Long before she’d achieved what some said was impossible by becoming the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathons in 2024, Jasmin Paris was a legendary figure in British mountain running. Her career as an endurance runner is nothing short of astonishing – she has repeatedly raised the bar, smashing course records time and time again and winning a glut of races along the way.
We asked one of our mountain loving, trail running experts to try to put Paris’ achievements into some sort of context, from her hat trick of records on the UK’s Big Rounds and her remarkable 2019 Winter Spine Race win to her legendary feat at the 2024 Barkley Marathons.
Early and personal life
Paris was born in Manchester, 1983, and had the Peak District National Park as her childhood outdoor playground. The daughter of two mathematicians, she'd follow in their footsteps in terms of academic success. She holds a PhD, works as a vet and is senior lecturer at the Royal School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh.
She’s married to fellow endurance runner Konrad Rawlik, with whom she has two children. In October 2024, she was awarded an MBE by the British Royal Family for services to fell and long-distance running.
A rapid rise in the world of fell running
Paris started taking running seriously in 2010, having moved to Edinburgh after a year-long sabbatical in Minnesota. She started competing in fell races in the UK's hills and mountains. Fell races differ from trail races in that they involve running between checkpoints – often summits – and sometimes tricky route finding, as opposed to following a pre-defined route along trails.
She quickly saw success, winning various iconic fell races, underlining her talent on steep and rough terrain. Her haul included wins in the Scottish Hill Running Championships in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015, as well as the overall British Fell Running Championship in 2015 and 2018.
In the latter half of the decade, she started to turn her attentions to longer runs and races. 2015 saw her take on the third edition of the intimidating Dragon’s Back Race, a then 186-mile, multi-day race across the length of Wales via its hilly spine, entailing elevation gain twice that of Everest from sea level. Paris won the women’s race, finishing second overall just over an hour and a half behind Jim Mann. Incidentally, Mann was later one of the runners in the famous 2024 Barkley Marathons, completing one lap of the course.
In 2016, Paris set her eyes on Britain’s three Big Rounds: the Bob Graham in the English Lake District, the Paddy Buckley in Wales’ Eryri (Snowdonia) and the Charlie Ramsay in the Scottish Highlands. These relatively comparable challenges all involve running to multiple summits on routes that entail about 60 miles and with more than 8,000 metres of elevation gain – just a little less than ascending Everest from sea level.
In April, on the Bob Graham, she set a new women’s record of 15 hours and 24 minutes, more than two-and-a-half hours quicker than the previous record. In June, she broke the overall record for the Charlie Ramsey, completing the round in just 16 hours and 13 minutes. She completed an unprecedented hat trick in October, setting a new woman’s record on the Paddy Buckley of 18 hours and 33 minutes, holding all three record simultaneously. She still holds the women's record for the Charlie Ramsey to this day.
Smashing records on the Spine
The world of British fell running and the Big Rounds are hardly mainstream, so despite her remarkable feats, Paris received very little attention from the wider public. This changed in 2019, when Paris outright won the Winter Spine Race, a 268-mile non-stop, ultra marathon that follows the course of Britain’s oldest national trail, the Pennine Way. If 268 miles non-stop sounds like a big ask, consider also that it’s a race that traverses northern England’s most remote and rugged moorland, with adverse weather and navigational challenges to overcome, as well as about 13,300 metres of ascent thrown in for good measure.
What made Paris’ victory all the more astounding was that she absolutely destroyed the previous overall record by about 12 hours, all while regularly expressing breast milk for her daughter Rowan. It took until 2024 for her course record to be broken by British runner Jack Scott, who set an incredible time of 72 hours 55 minutes and 5 seconds. Paris still holds the women’s record.
After the Spine
2021 was another fruitful year, as Paris set the women's 24-hour Munro record in the Scottish Cairngorms in July. The Munros are the prominent Scottish peaks over 3,000 feet and the 24-hour record involves getting to the summit of as many as you can and returning to the start point within the time period. Paris managed 29 peaks during her incredible round.
Later that year, she went on to win the 100-mile Ultra Tour Monte Rosa, a race created by follow British mountain running legend Lizzy Hawker, five times winner of the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc.
Making history at the Barkley Marathons
Between 2022 and 2024, Paris famously locked horns with the notorious Barkley Marathons, a 100-mile race in Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park. This is no ordinary ultra and is widely considered to be the toughest in the world. In the race’s 40-year history, only 22 runners have ever completed the incredibly gruelling course, which involves completing five 20-mile off-trail loops within the 60-hour time limit.
In 2015, race founder Gary Cantrell, known as Laz Lake, was quoted as saying: "The race is too hard for women. They are simply not tough enough to do it. And I get to say that for as long as it goes that no woman proves me wrong." The gauntlet had been laid; the challenge set.
However, Lake saw Paris’ potential as a Barkley Marathons finisher long before she first attempted the run. Her achievement on the 2019 Winter Spine Race caught his attention. He told the Bad Boy Running Podcast that he was "excited about this woman who won the Spine" and that "it seems like she would have a lot of the different things you need".
Paris’ first acquaintance with the race was in 2022 on the Fun Run, an experience which she modestly described as ‘Type 2 Fun!’. The Fun Run involves three laps of the course, with a time limit of 40 hours, which Paris made with just over 10 minutes to spare. However, on that occasion she was outside the 36-hour cut-off for an attempt at a fourth lap. Of the navigational challenges she faced on the run, she commented: "I needed 10 hands, not two." Nevertheless, she had been the first female runner to successfully complete the Fun Run in nine years, after Bev Abbs’ effort in 2013.
Not satisfied with her success in 2022, Paris was back in 2023 and managed to attempt four laps, becoming only the second woman to make it that far, after Sue Johnston in 2001.
Then, in March 2024, Paris achieved perhaps the greatest feat of her running career by becoming the first female to complete all five laps within the 60-hour time frame. She crossed the line after 59 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds before slumping to the ground exhausted, by the iconic gate that marks the start and finish. She’d proven Laz wrong and afterwards said that she’d done it for women worldwide. She revealed she felt a sense of "overwhelming relief" that her battle with the Barkley Marathons was finally over.
The Green Runners
In 2022, Paris co-founded the Green Runners, a community of runners supporting each other and campaigning to make positive change in the fight against the climate crisis. Community members pay a small yearly membership fee and make a pledge based around four pillars: how we travel, how we fuel, how we kit up and how we speak out. Notably, the Green Runners have petitioned and campaigned against car giants, such as Ford and Dacia, sponsoring high profile running events like the Tor des Geants and the UTMB.
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