Jasmin Paris

Jasmin Paris grew up on the edge of the Peak District, the daughter of a Czech mother and an English father, and ran in the hills as something to do rather than as a sport. She qualified as a vet, moved to Scotland, and only started racing on the fells in her mid-twenties. Within a few years she had set records on the three classic British mountain rounds, running the Bob Graham Round in the Lake District faster than any woman before her.

In January 2019 she entered the Montane Spine Race, 268 miles along the Pennine Way in midwinter, non-stop, in snow, sleet and darkness. Her daughter was 14 months old and still breastfeeding, so at checkpoints she expressed milk between eating and changing her socks. She hallucinated animals in the hedges on the final night. She finished in 83 hours and 12 minutes, winning the race outright and beating the previous course record, set by a man, by more than 12 hours.

The Barkley Marathons in Tennessee is a race of five roughly 20-mile loops through steep, unmarked forest, with a 60-hour limit, which most years nobody finishes. She tried in 2022 and 2023 and failed. In March 2024 she crossed the line 99 seconds inside the limit and collapsed, the first woman ever to complete it.

She still works part time as a vet and does research on animal cancers.