'I was hallucinating': first woman to finish brutal 100-mile race describes ordeal

"I was so close to passing out," said Jasmin Paris, as she relived the moment she became the first woman to complete the race widely seen as the most devilish, daunting, and tough of them all. "I felt I was going to reach the finishing gate, or collapse right in front of it. There was a tunnel of roars on either side. But I couldn't focus. It was all a bit blurry."

- Sean Ingle

Since 1989, more than 1,000 ultramarathon runners have attempted the Barkley Marathons in Frozen Head state park, Tennessee. But only 20 had ever finished the 100-mile course, which includes about 16,500 metres of elevation - almost the equivalent of climbing Everest twice - within the 60-hour time limit.

However on Friday, Paris, a 40-year-old senior veterinary lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, sprinted across the line after 59 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds 99 seconds inside the cut-off-before collapsing in a heap.

"It's not the fact that it's 100 miles that's the problem - it's about the terrain," Paris told the Guardian in her first interview since arriving back in the UK. "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."

There is no time for sleep either - save for a three-minute power nap before the last of the five loops - which unsurprisingly led to hallucinations. "I saw quite a lot of people in black macintoshes," she said. "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.

"I always see animals in races like these too," she added. "There were trees that looked like a mountain lion, or a big dog, or pigs lying down, until I got closer."