MONTANE SPINE RACE - WEDNESDAY 16TH
Jasmin Paris has finished first place completing the Spine Race in a record-breaking 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds. Pre-Race Day 1 Day2 Day3 Day4 Day5 Day6 Day7 Day8 Day9 As the Montane Spine Race enters its fourth night, Paris completes another historic victory. Capitalising on her strategic decision 194 miles into the race to go it alone, Paris showed no sign of fatigue as she crossed the line in overall first place. Not content with getting first-place, Paris demonstrated fortitude and strength across 268 miles to overcome
Earlier on the course in Kielder Forest, Paris talked about her motivation to get to the finish line, “Everything is starting to hurt now but it’s not that far any more… once I get to the finish, I’ll have my little girl there.”
Having made the choice to push on rather than rest for long Paris built up a commanding lead over Eugeni Roselló Solé, which she then maintained to the end. However, since then Roselló Solé had to retire from the race in cold and very windy conditions, agonisingly just 6km from the end at approximately 5am Thursday morning.
The previous fastest time on the Spine Race was set by Ireland's Eoin Keith (95:17:00) in 2016, while hitherto the fastest female was Ireland's Carol Morgan (109:54:00) in 2017. The fact Paris smashed the record by half a day comes as no surprise to those who know the history of this fell running vet from Edinburgh, Paris is no stranger to both women's and overall records.
In 2015 Jasmin won the women's Dragon's Back Race, coming 2nd overall. The following year she broke records on all three of the UK's famous big hill running rounds: Scotland's Ramsay Round (16:13); Lakeland's Bob Graham (15:24); and the Paddy Buckley in Wales (18hrs 33mins). Her Ramsay time is not only a women's record but remains the fastest overall time for the round.
There is a Yellow Warning in the Cheviots for late today and tomorrow. Heavy snow from 10pm through to midnight. Thereafter light snow all through the day. Wind chill -20° C on the top with windspeed gusting to 50mph.
Cross Fell will experience heavy snow from midnight to 3am with a Windchill of -18°C and wind speed gusting to 45mph on the top. Thursday morning will be clear but very cold.
