Last year, 40-year-old British runner Jasmin Paris became the first woman to finish the Barkley Marathon. The infamously difficult ultramarathon covers 160 rugged kilometers of trail running. This new documentary, The Finisher, uses never-before-seen footage and interviews to tell the story of her run.
A personal challenge
The film opens with a 2015 clip of Barkley race founder and organizer Gary Cantrell. “The race is too hard for women,” he laughs. “They are simply not tough enough to do it.”
He says he won’t believe a woman could complete the course until one proves him wrong.
Mocking spite is in the spirit of the Barkley. It was originally conceived in 1977 when Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray escaped prison into the Tennessee backcountry but made less than 13km in 54 hours. Dismissively, local runner Gary Cantrell declared that he could’ve done 100 miles (160km) in that time.
The course is a series of loops with points runners must navigate to. At those points are books, whose pages they must tear out to prove their success. Photo: Screenshot
Accordingly, the course — which still takes place in Tennessee — is deliberately punishing. “It was just so incredibly unforgiving,” reflected Amelia Boone, an obstacle runner who attempted but did not complete the Barkley.
While the distance — officially 160km but actually closer to 200 — is nothing to sniff at, the true difficulty, as with other ultra-marathons, lies in the terrain. Runners spend a fair amount of their time climbing (more than if they summited Everest from sea level twice) and crawling through the mud. They also have to navigate and fend for themselves in the wilderness for several days. There are no rescue teams.
In an interview, Jasmin Paris explains that when she heard that women apparently couldn’t finish the race, she took it as a personal challenge.
In an exclusive interview, Jasmin Paris explains how she wanted to take on a new challenge after the birth of her son. The Barkley became that challenge. Photo: Screenshot
Decides to compete
In 2019, Jasmin Paris set a new record at another ultra-marathon called The Spine and became the first woman to win the overall race. According to Cantrell, this is when he began hoping that she would become the first woman to finish the Barkley.
In 2022, she ran the Barkley for the first time. Training for the event was her (admittedly extreme) way of getting fit again after her second pregnancy. She didn’t finish but did become the first woman in nine years to complete the “fun run” of three 40km loops despite terrible weather and broken equipment.
By the time she finished her second loop, shown here, Paris knew she wouldn’t finish the whole course. She decided to keep going and push to complete the Fun Run. Photo: Screenshot
In 2023, the weather was better, and so was her time. But she still didn’t finish.
Undaunted, Jasmin committed to an even more intense training regiment. The film lingers on footage of her training at home in the UK, running across rolling fields with a faithful but increasingly beleaguered dog.
Paris returned to her home in the UK and began training for hours every day. Photo: Screenshot
The fateful year
Going into 2024, she felt that this was the year she would finally finish the Barkley. She lays out her plan: push herself far beyond her limits on the first three laps to make sure she has enough time left to finish.
Fancy equipment isn’t part of the ethos. She wore the same shoes and even the same shirt all three years and is proud of it. What she does have is support. Her husband stays at the gate that marks a completed loop, where he can cook and provide first aid.
The shoes Jasmin Paris used for all three attempts. Using and repairing the same shoes and clothes is important to Paris, who is committed to reducing waste. Photo: Screenshot
There is also camaraderie between the runners, who can be seen cheering each other on, taking their brief breaks together, and sharing supplies.
After loop three, she was several hours ahead of her previous years’ time but behind the pack. This was the lowest moment for her, she says — feeling so terrible but knowing she had just enough time to finish and so would have to go back out. We watch her push through, strap back in, and leave camp alone.
Jasmin started out alone on loop four. Photo: Screenshot
Finisher
“At one point, I literally curled up on the forest floor,” Paris reflects, remembering feeling so sick and exhausted that she couldn’t go on. But she did, completing her fourth loop and returning to camp. Again, the worst part is knowing that she will go on.
Headlamps lit up the night’s blackness as everyone at camp clapped and cheered Paris into the final loop. She was the first woman ever to start loop five. She had a little over 13 hours to complete it within the time limit.
Jasmin set off alone into the dark woods, with 13 hours to complete a final loop. Photo: Screenshot
Animated recreations of her final lap show the dark woods closing in around her and a giant hourglass running out. She was running on empty, eating almost nothing, and knowing that one minute can make the difference.
With eight minutes left, on the final stretch, Paris described a devastating realization that she might not make it. Back at the gate, everyone waited, wanting her to make it but imagining that it was no longer possible.
A cheer erupts from the crowd as Jasmin rounds the bend, coming into sight of the finish line.
Jasmin Paris made it with 99 seconds to go on the clock, collapsing at the gate. The relief and catharsis of the moment can be felt through the screen.
“I didn’t believe what other people told me was possible,” she says, reflecting again on the now disproved idea that no woman could run the Barkley.
