Feet full of blisters. The daughter of a Czech mathematician was the first woman to finish an extreme race

The 40-year-old Parisová, whose mother is a Czech mathematician, reached the finish line two minutes before the deadline on Friday. Her performance caused a wave of admiration and uproar on social media.

Three days after the race, Paris told Reuters her hands were still dirty with mud and her feet were swollen and blistered.

Held in the US since it was extended to 100 miles in 1989, only 20 people have finished within the time limit. Five twenty-mile circuits await the participants in difficult terrain, often very overgrown without any paths. In addition, they face a total elevation gain of 16,520 meters, making them almost double the Mt. Everest. At the controls, they tear out leaves from the book, which they then have to present at the finish line. No spectators can reach the track.

The race is by invitation only, 40 people took part in the current year. Five of them finished, a single-year record. And Paris made history as the first woman to finish. She fought until the last meters. “I knew I really had to run because I couldn’t do it otherwise, and I really, really wanted to walk. Everything inside me was calling for me to go,” she recounted.

She was driven by the thought that otherwise she would have to complete the five demanding circuits again in another year. “I put everything I had into trying to run. One of my thoughts was to either slow down and stop or speed up. And somehow I forced myself to speed up. I didn’t even know it was possible. I thought that I’m already at the edge of my possibilities,” she recalled of the challenging finish.

Her legs were scratched from the thick bushes she often had to push through. She was out of breath on the track for so long that she lost her voice. It then took quite a while for her to breathe normally again. “My hands are still black, I haven’t gotten the mud off my skin yet. My feet are swollen, which is normal after a long race. And I have quite a lot of inflammation in my shin,” added the mother of two children, who are three and six years old.

She received many messages about how she inspired other women and girls. “I’m really happy to have helped prove that women can do things like this and I hope it inspires women to take on their own challenges, whatever they may be,” said the Manchester native.

She used to be a successful hill runner. She currently combines endurance training with her family, her job as a veterinarian and her work as a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. When she became the first woman overall to win the Montane Spine Race ultramarathon in 2019, she also famously breastfed her recently born child at the controls.

She usually trains around 6:30 in the morning in order to catch up with other activities and duties. One of her workouts consisted of running up a nearby hill seventeen times between one in the morning and ten in the morning. After her success at the Barkley Marathons, she was looking forward to running with friends in the Scottish mountains.