100 miles in 60 hours... as mum becomes first woman to finish world’s toughest race, no wonder she’s out of puff!
IT’S the toughest race in the world, with a 100-mile course that includes 60,000ft of gradients – double the height of Everest – and must be completed in 60 hours.
So it’s unsurprising British ultra-runner and mother-oftwo Jasmin Paris collapsed after finishing the race with just a minute to spare.
The 40-year-old university lecturer said she was ‘overjoyed’ to become the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathons in Tennessee within the strict time limit. The former vet’s time of 59:58.21 makes her one of only 20 people to have managed the feat since the US course was extended to 100 miles in 1989 – five of whom achieved it this year.
Dr Paris, originally from Derbyshire but who now lives in Midlothian, arrived at the finish line on Friday with her legs scratched from pushing through sharp bush and scrub in dense forest on the unmarked course, which is inspired by a famous prison escape. Competitors have to memorise the route before they set off.
Dr Paris was so exhausted she lost her voice and was able to communicate only via text message, telling the BBC: ‘It still hasn’t really sunk in that I’ve finally done it.
‘I had a strong feeling in the months of training and runup to the race that I could do it. Those final moments have redefined for me what I am capable of.’
In an email to reporters, she wrote: ‘The final minutes were so intense. After all that effort it came down to a sprint uphill, with every fibre of my body screaming at me to stop. I didn’t even know if I’d made it when I touched the gate. I just gave it everything to get there and then collapsed, gasping for air.’
Photographer David Miller, who captured the moment, said: ‘We heard shouting and a roar, and it was people cheering Jasmin on. She was sprinting and giving it her all, because otherwise she would not have made the cut-off.
‘It was the best thing I have seen. It was unbelievable.’
The race was inspired by the escape of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassin James Earl Ray from Brushy Mountain prison in 1977. He evaded helicopter searches by running in the woods for 58 hours before being captured.
‘The final minutes were so intense’