British runner Jasmin Paris

British runner Jasmin Paris The first woman to finish Barkley Marathons, just 99 seconds before time limit expired.

Paris finished the grueling course with a time of 59 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds; just 99 seconds before the 60-hour time limit elapsed.

aris was one of five finishers in the 2024 edition of the Barkley Marathons, with Ukrainian Ihor Verys finishing first, American’s John Kelly and Jared Campbell finishing second and third respectively and Greig Hamilton from New Zealand finishing fourth.

Verys, who finished with a time of 58:44:59, told Dunn: “Maybe you should add a sixth loop.”

Conversely, Campbell – who completed the Barkley Marathons for the fourth time with a time of 59:30:32 – said: “That new section is brutal. You are a bad man.”

Paris made headlines in 2019 when she won the 2019 Spine Race, becoming the first woman to win the 268-mile race as well as taking 12 hours off the previous record.

The Barkley Marathons has become famous for its grueling, near-impossible nature. It is thought by many to be the hardest, most brutal foot race in the world.

The famed ultramarathon, the brainchild of runner Gary Cantrell, takes place in Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park. The route was inspired by the 1977 prison escape of James Earl Ray, who assassinated the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Ray traveled only eight miles in just over two days after escaping Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary before he was recaptured, leading Cantrell to muse that he could cover 100 miles in the same amount of time.

he route is long and indistinguishable, the inclines are steep, and the terrain unforgiving, but that’s only if you’re able to navigate the opaque entry system and earn a spot on the start line in the first place.

The race consists of five loops of around 20 miles each, for a total of between 100 to 130 miles through brushy mountains with an elevation gain of around 63,000 feet. Athletes run the course over three sleepless days and nights – and there are no aid stations, phones or GPS to help with navigation. Getting lost – as well as falling and getting injured in the brush – is par for the course.

The ultramarathon is marked with unique unmanned checkpoints, each of which contains a paperback book. Athletes must rip out a page corresponding to their bib number and have all the book pages in hand at the end of each loop to prove they reached each checkpoint.

The races’ tough nature makes it a tough finish for many, with no finishers between 2017 and 2023. It has a dropout rate of 99%.

Introduction of Jasmin Paris:

Jasmin Karina Paris (born November 1983) is a British runner who has been a national fell running champion and who has set records for the Bob Graham Round and the Ramsay Round.

She is well known in Great Britain as a fell runner, but became known on the international stage as a sky runner after her victory in the 2016 Skyrunner World Series (Sky Extreme) and bronze medal at the 2016 Skyrunning World Championships (Sky Ultra). She received significant media attention for her overall win in the 2019 Spine Race. In 2024, she became the first woman to successfully complete the Barkley Marathons.

Paris was born in Manchester. While at the University of Liverpool, Paris was a member of the Open Air Club which encouraged outdoor pursuits. However, she did not start running until she left university in 2008 and was working in Glossop near her home town of Hadfield in Derbyshire, although she had done some backpacking and walked a lot in the fells. After a twelve-month sabbatical in Minnesota, she returned to the UK, moved to Edinburgh in 2010 and began to take running more seriously.