Jasmin Paris, the First Woman to Finish the Barkley Marathons With 99 Seconds Left

After nearly 60 hours in the Tennessee wilderness, Jasmin Paris reached the Barkley Marathons’ yellow gate with 99 seconds left. Her time of 59 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds made her the first woman to finish the full race.

The March 22, 2024, breakthrough was not simply a matter of running roughly 100 miles. Paris had to navigate five unmarked loops through steep, off-trail terrain, collect pages from hidden books and keep making decisions while exhausted and short on sleep. It was her third attempt.

A veterinarian who learned to move through mountains

Paris is a British fell runner, ultrarunner and senior lecturer in small animal internal medicine at the University of Edinburgh. She did not grow up as a competitive runner. After university, a colleague persuaded her to try a fell race, and her experience walking in the hills developed into a talent for moving quickly across rough ground.

That background matters because fell running rewards more than speed. Competitors must read terrain, choose efficient lines, descend safely and navigate in conditions that can change quickly.

By 2016, Paris had set women’s fastest known times on the Bob Graham, Ramsay and Paddy Buckley rounds. Her Fastest Known Time profile records all three mountain challenges in Britain.

In 2019, she moved onto a much larger stage. Paris won the 268-mile Spine Race outright in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds, finishing ahead of every man and woman in the field. She was still breastfeeding her 14-month-old daughter and stopped to express milk during the race, according to her post-race interview with The Guardian.

Why Barkley is more than a long run

The Barkley Marathons takes place in Frozen Head State Park. The exact course changes, and runners are not given a marked trail to follow. GPS navigation is prohibited. They use a map and compass to locate books hidden around the route, tearing out the page that matches their race number to prove they reached each checkpoint.

A full finish requires five loops within 60 hours. Three loops within 40 hours earn the deliberately modest title of a “Fun Run.” The course repeatedly sends competitors through steep climbs, slippery descents, dense vegetation and briars.

Navigation errors become increasingly expensive as fatigue builds. A runner can be physically capable of continuing and still lose the race by drifting onto the wrong ridge or failing to find a book.

That mixture of endurance and problem-solving separates Barkley from a conventional ultramarathon. It also explains why Paris’s experience in British mountain rounds was so valuable. Like Nimsdai Purja’s rapid Himalayan project, the achievement depended on turning an extreme goal into a system of preparation, navigation and decisions.

Two attempts became part of the training

Paris completed a Fun Run during her first Barkley attempt in 2022. In 2023, she began a fourth loop but could not finish it before the cutoff. Instead of treating those attempts as wasted effort, she learned the terrain, the race’s rhythms and the kinds of mistakes that exhaustion could produce.

Her own account of the 2023 attempt describes microsleeps, missed turns and hallucinations. Even after returning too late to continue, Paris told race director Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell that she still believed she could complete five loops.

“I understand now why Barkley becomes an obsession; in fact, I suspect I’m already firmly in its grip.”

Source: Jasmin Paris’s 2023 Barkley race report

For her successful attempt, Paris added more strength training and prepared specifically for Barkley’s vertical demands. Her sessions included early-morning running, steep hill repetitions, off-trail work and long periods of climbing. She also arrived with experience from seven previous Barkley loops.

Her strategy in 2024 was to stay close to faster runners during the opening three loops, preserving enough time for the final two. That meant working hard early without destroying the energy and concentration she would need later.

The fifth loop became a race against seconds

Paris completed the fourth loop in time to become the first woman to start Barkley’s fifth. By then, she felt sick and struggled to eat. Four-time finisher Jared Campbell allowed her to take the clockwise direction for the final loop, a choice Paris later said probably helped save her race.

She still lost an estimated 15 to 20 minutes to navigational mistakes. With about six hours remaining, she understood that a finish was possible but that the margin would be narrow.

On the final climb to the gate, Paris had no opportunity to conserve energy. Spectators urged her to pump her arms and keep running. She reached the finish, touched the gate and immediately collapsed.

“You either pass out or you’re going to get to the gate.”

The officially reported finish time was 59:58:21. Five runners completed the race that year, but Paris was the final one through the gate. Her remaining margin was one minute and 39 seconds.

The Appalachian Trail and vegan claims need correction

Paris’s verified record does not include an Appalachian Trail speed record. Her listed fastest known times are on the Bob Graham, Ramsay and Paddy Buckley rounds in Britain. The Appalachian Trail connection belongs to other ultrarunners, including Scott Jurek and his supported 2015 trail record.

Paris also should not be described as a vegan athlete. She often chooses plant-based food, prepared vegan picnic supplies for the 2022 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc and promotes environmentally responsible running. However, she has eaten vegetarian food during races and said directly in an August 2026 question-and-answer session that she is not vegan.

Her environmental work remains significant. Paris co-founded The Green Runners, a community that encourages athletes to reduce the impact of their travel, food and equipment. She has also stepped away from commercial running-brand affiliations and has used trains and buses for European races when practical.

What the 99 seconds changed

Paris did not establish that Barkley had suddenly become manageable. The next two editions proved the opposite. Both 2025 and 2026 ended without a single finisher. As of August 2026, Paris remains the most recent person to complete the race.

Her finish mattered because it replaced speculation about whether a woman could complete Barkley with a verified result. It also showed what the race actually rewards: mountain experience, strength, navigation, adaptation and the ability to recover mentally from repeated mistakes.

The final sprint created the memorable image, but the achievement was built much earlier. It began in Britain’s hills, continued through the Spine Race and survived two unsuccessful visits to Frozen Head. Paris needed almost every second of the third attempt, which is precisely what made those first two attempts indispensable.