Athlete breaks world record for Britain's toughest race just months after giving birth

A new mother has broken the world record for Britain’s toughest race just months after giving birth, training right up until the day she had her daughter.

Champion runner Jasmin Paris knocked a staggering 12 hours off the record for the Spine Race ultra-marathon, previously held by athlete Eoin Keith. She became the first woman to win the race, which was first held in 2012.

Ms Paris, originally from Derbyshire, won the race and smashed the record despite having to stop at every checkpoint to express milk for her 14-month-old daughter, Rowan, who recently recovered from two back-to-back viral infections.

She finished the 268-mile route along the full Pennine Way in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds, starting on Sunday morning and finishing on Wednesday night.

The race is frequently called “Britain’s most brutal” and extends from Derbyshire’s Peak District to the Scottish Borders. Conditions were gruelling, with 50-mile-per-hour winds and driving rain along the route, which contains almost two Mount Everest’s worth of elevation.

Under half of the starters generally finish the race, with only 45 per cent of runners crossing the finish line last year.

The 35-year-old small animal vet has written on her blog of the difficulties of training while having a newborn, and said she entered the race she “vowed [she] would never run” in order to get back into running.

She said: “Training became a juggling act with baby time, training frequently taking second place, or losing out altogether. To reconcile the two, I started to train from 5-6.30am before work, whilst my little family were cosy warm in bed, but it wasn’t easy, especially after a night of broken sleep (our offspring is not of the ‘sleep through the night’ variety).

“Looking back at the end of the season I was slightly surprised, but extremely happy with what I had achieved (British Champion, and being competitive again at a world level in Skyracing at Glencoe Skyline in September).

“However, maybe as a consequence of contentment, my motivation to train took a definite nose-dive. I found it harder and harder to leave my bed for the cold darkness outside, and realised that I needed a new focus. So I did something crazy, and entered a race I’d vowed I would never ever run, the Spine.”

On Tuesday the runner said she was “really enjoying” herself, and crossed the finish line just after 7pm on Wednesday with a huge grin on her face.

A spokesperson for the Spine Race told The Telegraph: “Jasmin ran the entire course. Her preparation before the course and admin during the race was impeccable. She is fast and she's an elite athlete.”

The athlete showed immense focus, sleeping for just a handful of hours during the race. Her total rest time, including eating, sleeping, dealing with kit and expressing milk, was just over seven hours.

She juggled running more than 30 miles a week with writing a thesis, working as a vet and being a first-time parent. It was her first time tackling the Spine Race, but she has form for beating world records; having broken the female world record for the Bob Graham Round, a loop taking in 42 Lake District peaks, as well as the record for the Ramsay Round, a 58-mile circuit of 24 Scottish mountains.

It is not unheard-of for women to win races and beat records shortly after giving birth; in 2007, Paula Radcliffe won the 2007 New York City Marathon less than a year after giving birth to her daughter, and during the 2011 Boston Marathon,  two-time Olympian Kara Goucher recorded her personal best time at the distance just seven months after her son was born.