a maximum of twelve hours for each loop, but the route is unmarked and there are no landmarks. Participants can only count on a compass and a drawn map.
In addition to the terrain – in total the runners have to cross twice the height of Mount Everest – it is the extreme fatigue due to chronic sleep deprivation that makes the race so difficult. Last year, Karel Sabbe was the first Belgian to successfully complete the Barkley Marathons.
