By finishing as a woman in the mythical Barkley Marathons, Jasmin Paris proves the organizer wrong

Her arms are full of scratches, her gaze is focused straight ahead. She reinforces every step with her elbows. And then, as Jasmin Paris reaches the finish line, she collapses. Literal.

She drops to her legs and puts her hands over her eyes. The crowd cheers. She did it. The British ultrarunner became the first woman ever to complete the Barkley Marathons, 99 seconds before the 60-hour time limit expired. The 160 kilometer race through the inhospitable area of ​​Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, USA, is known as the most challenging ultra run in the world.

A few hours after her victory, Paris says in a hoarse voice to the BBC: “I thought, just before the end: I’m either going to faint or I’m going to finish.” It ended up being the last. In doing so, Paris has refuted the claim of Gary Cantrell, the prominent organizer of the Barkley Marathons. He said in 2015 that the competition he devised is “too difficult” for women. “They are simply not strong enough for it,” he explained.

Paris proved the opposite. That was not completely unexpected. The British runner, who works as a clinical teacher at an animal hospital in Edinburgh, already gained admiration in 2019 by winning the Spine Race as a relative newcomer. She finished in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds, breaking the course record with a time gain of no less than 12 hours.

The 430 kilometer tour is also known as Britain’s Most Brutal. Participants run almost non-stop, even at night, through unspoiled nature, and are often buffeted by strong winds, rain and snow showers along the way, because the event always takes place in January.

Express milk

What made Paris’ victory all the more remarkable was that she had given birth to a daughter fourteen months earlier. She stopped at the aid stations set up along the way to pump milk. Motherhood had added a new dimension to running, she said in a magazine for ultrarunners: from now on this was the rare moment in the day when she had some time for herself.

The 40-year-old Briton is a late bloomer in the field of running. Although Paris has always been a fan of mountain hiking, she only started training seriously after returning from a sabbatical in Minnesota in 2010. Two years earlier she had graduated from the University of Liverpool with a degree in veterinary medicine.

Her talent for long-distance running became apparent quite quickly after her first participation in competitions, which she regularly won with unprecedented times. For example, in 2015 she set a record time for women during The Fellsman, a well-known British ultra race of almost 100 kilometers: 11 hours and 9 minutes. Her husband, the rider Konrad Rawlik, with whom she now has two children, won the same race a year later with a time of 11 hours and 31 minutes.

Her goal, Paris has said repeatedly in interviews, is to push boundaries. For themselves, but also for others. After her win at the Barkley Marathons last Sunday, she told the BBC: “I did it for myself and I’m super happy that after three years I’ve achieved what I wanted to do.” Referring to the previous times she participated but did not finish. “But I’ve also done it for women from all over the world. Not just for runners, but for any woman who wants to take on a challenge and may not have the confidence in herself.”

Cult status

The Barkley Marathons is surrounded by secrecy and has therefore acquired cult status. Registration is not possible. The forty participants who are allowed to participate have traveled by invitation to the remote terrain in the middle of the forests of Tennessee. There they build an encampment under the watchful eye of organizer Gary Cantrell. Participants are expected to bring a license plate from their own country or a pack of cigarettes as a ticket. Those cigarettes are then gratefully smoked by Cantrell.

Cantrell was once a long-distance runner, but now he has traded his sporty body for a considerable beer belly. In the documentary published in 2014 The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young Cantrell can be seen watching with almost masochistic pleasure how the participants torture themselves both physically and mentally. Only he knows when the race starts, namely the moment he blows a conch shell, which could be in the middle of the night. From that moment on, the riders have 60 hours to cover 160 kilometers.

The course consists of five loops, each 32 kilometers, covering an elevation gain of 18,000 meters. That’s twice Mount Everest, measured from sea level. Each loop ends at base camp, where Cantrell, grinning from a comfortable chair, checks the pages that participants hand over to him. These serve as proof that the riders have taken the correct route. Using a map and compass, they must find books hidden along the way and tear out pages that correspond to their competition number.

In the first years, the distance of the Barkley Marathons was about 85 kilometers, in 1989 this was increased to 160. Since then, only twenty participants have completed the race, including Jasmin Paris and the Belgian Karel Sabbe.

The thought that kept her going, she said immediately after the match, was: “If I don’t do it now, I’ll have to do it again.” That doesn’t mean Paris is throwing in the towel now. The next sporting challenges are already on the programme: on May 17 she will participate in the Scottish Islands Peaks Race (96 kilometers) and in September she will travel to Italy for the Tor des Géants (330 kilometers, 20,000 altitude meters). She is ready to push new boundaries.