In a 2015 YouTube video, an interviewer asked Gary “Laz” Cantrell why no women had finished his race, the infamous Barkley Marathons in the rugged mountains of Tennessee. “The race is too hard for women,” he replied with a sly grin. “They are simply not tough enough to do it, and I get to say that for as long as it goes that no one proves me wrong.” Since the inception of the race—which consists of five consecutive 20-plus-mile loops, hence “marathons”—in 1986, only 20 runners have finished. Until this year, all of them were men.
On March 22, a crowd flanked a tree-lined road at a campground in Frozen Head State Park. Spectators aimed their cameras at a woman in a red shirt and black capris running as fast as she could. Jasmin Paris, 40, was covered in dirt and scratches, and she could barely keep her eyes open. When the Brit touched the chipped yellow gate—in doing so becoming the first woman to ever finish the Barkley Marathons—she folded in half and then crumpled to the ground. The clock read 59 hours, 58 minutes, 21 seconds. Paris had attempted the Barkley on two previous…
