Jasmin Paris from Midlothian made history by finishing the gruelling 100-mile Barkley Marathons.

She was so exhausted she slumped to the ground after finishing the race which is inspired by a famous prison escape.

The course, at Frozen Head State Park, changes every year but covers 100 miles involving 60,000ft of climb and descent - about twice the height of the Mount Everest.

Only 20 people have ever made it to the end of the race within the allotted 60 hours since it was extended to 100 miles in 1989.

The idea for the race came when they heard about the 1977 escape of James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr, from nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.

Prospective runners must write a “Why I should be allowed to run in the Barkley” essay along with a $1.60 (£1.27) entrance fee and if successful get a letter of condolence.

Competitors must find between nine and 14 books along the course (the exact number varies each year) before removing the page corresponding to their race number from each book as proof of completion.

  • @Excrubulent@slrpnk.netEnglish
    1•8 months ago

    They were simply claiming that the race organizers weren’t being political when they founded the race - they just saw challenging terrain and figured they’d be able to give it a go and get do much better.

    You can say you were just paraphrasing, but “simply claiming” implies you saw nothing wrong with what they were saying.

    EDIT: And I actually said that “to pretend like that is devoid of politics” was a problem, I never said you were saying it. But apparently you’re happy to just repeat it as if it’s a fine thing to say.

    • @papertowelsEnglish
      2•8 months ago

      Oh, well when I said , “simply claiming”, I was implying that most folks don’t have an issue understanding what they meant, because it’s simple when you take both paragraphs into consideration.

      It seems like just as you chose to interpret things in an adversarial manner then, you are choosing to do so now.

      EDIT: sigh, to address your edit:

      And I actually said that “to pretend like that is devoid of politics” was a problem, I never said you were saying it.

      It’s pretty clear that you were asserting it’s one of my beliefs here:

      You’re one of the people pretending this isn’t political.

        • @papertowelsEnglish
          1•8 months ago

          Yeah idk what app you’re using but in sync, once conversations have this many exchanges, it becomes completely unreadable as entire comments are compressed into a single column of 1 letter wide rows. Given this UI issue I’m not sure we can really continue the conversation if we wanted to.

          I hope you have a good day - I appreciate the good faith and earnestness from everyone.