Jasmin Paris Becomes First Woman to Finish Hardest Race

https://run.outsideonline.com/news/barkley-marathons-2024-results/

by Tomte • 2 years ago

207 95 2 years ago

run.outsideonline.com

pushedx• 2 years ago

The various documentaries on the Barkeley are some of the most memorable videos I have watched on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/IEIerVw1vsw

https://youtu.be/LZ-DE-hmiGE

https://youtu.be/NDZdsqbcGTU

They inspired me to start running again.

sabellito3• 2 years ago

I started running years ago because of these videos too.

twright• 2 years ago

The first link is 2023’s race. The second link is 2014 and is probably how most people learned about the race since it was on Netflix. It’s amazing to compare the two race years to see how much it has changed in terms of competition and popularity.

Socnic• 2 years ago

I'm surprised how little people you actually see running in the first video you listed. If anything, that you inspire me hiking.

BinaryMachine• 2 years ago

I just watched the first video thus far and wow. Thank you for sharing! I thought maybe competing in something like this would be only for people in their 20's 30's because I am getting older, but I heard other people are in their 40's.

This inspired me to do something more competitive than just run on a treadmill every other day. Reminds me of high school cross country running a little.

AndrewKemendo• 2 years ago

Ultramarathon skews older

dmd• 2 years ago

If I was gonna just watch one of those, which would you recommend?

sabellito3• 2 years ago

This one is not on the list and it's my favourite. Not the most well-produced of the bunch, but it captured a mood that I didn't find in any of the others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-V8x0hQXA4

guerrilla• 2 years ago

I don't know, I just watched two of these and found them both pretty boring compared to climbing videos. Look up Adam Ondra, Alex Megos, Alex Honnold, Margot Hayes, the Reel Rock channel, the North Face channel, the Patagonia channel or maybe that movie about Janja. One of my favorite is Action Directe:

https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/reel-rock-s7-e3

defrost• 2 years ago

Worth pointing out that it's rare for anybody to finish.

    It was a year of historic firsts at the Barkley Marathons.

    No race is more notoriously impossible to finish. Over the first 37 years, only 17 people had done so.

    That all changed on March 22, 2024, when an unprecedented five runners completed the race, smashing the record of three set last year.

PierceJoy• 2 years ago

My money is on Laz making it notoriously impossible again next year. No way he lets this continue lol.

pricechild• 2 years ago

In one of the YouTube videos, there's a line from him along the lines of "if people do finish this year, it might be the last event as people will find it boring and not want to turn up.x

randoglando• 2 years ago

How many enter?

dtf2• 2 years ago

Karellen• 2 years ago

The number of applications to participate are not publicised - but it's an infamous race amongst ultrarunners, so I suspect they get quite a lot of applications. However - the way to apply is also not publicised, so there are probably a fair number of people who'd like to enter but don't figure out how.

35 applications are accepted each year.

thih92• 2 years ago

The Barkley is limited to 35 runners and usually fills up quickly the day registration opens

source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley_Marathons

DannyBee• 2 years ago

It's 35 because the park rangers won't let them have more.

BelleOfTheBall• 2 years ago

Wow, I haven't heard of this one before. I'm no couch potato these days, but that's the kind of feat that makes me realize I am far from fit, it seems insanely difficult to even navigate the trail.

ansible• 2 years ago

You are fit.

But there's a difference between that and being at the very peak of human physical and mental endurance.

In many ways, it seems harder than climbing Mount Everest, due to the time limits.

sabellito3• 2 years ago

Curiously, the accumulated vertical climb is twice Everest's height.

tialaramex2• 2 years ago

Very hard to compare because it's usual - indeed basically mandatory - to climb Everest as a group whereas it's forbidden to attempt these ultra races in that way, the competitors aren't even allowed to help each other during a loop.

Also they're not kidding about Everest's death zone - it's genuinely incompatible with human life up on that mountain, whereas while its no stroll in the park where this race is held, it's not going to just kill you if you stay there a bit longer - the strict timer is because many more people could complete the loops at a slower pace. Not me, but probably most serious entrants.

polio• 2 years ago

Fitness is specific to an activity, but yeah, the Barkley Marathon is probably the hardest form of ultra running.

2wrist• 2 years ago

Jasmine is phenomenal. Her Bob Graham Round run a few years back was spectacular too.

J253• 2 years ago

Never heard of the race before. Highly recommend reading about some of the quirks surrounding it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley_Marathons

thih92• 2 years ago

The race is full of peculiarities.

In addition to running, competitors must find between 9 and 14 books along the course (the exact number varies each year) and remove the page corresponding to the runner's race number from each book as proof of completion. Because of this, competitors are only issued odd numbers. Competitors get a new race number, and thus a new page requirement, at the start of each lap.

source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley_Marathons

leereeves• 2 years ago

Are they hard to find?

Another peculiarity I found interesting:

Upon arriving, first-time Barkley runners, known as virgins [no comment], are required to bring a license plate from their state/country as part of the entrance fee.

sevagh• 2 years ago

It seems so arbitrary. Why not make them hit pinatas and eat candy corresponding to the runner's pre-assigned flavor?

Biganon• 2 years ago

The entire race is filled with similar arbitrary and humorous details

I think the start of the race is indicated by a man lighting a cigarette

aembleton• 2 years ago

Because no one has to go and check on the books to see if they've reached the checkpoints. They just bring the pages back to Laz.

bell-cot• 2 years ago

Once you start saying "hardest race", my mind goes to people like Preet Chandi.

OTOH, doing "unsupported" solo expeditions across Antarctica may require a rather larger budget than doing a 60-hour foot race in Tennessee.

MOARDONGZPLZ2• 2 years ago

Doing a solo expedition isn’t a race. Very different things. The closest race I know to an expedition is the Badwater 135, which is 135 mile run from Death Valley to near the top of Mt Whitney. But that’s significantly easier than Barkley if percentage of people who finish is the metric.

tialaramex2• 2 years ago

See, to me the obvious comparison was to the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race, because of the loops. I hate loops, I'm a walker not a runner, so these aren't things I have any ambition to attempt, but personally I'd rather spend six hours going to somewhere (even if to then immediately get in a car and be driven back to civilisation) than three hours in loops repeating myself.

In other ways these are very different races - Sri's race is literally around a single city block, over, and over, and over again - there's no significant climbing element, it's not really possible to get lost and it's mostly about the mental state needed if you are sufficiently capable of the running itself. But the loops, that's what jumps out at me.

nemo44x• 2 years ago

I’m surprised she is the first women to complete it as I recently read an article in Scientific America [1] that said the new evidence from exercise science shows women are better physiologically suited than men at long distance running.

Because of the science here I wonder if there’s bias or even sexism in selecting who is allowed to run this race. Or is there something unique about this race that contradicts what we now know about long distance running?

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-theory-that-m...

padjo• 2 years ago

There’s so many things odd about this race that it’s not particularly surprising it doesn’t line up with controlled scientific evidence.

steveBK123• 2 years ago

The more I read about the race the more it sounds like calvinball.

kalind2• 2 years ago

How could women be better physiologically suited at long distance running than men, when for example there are around 2500[1] men that have a better time than the women's marathon world record at 2:11:53?

Or compare the men's record at UTMB (100 mile race) at 19:37:43 vs the women's record at 22:30:54.

[1] https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/road-ru...

MOARDONGZPLZ2• 2 years ago

The article isn’t about pure time, it’s about overall endurance over time. Women tend to finish ultramarathons at a higher rate than men, but not typically faster than men.

CydeWeys• 2 years ago

They're talking distances much longer than marathons even.

alwaysrunning• 2 years ago

As a former ultra runner who never competed in barely, women traditionally do better downhill, they are lighter, have a smaller stride length (more agile), and Barkley has a lot of downhill. It's a loop also so comparing it to utmb or any race that isn't a loop or onb isn't quite the same. Men do better uphill traditionally where there is more power and lung capacity required, which Barkley has plenty of also. One thing no one has really pointed out is most ultras alow for a pacer after a certain point. This is vital once you start to lose your ability to think. It keeps you from getting lost, keeps you on pace, ensures you drink and eat at the correct times, mentally it gives you someone to keep you motivated, keep you sane, so on. In Barkley you see runners grouping together to compensate for the lack of a pacer but the fifth loop they send each runner out in the opposite direction so they do the final loop solo, when everything is at its worst. For example, in 2022, Karel Sabbe was found asking a trash can for help getting back on course because he thought it was a women, on his fourth loop.

Honestly, I am surprised it hasn't happen prior to this year, minus the fact that there are just so few finishers.

kitd• 2 years ago

AIUI the difference between the sexes is less for long distances than it is for shorter, faster events, not that women are faster than men. Therefore the probability of a woman finisher in this race is theoretically not much less than a man finisher.

prmoustache2• 2 years ago

Becayse marathons are relatively short distance.

We observe the same in ultracycling where Lael Wilcox is among the fastest.

The thing is traditionnally sports have been invented by men with charactetistics/rules that suited men first.

You also have to take into account that in any society influcenced by patriarcal and sexism schemes, it is logical that they ate simply more men participating. The base level of a group always increase with the participation and competitivity within that group.

CamperBob2• 2 years ago

...when for example there are around 2500[1] men that have a better time than the women's marathon world record at 2:11:53?

Women have only recently been allowed to participate in this type of sport. See https://kathrineswitzer.com/1967-boston-marathon-the-real-st... for instance.

So it's not surprising that there's not much of a competitive tradition in marathoning that brings as many women into it as men, or that encourages them to train as hard.

It's also true that some peoples' body types seem more naturally suited to it. See Kenya's domination in distance-running events. They have a cultural tradition that celebrates endurance running going back thousands of years. Even if that timeframe is too short to exhibit genuine selection pressure, it still has an effect. Their children have been raised to run.

There is probably no inherent reason why women don't show the same speed or endurance as men, just as there was no actual science behind the widely-held notion that no one could break the four-minute mile. But it will take time to make up for past discouragement and outright discrimination.

icegreentea2• 2 years ago

Something to consider is that many of the advantages that the article says women have might not be as relevant in the context of "one-off" events (even something smeared over a few days).

One advantage listed pointed was the higher fat stores, and a higher preference to burn fat rather than burn muscle. But modern food and fueling strategies (and this is of course race/event dependent) can also erode that advantage. If you can continuously dump glucose into your system at the right rate, you'll limit your body's need to tap into muscle or fat stores at all. In this race, you can carry whatever you want in your pack during a lap, and every lap you have the opportunity to refuel and pick up more food.

The timescale that this race occurs over probably isn't enough for the recovery advantage to really show, but uh... I've never run an ultra (or a normal marathon...), so I really can't judge.

Finally, the very nature of races (and having a time cut-off) is just soooo different from if endurance hunting for your life style. In a race, burning up all your matches to just barely cross the finish line in time (or at all) is a winning strategy. In real life, burning all your matches to catch an animal on a hunt is -generally- not a winning strategy (if it means that you'll be in recovery and shit at hunting for the next 2 days). If hunting-gathering is your life, your strategies should be built around consistency and risk management. Many of the advantages listed in the article seem like powerful tools for risk management. As your sport (or your metric) better approximates the risk management scenario of "life as a hunter-gatherer" I think you'd expect the female advantage to show more prominently, and maybe eventually dominate.

serial_dev2• 2 years ago

Well it's just one article, so don't take it too seriously (and, though I just skimmed the article, it is possible that they do have an agenda, so maybe take it even less seriously).

It's quite interesting though that women perform relatively well at ultramarathons: for example no woman has real chance against top men in basketball, baseball, 100 m sprint etc, but in very long ultra marathons women even win sometimes.

I listened to Courtney Dauwalter on JRE (and then on other shows and indie movies), and she won the Moab 240 [1], a race where they run for days.

And I'm not saying that women are better suited than man, and races with 15 attendees aren't scientific studies, I'm just saying that it can be sometimes competitive and it's quite interesting.

[1] https://www.trailrunnermag.com/people/news/courtney-dauwalte...

nasmorn• 2 years ago

Even Courtney wins a stacked ultra outright. 200 milers are just a hobby thing. So at any event there might not be a single world class athlete. Courtney will beat most men on pretty much any distance and most professional runners on anything starting from a 100 miles. She runs into the UTMB top 10 which is insanely strong. To ever win it the drop out rate for the top ten men would need to be 100% since at least 10 men run the race at a pace exceeding hers. Just takes one coming through

anamax2• 2 years ago

new evidence from exercise science shows women are better physiologically suited than men at long distance running.

The average doesn't tell you the shape of the distribution matters

Men's distributions on some things are a bit flatter than women's. As a result, the number of men at the endpoints (for those things) can easily exceed the number of women at those endpoints even when the women's average is higher.

lolc• 2 years ago

This is such an under-appreciated point! Even in a sport where the average female is at an advantage over the average male, the top performers will likely still be male due to the higher variance in the male population.

rconti• 2 years ago

I only skimmed the article but a few things jumped out at me that confirmed what I was going to suggest anyway, so let's go with that :)

"Better suited" is not the same thing as faster.

Less cellular and muscular breakdown might mean they're typically able to recover faster and perform better day after day, while not necessarily indicating that faster men's single-event times have some kind of sexism as a root cause.

The article discussed fast twitch vs slow twitch fibers and how men could be more powerful but worse at endurance, but again, what is the limit of endurance? As another reply to this post suggested, modern athletic performance foods might help men overcome what would otherwise be a disadvantage in multi-hour efforts. Of course, those same foods/fuels are likely designed with men in mind in the first place!

karaterobot• 2 years ago

Congratulations to everyone who finished. I got deep into reading up on this race a couple years ago. I think about it when I'm doing my little hikes. I can't imagine. But I'm mostly fascinated by the character of Lazarus Lake, his avuncular sadism, and the rituals and ceremonies surrounding the whole race.

With three finishes under his belt, it may seem like a fourth one was clandestine for Campbell, 44

Not sure how clandestine is being used here. Incorrectly I guess. I miss copy editors.

dhc02• 2 years ago

The two sentences following that one both start with the word "but". Pretty bad paragraph for a "real" publication.

epivosism4• 2 years ago

You might like this conversation Laz had with Tyler Cowen a few months back: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/lazarus-lake/

ndr• 2 years ago

There's a recent conversation of Lazarus Lake, the designer of these races, with Tyler Cowen [0]. This race is crazy hard.

[0] video+transcripts @ https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/lazarus-lake/

pgwhalen• 2 years ago

Some great quotes here.

When people try to set up similar events, say, in Europe, they make them put a tracker on everybody because the government wants to protect you from yourself. But we’ve always done it. They’ll say, “Well, the tracker wouldn’t make a difference because it doesn’t tell the runner where they are.” But it tells the runner someone knows where they are.
I’m transitioning it over to a guy named Carl Laniak because I won’t be around forever. We just had to get rid of the nonproductive qualities. He had empathy [laughs] and other things that serve no purpose in a race of this nature.

exabrial• 2 years ago

Not to diminish this feat, what an amazing finish!…

I doing know anything about the race designers, so what and why is the motivation behind this “race”? If it’s impossible to finish, why does anyone spectate?

anamax2• 2 years ago

They're not watching for the end, they're watching for the journey.

If you just care about the end, there's no reason to show up until then. Heck, a photo of folks crossing the line should be enough.

jurassicfoxy2• 2 years ago

He (Laz) only creates special races, truly sadistic ones. He has zero interest in putting on regular 100 milers. There are thousands of those, but his races are among the most challenging and interesting in the world. He also invented the even more sadistic Backyard Ultra format!

dieselgate2• 2 years ago

It’s not impossible to finish which is likely one of the reasons it has appeal

tekla• 2 years ago

Because its fun

pnut• 2 years ago

Article conspicuously omitted how long the race is, seems like a relevant headline level detail...

philipwhiuk• 2 years ago

100 miles

The exact route is not published and competitors are banned from GPS. But it's more than 100 miles. Might be ~25 miles a lap.

jurassicfoxy2• 2 years ago

Exactly. Plus people that finish it can run really hilly 100 milers in ~16 hours. And they finish this one ins just under 60 hours. So I'm guessing it's quite a bit more than 100 miles!

serial_dev2• 2 years ago

Finishing a 60 hour ultra marathon in 59:58:21 must have been a nail-biter.

ebergen• 2 years ago

For a tech connection the first person to ever finish the race was Mark Williams who also worked on HHVM at Facebook.

dtf2• 2 years ago

I just googled a bit and found his race report from that event, dated April 1995:

https://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/bark100.txt

TheAlchemist• 2 years ago

John Kelly, the guy who is one of 2 people that managed to finish the race 3 times, is a Data Scientist.

He has a blog, with a great name to combine both of his passions ! https://randomforestrunner.com/

js22• 2 years ago

At 3:10 P.M. eastern on Thursday, Dunn tweeted that eight runners had moved onto loop four—a race record. That bunch included Paris and Campbell, whose quest to break his own Barkley finisher record lived on. While Paris completed loop four 10 minutes back from Campbell, Campbell waited for Paris to start lap five so she could choose her direction.

This is a lovely bit of sportsmanship[^1]. The person who finishes the 4th lap first gets to choose what direction to go out on the 5th (last) lap, then the remaining runners have to alternate. The course is a lot more difficult one direction than the other. Campbell waited to start his 5th lap to give Paris the choice what direction she wanted to run her 5th lap.

[^1]: I've run a few ultras. It's a sport that seems to either engender or attract good sports. Probably due to the shared suffering.

cl42• 2 years ago

100% with you. I do a lot of trail running and the community is consistently supportive, positive, and the biggest competition tends to be with yourself (your demons, your fatigue, etc.).

This is true whether you're doing a run in Norway, California, or Japan... Universally wonderful people.

js22• 2 years ago

A few year's back at Big's Backyard Ultra (2014), one of the last two runners had to catch his plane back to his home country. As you probably know, to win Big's you have to be the sole runner to complete a final lap, however many laps that is. Because the other runner didn't think this was a fair way for him to win, they both stopped running together on the 49th lap (204 miles) and that year there was no winner.

analog31• 2 years ago

My wife's a trail ultrarunner, and says that there's a lot more camaraderie. She suggests part of it is due to the fact that the races are so unpredictable, that direct comparisons and even "time" aren't all that meaningful. Another friend suggested the same thing about cyclocross.

xarope2• 2 years ago

I think Kilian Jornet's done that many times too, in highly competitive races.

carabiner• 2 years ago

Ultrarunning should be an Olympic sport. Vastly more interesting than the track stuff they show.

creaghpatr• 2 years ago

It's really hard to broadcast on TV because of the logistics and (usually) remote locations. But it would be amazing to watch a 100 miler in Paris or greater France, where they already have a huge ultra scene.

Ekaros• 2 years ago

I have long said someone should combine biathlon and triathlon. That would be suitable competition.

Jasmin Paris Becomes First Woman to Finish Hardest Race

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