Jasmin Paris Is First Woman to Finish Barkley Marathons

U.S.|Jasmin Paris Becomes First Woman to Complete Extreme Barkley Race https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/us/barkley-marathons-jasmin-paris.html You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. The Barkley Marathons, which features cryptic rules for entry, requires runners to complete 100 miles of rugged terrain in […]

Tomas Kauer - News Moderator Tomas Kauer - News Moderator
Mar 24, 2024 - 09:10
Jasmin Paris Is First Woman to Finish Barkley Marathons

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U.S.|Jasmin Paris Becomes First Woman to Complete Extreme Barkley Race

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/us/barkley-marathons-jasmin-paris.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

The Barkley Marathons, which features cryptic rules for entry, requires runners to complete 100 miles of rugged terrain in Tennessee under 60 hours.

Jasmin Paris in a red shirt rests against a stone wall. A yellow gate is in the foreground.
Jasmin Paris finished the Barkley Marathons with one minute and 39 seconds to spare. At the end, “every fiber of my body” was screaming to stop, she said.Credit…Jacob Zocherman

Emmett Lindner

The runner Jasmin Paris became on Friday the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathons, an extreme footrace that requires participants in rural Tennessee to navigate 100 miles of rugged terrain in no more than 60 hours.

Paris, 40, of Midlothian, Scotland, finished the race with one minute and 39 seconds to spare, making her one of only 20 people to complete the Barkley since it was extended to 100 miles in 1989. She was one of five to finish this year, out of 40 entrants.

At the end of the run, Paris sank to the ground in front of a yellow gate that marks the start and finish of the event, which consists of five roughly 20-mile laps.

“The final minutes were so intense, after all that effort it came down to a sprint uphill, with every fiber of my body screaming at me to stop,” Paris said in an email.

Her legs were covered in cuts and scratches by the time she reached the end of the race, which was the subject of a 2014 documentary, “The Race That Eats Its Young.”

“I didn’t even know if I’d made it when I touched the gate,” she added. “I just gave it everything to get there and then collapsed, gasping for air.”

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