Running News Daily

At 59:58:21, she reached the yellow gate — 99 seconds before the clock struck 60 hours.

In that vanishing margin of time, Jasmin Paris transformed one of endurance sport’s most unforgiving proving grounds into a stage for history. In 2024, she became the first — and still the only — woman ever to complete the legendary Barkley Marathons.

Staged in the brutal backcountry of Frozen Head State Park, the Barkley is less a race than an ordeal engineered to dismantle certainty. Five unmarked loops. More than 60,000 feet of vertical gain. No GPS, no course markings — only a map, a compass, hidden book pages scattered across the wilderness, and a 60-hour cutoff that has broken even the strongest contenders.

Finishes are rare. Many elite ultrarunners fail to complete three loops. The event’s identity is defined as much by its long list of DNFs as by its few finishers.

Paris entered that arena fully aware of its reputation. What followed was not merely survival, but mastery of restraint and resolve. Through sleep deprivation, shredded terrain, and the mental disorientation that defines the Barkley’s steep ridgelines and briar-filled descents, she measured her effort against both the mountains and the merciless ticking clock.

Each completed loop tightened the narrative. Each passing hour reduced her margin. By the time she began the final descent toward camp, the race had distilled into a single, brutal equation: seconds versus surrender.

Then came the gate.

59:58:21.

A finish secured with 99 seconds to spare — one of the narrowest, most dramatic conclusions in ultrarunning history.

In a competition designed to expose limits, Jasmin Paris expanded them. Her run was not only historic because she was the first woman to finish. It was historic because she did so at the absolute edge of possibility — proving that at Barkley, survival is measured not in comfort or dominance, but in relentless belief carried all the way to the final second.

And sometimes, that final second is enough to change the sport forever.