History-making runner Jasmin Paris looks ahead to her next challenge

Virgin Radio

28 Mar 2024, 14:05

After making history at the weekend by becoming the first ever woman to complete the gruelling Barkley Marathons race, Jasmin Paris has spoken to Chris Evans about how she is recovering, and what’s next.

The Barkley Marathons is an ultra marathon trail race in Tennessee which covers 100 miles and involves a climb and descent about twice the height of Mount Everest. Jasmin is one of only 20 people to have ever made it to the end within the allotted 60 hours.  

Joining the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar to speak about the epic race, the British runner, vet and doctor of blood cancer research said: “When things were really tough, I thought about my kids, just to keep going.

“Thinking about the people that are back at home, that definitely helps, but I also have a huge personal drive, that I wanted to do it for me, so that takes me a long way already.”

She continued: “Darkness is always harder, because when you're falling asleep, that makes it harder. And generally what happens is you try and get yourself to eat and then you feel better. And you know when you've done enough of these long things that you'll come out the other side of one of those bad patches and it'll get better again. But you definitely have a pretty rough time.”

Jasmine was one of just five runners to complete this year’s event, and she did so with just 99 seconds to spare. “I fell at one point and twisted my knee at a funny angle,” she said. “I’ve probably done something slightly to the medial collateral ligament or something. I think it'll be alright. But that actually got better as other pains got worse later. That's the way it always goes.”

The course requires competitors to run the first and third loops clockwise, and the second and fourth loops go anticlockwise. And they also have to find books and pull out pages to prove that you went to various points in the course. “When you get to the end, you have give in your pages, and your pages get counted from the books to show that you've been everywhere you need to be, and then if you've actually finished it, you get to press the button and it says ‘That was easy.’

“That's the kind of magic button at the end that you get to press if you're one of the 20 people that have finished in the last four decades.”

Revealing that she “ate some pizza and then pretty much passed out,” after completing the challenge, Jasmin said that her legs “tend to get very swollen after these long distances.”

She added: “I've got some decent blisters, but they're healing over a bit now as well. So, swollen, scratched, a bit of tendinitis, but I think I think I'll be good to run in a week or two.”

Speaking of getting back to running, Jasmin spoke of what comes next. She said she is going to have “a few months of doing some Scottish hill running, which is I guess my first love and the community I love as well. So, some easy fun stuff to remind what it is I love about actually just being in the hills and running.”

And after that? “The next big thing is a multi-day race in the Italian mountains, called Tor des Géants, which is another one of these non-stop races where you don’t sleep much, so that’ll be another exciting one,” she said.

Follow Jasmin for further updates @jasminkparis on X.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.