LONDON – Three days after becoming the first woman to finish the Barkley Marathons, one of the world’s most notorious ultra-running races, Jasmin Paris’ hands were still black with dirt so deep it would not wash off and her feet swollen and blistered.

The 40-year-old Briton’s achievement, completing the gruelling 100-mile (161km) race on March 22 less than two minutes ahead of the 60-hour cut-off time, has triggered a wave of admiration from a community well versed in the event that in many years nobody manages to finish.

Paris said her ability to still pick up the pace over the final mile surprised even herself.

“I knew I really had to run, otherwise I wasn’t going to make it. And I really, really wanted to walk, everything in me was telling me to walk,” she said on March 25.

“But the idea of putting myself through five laps of that again (another year) – I poured everything I had into trying to run. One of my thoughts was ‘I either slow down and stop or I push harder’ and I somehow forced myself to go faster.

“I didn’t even know that was possible. I thought I was already at the very limits of what I could do.”

She was one of a record five finishers from the 40 entrants in rural Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park and one of only 20 finishers in all since the event was extended to 100 miles in 1989.

When Paris reached the finish-line gate, she bent over it from the waist before sinking to the ground, utterly spent.

“It took me a long time before I could breathe normally again,” she said. 

“And I’m still sore because of all the scratches. My hands are still black, still haven’t got the mud out of the skin, my feet are really swollen which is normal after a long event. And I had tendinitis quite bad in one shin.”

The mother of two has received hundreds of messages since and hopes her feat can inspire other women and girls.

“I take on new challenges because I love running in the mountains and I find it exciting to challenge myself and find out the limits of what I’m capable of,” Paris added.

“There is a big drop-out rate with girls in sports, and women often lack confidence doing exercise.

“The kind of feedback I’ve got from people is they have been inspired, lots of young girls with stories about being inspired to keep playing football with the boys and things like that.

“I’m really glad I helped to prove that women can do these things and I hope it inspires women to take on their own challenges, whatever they might be.”

The Barkley Marathons was created by Gary Cantrell and Karl Henn in 1986 in a mockery of the nearby 1977 prison break of James Earl Ray, who covered only about 12 miles in 54½ hours on the run.

The runners must cover five 20-mile loops over steep wooded terrain full of thorn bushes, with 54,200 feet (16.5km) – about twice the height of Mount Everest – of climbing and the same amount of descent.

There is no path to follow nor cheering spectators. Participants tear pages from books at checkpoints that they must present as proof at the finish line.

Paris combines her love of the trails with her job as a vet and lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.

She trains at 5.30am most mornings so as not to disrupt family life, and one recent session saw her scale a hill 17 times between 1am and 10am. Another session saw her scamper up Scotland’s Ben Ledi five times – a mountain that takes the average hiker 4½ hours to climb once.

For now, she is looking forward to a return to her true love of fell running among friends.

“It’s time to let my soul recover a bit in the Scottish mountains and have some fun,” she said. REUTERS