"The Finisher" Reminds Us Of The Best Parts Of Running
The new film about Jasmin Paris's 2024 Barkley Marathon is worth the watch
Part of putting this blog together is paying attention to the trades in the road and trail running community. This week I came across the new trail running film, “The Finisher”, about Jasmin Parks and her attempts to be the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathon. After multiple failed attempts, she broke through in 2024.
If you aren’t familiar with Barkley, it's notorious for its conditions and its odd setup, in which runners must complete 5 loops around Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee to finish, covering 100 miles within a 60-hour cutoff. The majority of runners who compete end up with a DNF at the end, and most believe the actual distance is closer to 120 miles. In 2025, there were no finishers. The course is unknown to its participants until they show up for the race, and changes every year, purposely getting more grueling for the 40-some souls who show up to see what they're made of. It's aptly nicknamed "the race that eats its young".
Until 2024, no woman had finished the race, and the film reminds us of this at the outset, opening with an interview from 2015 with race organizer Lazarus Lake admitting that he thought he would never see the day it would happen, although he hoped it would.
Today, trail running is full of women who dominate and elevate the sport. When I think of Western States, UTMB, and other events I recall the women who succeed faster than the men. It’s hard to believe there was a time in the sport as recent as 2015 when someone thought a course was too much for a woman to handle.
But these scenes with Laz aren’t meant to deter viewers but rather underscore the magnitude of what Paris did in 2024. Interviews with Laz continue throughout the film, and he admits how perfect of a fit she is for the race. Her determination, learning from her failures, and her refusal to quit on her goal over her 3 attempts at Barkley make her the perfect competitor.
The interviews with Paris are fascinating to watch. She talks about the demands of training like they are simple to-dos on the calendar. Her casualness could almost make someone question her sanity. If you’re not willing to be sleep-deprived and run hill sprints at midnight in freezing temperatures, can you even call yourself a runner?
Films like The Finisher can surely make viewers feel like their training is insufficient. Yet I found Paris’ story to be less an indictment on all of us average runners and more of an inspiration. Her story exposes all of the best parts of running: the ability we have to stretch beyond what we think we’re capable of, our ability to break records that no one thinks could be broken, and the simplicity and beauty of the sport. She seems perfectly content with how unorthodox her life is from training to her shoe repairs, which she would do on her own. She has worn the same kits for years, valuing comfort over style or new gear.
When you begin running, the sport makes you confront your boundaries pretty quickly. How far are you willing to go? How uncomfortable are you with uncertainty on race day? Can you make all the necessary life adjustments and sacrifices to accomplish your goals? The sport continues to ask these questions of you with every training block or race you enter. I've had to answer these questions multiple times. As I get more experience, the answers evolve. I'm more comfortable with distances, and speeds, and have gotten better at understanding what running a PR demands. Listening to Paris, she speaks about these things with a wisdom that can only be gained by traveling to the farthest limits, but her tone has a relatability that makes you think you could finish the world’s toughest race.
I’ve grown to appreciate the relatability between the sport’s best and the average runner. We all face these questions. And we all are capable of more than we know. If we’re honest about the work required and do the work daily, great things happen.
It’s worth the watch. If you’d like to check it out, I’ve included it at the top of this post.