She Finished Notorious Race on 3 Minutes of Sleep

That Jasmin Paris managed to do what no woman and only 19 men have ever done was widely reported. But how the 40-year-old Scottish veterinarian managed to finish the notorious Barkley Marathons in Tennessee last month is the arguably more interesting story. The 100-mile race sees nearly 55,000 feet of elevation—like climbing Everest twice, as most reports point out—and Paris finished this attempt, her third try, within 99 seconds of the 60-hour time limit. She talks to the Guardian and I Run Far about the experience:

• The toughest part: It wasn't the distance but the terrain. "Immediately after we set off we went up a slope so steep that at times my foot would slide back down, and I would have to go again. There were a couple of places we were climbing on our bellies. And this year, there was also a new section that used to be used for hillside mining, it was all covered in brambles so our legs got slashed to pieces."

• The toughest part II: The lack of sleep, which in her case consisted solely of a three-minute "power nap" during the race. The exhaustion caused her to hallucinate "I saw quite a lot of people in black mackintoshes. They were climbing the same hill as me, always a certain distance ahead. And it was bizarre, they all had a sinister foreboding feel to them."
• The toughest part III: "Between loops four and five"—the race consists of five loops—"I was in a bit of a state to be honest. ... At that point, I couldn't even really stand up. I couldn't eat anything. I tried to force down a rice pudding and then I basically threw it up again."
• How she trained: In the early morning, from 5am to 7:45am, before getting her kids up and heading to work. She ran up to 90 miles a week but did as much as 40,000 feet of elevation work via hill reps or a stair climber.

(Paris notably won another grueling race in 2019.)