I have no idea sorry I've not been following it Manchester City decent guess decent guess I'm so disappointed not that I won them I'm a United fan I was I was Bor yeah I don't I don't think United had been doing very well though from my last chat with my dad maybe they're better now have they got a bit better this this is getting worse and worse Daman I've got an Arsenal fan and a United fan thank you very much Jasmine and Daman uh for joining me on film my run um I imagine that uh you've done a
number of interviews already Jasmine tell me how many you've done oh I don't I'm I'm not sure um but I know that I did sort of in the region of 30 last week in in a few days so um this week I'm back at work so just most I can do is like a couple in the evening once the kids are asleep but um yeah I'm going camping next week in the lake so I'm looking forward to just leaving all my kind of connection to the outside world behind and just enjoying some time in the hills with the family 30 is a lot
doo do you wish you've done 30 in two weeks as as we're I think the secret is yeah you stop you stop early so that people aren't really interested in you uh that's that's that's the secret um don't hey don't worry we're gonna come on to that oh right but then you have to talk about your failure so yeah um for for those watching uh we we are going to assume that you know who Jasmine Paris and Damen Hall are we are going to assume that you know a heck of a lot about what the heck the Barkley mara
thons is because we could spend hours and hours talking about what the Barkley is and we could spend even longer talking about Damian and Jasmine's portfolio I mean where do we start Damian's obsession with UTMB and his previous obsession with the spine uh Jasmine's obsession with the spine and both of their obsessions with the barklay marathons um and that is just a tiny amount you've both done monter Rosa as well haven't you both of you um so so we are you know I I'm sure that everybody watchi
ng is well aware of of what you guys have done but we're going to concentrate on the barkle Jasmine when when did you first kind of hear about the B caves how long ago did it enter your Consciousness I'm not I'm not even sure when I first heard about it like a long time ago but I can say when I kind of first became aware of it as like properly aware of it was after the spine when a number of people said to me um that you know that lzard said in an interview that he was Keen to see me try Barkley
and at that point I wasn't super convinced by the idea of running laps in a forest but it sort of grew on me it was one of those things it was like the spine That Grew on me in the same way and then sometime when my son was maybe like 9 months old or something um I suddenly decided suddenly knew one day that I wanted to do it and that was like a that was the moment I was waiting for because you have to go to that race like 100% wanting to do it you have to be all in I think if you want to finis
h what about you Damian when did you first come across it I think I think it was right at the beginning when I was learning about all these different ultramarathons um I think it was my local friend and and bad idea Walker um Alex coping who was the only real Ultra Runner I knew at first and we we'd go for a run on a Sunday and I'd always be pestering him about different races you know what are the what are the races you know what and I remember I think I said you know what's the toughest race o
r you know and he started telling about this one you know this one in Tennessee with the books in the woods and I remember thinking that you know that sounds pretty crazy and then of course it just stays in your Consciousness and when I really started getting more interested was probably after running the penhe way um setting a record in 2020 when yeah I was doing more interviews and I don't know if Jasmine's had the same but so many times you do an interview whether it's a podcast or or or sort
of a live thing and nearly always at the end someone says what about the Barkley when are you going to do the Barkley and after several years of that you're like well i' fing better give it a go I suppose um then you got to work out how to get in but um but then even then actually I was on the weit list for two years so um I was and then we had yeah the co thing as well so complications so yes it's been a long time a long time coming you you talk you still talk Daman like you're a new Runner be
cause I remember that kind of I remember um people saying to me oh are you going to do UTMB that's that's the one everyone does you know and you you still talk with that kind of enthusiasm of of like I've I've only just started running but you know you've been around for years mate that may be true but honestly I'm I'm just as in love with this this this sport this these Adventures as I was when I first started you know did my first ultramarathon um 2012 pretty sure it was and and just this whol
e world opens up to you doesn't it of of you know there's so many different events it doesn't even have to be an event and and I just love it I just love it and you know I've come back you know in some ways I've failed but I've had an amazing adventure uh and and it's you know it's quite good I think to remind yourself that quite early on you didn't get the result you wanted but wow you know I've got memories for a lifetime you know partly thanks to this lady here but um yeah so yeah I just I st
ill absolutely love it and I hope that never goes Jasmine so when you started to think about Barkley can you identify what it was that that made you think right okay I actually want to do this now and I and what made you think that you genuinely had a chance are you asking so I'll start um I it's an interesting thing but when I signed up in the spine it was when my daughter was like less than a year old and the same with the Barkley and it in in with my son and I and I feel like it's um somethin
g about coming back to running it's hard to kind it's hard to have a a baby and um go through the pregnancy and then kind of all the initial kind of post birth thing and getting fit again it's hard to do that and in some ways it's it's brilliant to have a something to motivate you and especially if it's something that's not the same as what you were doing before it's like a challenge you'd have nothing to compare it to it's something that you're really excited about and that's the way it was wit
h the spine for me I was suddenly really excited about this thing that I had no idea I had no prior kind of concept of how I could do in this so there was no expectation in my mind it was just open um to to how how it would go you know I didn't have to compare myself with how I was before I had this child I was just starting again um and it was it was an incredible kind of source of motivation just knowing that I was going to have to run 268 miles in the case of the spine and then it was the sam
e for the Barkley it had that same feel to it like of like suddenly you know I've got something to work towards again and I've got a reason to get a fit and so for me that was like a big motivator and then just you know I've sort of said it in multiple interviews but then the kind of excitement of not knowing like firstly the kind of kind of the nervous anticipation of not knowing what this kind of race so legendary is actually all about um and then not knowing whether you can finish it because
statistically speaking they like Hood as you can't and yet clearly it is possible so and then I guess the for me um I've always been kind of excited by the idea of being told that I that something's impossible especially if somebody says it's impossible for a woman then that's immediately the thing that would kind of make me say well like you know watch me um kind of um watch me try and so I was prepared to go there the first time and say you know find out maybe it is impossible but I needed to
see for myself first and actually what happened is I went there and I was like I think this is possible and it's just going to take a bit of effort so yeah so so when you when you um went in 2022 it wasn't a case that you you went around the first couple of loops and thought blim me this this is not going to be doable at all then no um I went around the first Loop and there was still quite a lot of people together I think it's just a kind of standard first sleep of Barkley when most people kind
of get around the faster people get around in I guess eight and a half 9 and a half hours and I sort of did roughly that I think it was 9 and a quarter um but that year we had incredible rain on the second on the second Loop in the night um and I had quite a lot of gear with me partly because I knew it was going to be wet and partly because I kind of come from a fell running background where you have to be capable of looking after yourself in Wild places and you carry a lot of Kit being used to
running in Scotland and so I was okay I was like I was a bit cold but um I had a lot of gear with me and I had fleece and extra layers and heavy water poof and all that and I kind of was came through the night okay and whereas I think most people dropped out I think there was five people left at the end or something that went out kind of on on after after the end of loop 2 so it was more that it was yeah certainly on Loop 3 I made an incredible number of mistakes um which I learned from for futu
re years but um it took me a very long time and actually it was very dramatic the end of loop three for me on that first year because I sort of came the wrong way off the Ridge and um it was a it was a real sprint to get back to the gate which from the opposite side to this time but um yeah to get back to the gate for 40 hours for a fun run but I definitely came away from it thinking I did I did made so many mistakes I could definitely do a lot better um especially if the weather was better the
legendary nature of Barkley people who haven't been there and I'm one of them we tend to think of you know the way they talk about the Steep inclines and the Briar you imagine that it's like nothing you've ever experienced before either of you Damian what you know you you've done the spine you've done you've both done runs you've done the rounds is it like is it like anything that you've experienced before I think I guess no uh probably the rounds are the most similar because you take the more d
irect route straight up something steep so on the Patty Buckley going up something like conck uh that's probably the most similar for that that you know there'll only be a very few people nodding perhaps at that but um I mean say say the tortoon or or UTMB you know there's lots a vert you know but it's it's often switchbacks so you're not actually moving that steeply um and at the yeah a Barkley I feel like your your knees are up to your you know you know above above your hips quite quite often
you know and you you're your poles I can't imagine doing without poles your poles are you're clinging desperately to your poles to pull yourself up the hill um it's very Steep and Jasmine actually I don't know if she remembers but when I first asked her what it was like she said you're either you're either hiking steeply up or sliding down um and and but I mean some of that's great fun I mean the the Downs can be good fun um there's a lot of uncertainty to them they sort of clinging to trees and
not sure whether the branches will snap off and underfoot often it's relatively safe but there are always moments where suddenly it isn't um so yeah it's not it's not just pure hell out there there and and it can be can be beautiful um but yeah I guess a fell running round would be the most similar that we've got um but it's still different it's still different to that I mean I think I I remember either hearing an interview or seeing something written Jasmine you said that the this year the fir
st Loop was like just going on any other trail run I mean it wasn't trail run I mean guess things you know this year I guess it was interesting how many people were together this year Daman will probably agree there was a lot of people together at the start of this year um we started at kind of a pretty good time so we kind of had I guess Darkness for the F very first bit but then it was you know Into Sunshine and daylight and um yeah and um there was a kind of a few new book locations that kind
of brought people back together a bit so there was you it felt it felt kind of quite sociable and I would say for the first two-thirds of the first Loop this year um I wouldn't say a trail run in the sense that like as Daman said I agree with everything that Damon said um in terms of kind of vert and um there's this new section of the course that was very brambly um so that was wasn't you know that was definitely not a trail run um in that sense I think then we all all cursed a bit as we went t
hrough it five times in some cases I I mean I you know the things that you say you know I I remember I've done not the Glen Co but but the Ben Nevis Ultra and I remember sliding down half a mountain on my backside during that and then I remember in trans Grand Canaria it was so Steep and so wet one year that we were we were pulling on branches to get ourselves up this horrendous SL I imagine that that there are there are sections of a lot of races that are a little bit similar but put it all tog
ether and it just becomes this kind of totally other other thing does does the vert the the actual amount of elevation does that did that frighten you did that um put you um did that worry you at all Loops either you yeah um I guess it just makes it very slow um and I think most people you know if they've got a place they will you know they will be aware there's a lot of we think possibly up to 14,000 foot per per Loop um and yeah you train you train accordingly you try and get in some some stee
p vert um yeah what's interesting with the navigation is that you know you're going up is um often a lot easier navigationally than than we often have problems on the long descents where it where the the hill splits into several Spurs at the bottom and then it's trying to make sure you're on that right spur um and you're off you're of a not um so it adds a yeah it adds an element a navigation element there but um I don't know I've always enjoyed I suppose I've always enjoyed rounds and races tha
t have a lot of it so it's not that's not a big I suppose Fear Factor for me necessarily um yeah what did you do Jasmine in training leading up to this year pardon did you say what did you do in training leading up to this year uh I guess I think me and Daman prob probably both we did quite a lot of vert um I did um yeah I guess I was kind of for longer runs I was tending to when I was trying to maximize ver vertical Ascent I was kind of finding a hill that had was fairly steep um that I could g
et kind of the most climb I could get in in a shorter distance and they're just running up and down I did definitely did multiple sessions um of certainly long runs where I would do just go up and down the same Hill multiple times like one one night where I actually run overnight 17 times up and down the local Hill in a kind of Blizzard stroke sleep storm um so that was kind of a memorable one and then running up Ben Ley five times or near calendar when I was on holiday there um one morning so t
hat sort of thing but also did did kind of double sessions of like training of doing like a stair climber session in the in the evening before getting the kids from nursery and after school club just about sneaking it in and then a cycle commute when I'm working doing research though that's kind of an extra bit of training and then quite a lot of strength work I definitely did more I know Damon's been doing that for a while but I definitely did more weighted strength work I did a lot more with w
eights this time than I've done before and it was really useful because I've got a chronic knee problem I've gotten I've gotten missing I tore my anterior create ligament when I was 17 and that knee not been great for the last few years but this year was for Barkley was incredible I didn't even have any swelling or anything afterwards and that's the first time in years that that it's been that good so I was really impressed it was really good do you do you have to have a good year to get this fi
nished in terms of do you have to have the start time at the right time do you have to have decent weather to make this a doable race I mean I can say what I I think I'm not sure that the start time's that important but I do think the weather is important um certainly in the sense that I think if you had bad weather then it it would very quickly become impossible almost impossible to finish just because if you look at the kind of time times that people run you know even the fastest time is just
just over an hour you know kind of inside the cut off and and most people are sort of more like the 40 to 20 to 40 minutes inside the cut off of the finishes this year um so I mean you only need bad weather making it a bit more slippy a bit of Miss to make navigation harder and then I think you make it virtually impossible but I don't know I pass over to Daman but that's my personal opinion that the weather's a huge Factor well um this is what adds to my frustration because I've I've only really
done the Barkley in good weather um yeah I haven't tasted this Infamous Barkley fog that that that some other you know people more experienced than me talk about um and yeah you had that rain in the first year which I haven't tasted um so that's yeah I feel like that's what these last two years feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity in that we've had such good weather but um yeah who knows John there'll be more years like that Daman John Kelly said that um because let's talk about navigation b
riefly as well uh John said that you you are a ma Jasmine you are a master Navigator how important is it from Loop one or how or also how much of a detriment could it be on Loop five if you are running with experienced Barkley Runners like Jared and like John you mean how how much of a help is it would be would it be well it could well it see from from outside looking in it's great that you get that experience by going round with Runners who've done it before who know the course who can help you
initially find the first few books and and you can work together but then I don't know if Daman if this is is is something that that has has been your problem but is it that final Loop where essentially you're on your own and you have to do all that navigation yourself having possibly not actually done it on the first four Loops by yourself is that right yeah I mean I I'll kind of answer for myself but in some ways I was in some ways I was lucky that I couldn't keep up in the first two years th
at well with the lead group because basically it forced me to make all the mistakes um and John's very kind saying that but I made a lot of mistakes the first two times I I did it on my own um certainly you know just as an example last year in the fourth loop I made it probably a similar to mistake to the one that Damian made this year maybe a little bit less dramatic um but um but you know and multiple people have made that same sort of mistake descending slightly the wrong angle off that um of
f that Ridge I guess um so the first year the first year as I say on Loop Three I think it must have taken me like 16 hours or something and I made like every mistake in the book almost but I I learned from those and the remarkable thing was that this year um I mean this year I went into it thinking i' I've learned I've learned my way around this course what I need to be able to do is be a bit faster in the first few GRS so that I can kind of cash in on knowing what I'm doing navigationally in t
he later ones cuz when I can go a bit more slowly and when I need to go a bit more slowly because I I'm kind of tired um so um I really I really Ben benefited from those prior mistakes this year so for example when we were running with John and there was a you know a couple of points where maybe we were about to make a mistake or we did something and I actually spotted I was like I've done this before and I know what what we're about to do um and we you know may be able to point it out but it wa
s only because I'd done I'd made the mistake before and and so there obviously things that are easy to do out there um and and yeah and and it really helps to have kind of recognize before that you you know recognize that early and you just get more careful you get more careful about trying to make sure that you're on the right spur and um and you know looking at your compass regularly and things but it's not easy you know the more you look at the compass going downhill the more likely you are t
o land on your bottom and that that happened to me a lot on Loop five when I was really kind of trying to navigate carefully so come on Daman what what did happen Loop five because the first you know for both of you looking looking at Keith dun's Tech tweets the first four Loops were like a breeze for all of you it was a it was a walk in the park it was like a 10K not not me on the seafront that's that's not the way I was feeling at the end of before I can tell you that I'm joking Damen tell me
what what what happened on Loop f well it is interesting because Jasmine and I have almost learned the Barkley from the opposite the opposite directions and um and certainly the advice from reading reading blogs before my first go was you know if you're a virgin you've you've got to go with a veteran and learn all you can um and yeah and both years I've stuck with stuck with with veterans and yeah for a good four loops and I was I was really thrilled last year I was like I've got the physically
I feel like I can get round um and then when it came to being on my own I think last year it was more of a kind of sleep deprivation meltdown and confusion um yeah um and this year I was more conscious to trying to be trying to learn um certainly John John encouraged it as well I did I did the sort of I think it must have been loop three or four Jasmine I don't think you were with us anymore but I did the sort of you were are loop three did I do most there when he was offering opportunities to o
kay yeah I I think I did most of the stallion section which is the section that's always baffled me the most um although I remember book yeah book nine which won't mean much to many people we still was still flicky a new a new one um so I was gaining some confidence but yeah ultimately I I need to be better on my own um whether that's yeah I mean I've got an obvious area to work on which which is which is kind of exciting like if it was baffling how I couldn't do it be more more frustrating it's
you know it's clear it's clear that you know navigating on my own in the dark is what I need to improve on I was more gutted than you Damen I was more gutted than you I was I'd already tweeted I'm absolutely convinced Damen is coming in I well the Mantra from John what it was really Illuminating actually yeah John was you know he did he's been open that he made you know he was in charge of of the nav quite you know quite a lot of the time or at least he was backing up people and he made quite a
few mistakes but he's very quick at spotting them very quick at correcting them and the thing was don't let a small mistake become a big mistake so like small mistakes they're inevitable really especially as you get tired and it's dark but yeah that's what happened to me a small mistake became a became a big mistake and I still found the book but I just took too long um frustratingly but um yeah um you know I I'm well I know I meant to talk about it but yeah I want to go I wna I want to correct
those mistakes yeah I I know you're going back you if you said to me you weren't going back I would have words with you uh Jasmine I need to redeem your Tweet when when somebody who doesn't know about the Barkley uh looks at how long it takes you to do 20ish miles I mean how long is it 24 25 miles and nobody knows do they do you know no anyway who cares but but 8 9 10 13 hours to do that distance what what is it that takes the time is it the climbing or is it the finding the books I I think I m
ean when you're actually in the right place which sounds obvious finding the book is not is not you know a difficult thing I would say once you once you find the right spot like roughly within I know 20 metters you recognize the surroundings and you then you find the book um with the exception that you know if it's in a completely new location it might take you a little bit a little while to initially locate it but then after that you know where it is um it's been in the right place um so like a
s Damon said you descending from a from one of the tops and you on the wrong spur and then suddenly you find yourself by a river and are you too far down the river or you too far up the river and then make working that out so that's the kind of challenge of it um I'd say that if if you're not making huge if you're not Mak making those catastrophic navigational errors and what's taking the time is the combination of the climbing and then in places just difficult to rain so everybody talks about b
rambl at Barkley um and I'd say for most part they're not massive they're not slowing you down a huge amount um but there was one section this year when they were i' would say they did slow us down um certainly on Some Loops we got it right and Some Loops we got it very wrong and and we definitely our Pace definitely dropped there so I think those are the kind of combination of things talk to me a little bit about what Laz writes down as instructions and and and is is that in any way useful to y
ou when he writes down his in his own way how to get around the course um yeah you get about um you get about three pages maybe of of instructions um the the classic thing yeah no they are useful they are useful fundamentally but he has it you know he has his own um personality to them and and his one of his favorite things to write is sort of you come to a high wall which which what they mean is a natural Cliff you come to a high wall way is much easier one way around it is much easier than the
other full stop and then he doesn't he doesn't say which way it's up to you um those are the classic sort of um and it's full of humor it will say you know this is one of the flattest bits of the Barkley you know you should be absolutely hammering yourself here go as fast as possible um one point what was it yeah used to encourage you to sit down and admire the view and so there's full of it's full of humor but it is yeah it is mostly helpful um I think I found it I find it more useful once you
've been there which is ironic but once you've been there then you you can understand it some of it's so kind of detailed for a short section has so many things there's no way that you can remember it possibly and you not got time to read it when you're out there I mean you're like holding both poles and breathing hard and there's no way that you're you might look at a compass but you're not going to be reading those kind of dense instructions so um it's more useful afterwards when you can go th
rough and pick out the bits that actually IR relevant in a way so the another one of the ironers of Barkley you need to have been there before you can understand the instructions and do you draw any of the map out when you get the map do you do you draw any of it out or how do you go about dealing with that um I just GL glanced at it on my wall there um yeah so yeah you you definitely need to spend time um and we probably spent an hour or two didn't we um this year you're plotting the route onto
onto a map and it does CH you know change significantly this year um and I thought it was quieter than the previous year and I was listening to an interview I think with Jared um by Gary Robbins and he said he thought the camp Camp was about about as quiet as it' ever been that afternoon because of the significant change to the course and we're all sort of yeah trying to plot it onto our Maps so I mean I was getting my map out more than the others because I'm I don't know just just trying to le
arn it and don't seem to memorize it necessarily as well as other people but yeah the map's pretty um does very important I find and I'm getting out quite a bit but yeah the instructions is is another is another level um but the map map is um helpful at times certainly let's quickly just talk about Kit um and nutrition Jasmine um I I was watching the single track one that you did and uh he was out there looking at your shoes all patched up tell me about tell me about uh what you wore why you wor
e what you wore yeah I mean I just I just I wore my mud claw shoes um which I'm I'm pretty sure I I basically wore for both Barkleys partly cuz I had another pair of mud Claws and actually maybe even two kind of that were like partially broken down used so I was just using those up um in between so these ones were kind of saved for Barkleys so um yeah I think they've done three Barkleys um and um they did four loops and then I had changed into a a kind of spare pair for the for the fifth Loop um
just cuz it was nice to get into SHO that weren't full of mud um but um yeah the so the pair that I wore for most of it were a little bit patched cuz I realized they had these kind of slight defects in the upper so I actually sewed them and then patched over the top with the kind of um K Tape and kind of glue that the green Runners have in their kind of pair UPS like it's that's what it's called I think repair kits um so then and then I had yeah just the kit that I I guess I've been since you k
now I've been wearing the same kit for for several years now just because like in terms of t-shirts and shorts and things cuz they still work and I've I've done a bit of sewing up of of my leggings and 3/4 lengths cuz they've got a bit holy at Barkley but wearing those same things and um and I actually had a rook sack that I borrowed from a friend because I'm not I've not got quite the right size Rook sack and I wasn't going to buy one just for Barkley so borrowed her from Rook sack which I used
last year and worked okay um I love that you call it a rook sack oh pack whatever you want to call it no no no please just carry on with that that's all hydration vest I mean I mean go with your I'm like a hiker at heart you know so yeah that's why I call it k and a r what kind of kou did you wear oh dear um I mean chafing issues you know kit that's welln you know where all your chafing points are that's that wasn't a problem over 60 hours uh I had I had no like the only kind of I didn't have a
ny shaing except the significant chaing induced by The Briar um um and then I had yeah I just had a blisters between my big toe and my next toe which I think happens to me every time I do one of these long races I don't know maybe I should try the kind of toe socks um but that's that's the only place I had blisters my feet are otherwise I think they're pretty hardened you know I spent my childhood walking around Barefoot um whenever I could so I don't know they like they seem I don't really seem
to get that many blisters but maybe I'm just lucky you um so you you are no longer with innovate is there is there less pressure to where the innovate I imagine that Damian was head to toe in innovate clothing is that right demo probably I mean to be fair I was wearing mainly innovate stuff just because that's what I have and I'm not going to buy new stuff if I don't need to buy new stuff um it's just the rock sack I think that wasn't innovate um just because that's the one I borrowed from a fr
iend um but yeah my other stuff was in a way as well mean it's just you know a lot of people um especially new Runners but you know I'm I'm the same you you I if I you know the furthest I've ever gone is 100 miles I want to be comfortable I want to know that I've got good gear that's that's not going to rub that's that's comfortable I mean you you are both you both seem very kind of oh well you know whatever about it but other Runners would be very picky and very um concerned about choosing the
right gear that's going to work for them I mean go yeah I was only going to say I think foot Footwear can be very individual and but so often you go I love this shoe you you know well I don't say this anymore but early on say I love the shoe you should try the shoe and someone else tries it and and it just doesn't suit their feet so feet can be very very individual and because I coach a lot of people as well often yeah they're always saying asking for recommendations and and yeah different shoes
suit different people um so that's pretty individual but other than that I mean yeah I've got I don't know I don't worry too much nowadays about um I don't know socks or tops um I mean nutrition's another whole area of of debate isn't it but um yeah I mean you'd hope you'd hope most kit was good kit I suppose tell me about what you ate then what was your what was your general uh food of choice going round both of you uh after you jine uh yeah I don't think I got the na the food kind of very rig
ht definitely like that's definitely one of the challenges that I faced I don't yeah sometimes maybe you get it a bit better I feel like I've had a few races where I've not got it very right so maybe I just need to to work on that a bit I mean I had like a combin the first two Loops were good and I actually even ate all my food I think on Loop to Daven gave me a a Kit Kat um which I was very grateful for sometime think it was on Loop at the end of loop 2 um so like I had a mixture of you know I
had pizza I had some frittata which I'd made which actually worked pretty well earlier on because I could it was fairly easy to eat um I had some yeah Pizza fata I had cheese and M my um cheese and pickle sandwiches I had uh and then Flapjack homemade Flapjack I had like Snickers bars some sweets and kind of Saved gels for when I needed them I think those were and some trail mix and those sorts of things um I'd just say that like as time went on I I struggled more to eat things what really works
for me is bananas when I come into the camp that's like the one thing that works really well for me and I don't even like bananas that much in most of the time I mean they're okay but I'm not like one of those people that has a banana every day not by any means but on Races that's the one thing that like it's perfect just always always hits the spot um so um an in camper kind of had things like had some rice pudding porridge pasta um yeah those sorts of things um but I struggled in the later Lo
ops to eat and that was definitely one of the challenges for me does the hot weather affect you when you eat does it you know depending on whether it's hot or cold I think it's easier to eat when it's cold rather than hot and it was definitely felt hot at times on this year um although it could have obviously been much hotter but it's certainly felt I was certainly dipping into the um the streams and things quite frequently on on the kind of daytime Loops certainly had those two yeah two two war
m afternoons and I found I wasn't eating nearly as well um and some of the stuff that was appealing when it was cooler yeah wasn't wasn't so appealing um but I find I go yeah I mean liquid calories is is one one sort of option there and I definitely want fruit more and and I suppose sugars and gels um but yeah I mean uh I made some well so my wonderful crew Karen made um bagels with yeah hummus and avocado and some of Jasmine's pickle um actually Jasmine I was curious to ask uh did you eat some
of the pasta that I made because I heard a a podcast or something and they were complimenting the look of the pasta you were eating and I was wondering if it was the pastor I knocked together I had your pastor I think early on yeah I think with BR broccoli bitson and stuff yeah it was good oh brilliant it's incredibly rare I get any sort of compliment uh regarding food preparation or cooking so I'm I'm going to take that I'm going to tell my kids um but thank you for the pickle again this is thi
s is the one thing the one success he's going to take away from Barkley this year come on I bought the reason I bought a big pickle is because last year we went there expecting to buy pickle and then we couldn't get any could we Damian it trtic there was a catalog of kind of difficulties last year with shopping including I asked Daman to get some coffee and he bought mushroom coffee so I never I never actually dared try the mushroom coffee on last year's bark liid so this year I bought my own co
ffee with me heck is mushroom coffee D I can't remember if it was you know it sounds nice doesn't it I don't drink coffee that's the problem chory cof was a good choice sorry Jasmine that might have been the difference you might have finished it that difference Damian don't worry I'm I'm only okay yeah apologize for the mushroom coffee we'll never know what it tastes like well well maybe I'll get we pick some up next time for you Jasmine you um you made it to Luke 5 and uh you got further than a
ny woman had got I mean you may as well have just called it a day there had you how did you feel getting onto Loop five it didn't honestly I've as I've been asked you know were you aware of being the fastest loop three and the first person to woman to finish Loop four and first someone to start loot five like that didn't even cross my mind like absolutely zero it was all about finish um the only reason I thought about how fast I'd run Loop through the three Loops was because it I was that was th
e plan that was the target was to finish it in roughly 32 hours so that I'd had you know 14 each to do the final too so it was um yeah I didn't you didn't even cross my mind and what you know going out on loot 5 the main thought was can I get round in then you know buy 60 hours type thing when I first went out I was like almost stumbling down the track um because I felt pretty bad um but I you know I ate my banana and then I actually said to myself out Loud come on you're going to do this and yo
u know did a bit of kind of a pep talk for myself out loud it's a nice thing you're in the forest you can talk to yourself as much as you like you can sing you can shout at yourself John Kelly does a lot of grunting noises I joined him for a better in the night yeah so um yeah you can do you can do as much of kind of shouting and yelling at yourself and nobody will hear you and there are pros and cons to being in the forest on your own so you Laz said you looked uh dead on your feet at the end o
f loop four you were sat on a chair you had a little sleep you threw up big time as far as I understand it um and then you headed out onto Loop five John Kelly uh passed you halfway round and he was doing maths in his head and he said there's no way she can do this then he heard that what time you got to the Tower and again he said okay well it looks like it's just a matter of how much over the cut off she's going to be what the heck got you round in what was to be perfectly Frank a ridiculously
fast last half of that fifth loop I think I think it was just adrenaline you know it's interesting because like people keep telling me these kind of facts about how I guess lots of people were writing me off at the fir Tower but I I really felt like I do it like I I really thought thought I could do it you know the only time when I really started to doubt it was the last kilometer and I was suddenly not sure that I could actually make it to the gate in time um but before that I I believed it wa
s possible so I think that's what kind of that's what kept me going the kind of the The Surge of adrenaline and I guess once I started I was just moving faster like the adrenaline came I was moving faster I was hitting those kind of mental points that I needed to reach at certain times like I knew when I wanted to get like it was pretty close I mean I was a little bit over the point when I wanted to get to the fire tower but not by that much and I still thought it was possible and I think that's
just what car car carried on spurring me on like I was I was getting there you know and it was the last time I was having to do all these Hills Daman will know that kind of the joy of like you know the thought like you know you must have felt the same the first time the first Hill on that kind of that that fifth Loop is that finally you know that this is the last time and you're waving goodbye to this summer and then you're like I'm not going to see you again till you know hopefully ever um or
whatever but you're just you know um yeah so it's like it kind of is a positive reinforcement but mainly I just I I just really thought I could do it I mean I that that's what comes home to me is your total self-belief from from 2022 and that first Loop onwards the the total self-belief that you had that you could do it and I you know I I have to ad MIT to you um that that I think I was probably one of the naysayers in the end so I I I tweeted when you got to the tower I tweeted this is going to
be unbelievably tight and then I did actually tweet times up at about one minute to the hour and and then Keith tweeted that you'd and I went absolutely mental it was unbelievable I mean I was so it's it's it's hard I mean I'm sure that you've had people say this to you Jasmine but but it is hard to put into words and I don't really know why it is because you know your spine uh race was unbelievable but for some reason this finish above all the others and you know John Kelly said it's the it's
it's possibly the best sporting event he'll witness and I think you said Daman in In the Flesh you know ever and for me sitting at home looking at Twitter it was it was the best thing I've ever seen it truly was I was absolutely blown away and I I you know you you you have to you just have to hold that in your heart forever that moment yeah it's an incredible thing looking back on it and now it's like now you could think he couldn't have written a better story but at the time it was very stressf
ul yeah like I I like yeah it's it's so it's nice looking back on it knowing what the outcome is but at the time when you didn't know what the outcome was going to be then it was incredibly intense and like yeah pretty pretty difficult um pretty challenging kind of making those final few hundred meters up to the up to the gate before the clock clock ticked over the hour yeah I mean eventually when I saw the video of that yeah that that was and the screams and shouts from everybody to to get you
there that was awesome really was Damian um how how gutted were you and then how elated were you you know what were those two extremes of emotion like for you um yeah I think I think when I located the located the book that had caused me trouble and and realized how much time I had left I it was pretty clear it was UN I think it was that I felt I needed 10 hours from there and I probably had eight or eight and a half um yeah I felt I felt I suppose very deflated and you're really tired as well s
o adds to it and yeah I felt deflated and then I just kind of thought well what you know what can you make what's the best you can make from this situation I suppose and it was to although LZ you know I was a bit torn because LZ does want you to come in if you if you know you can't finish he wants you to come in um that is what I the previous year and I did think I remembered some words from Gary Robbins from previous years of of like this is your one chance to wcky the wcky the course because y
ou can't get on most of it another any other day so I did yeah I did carry on and get to know some of the bits a bit more but then got sleepy and had a snooze um and then yeah was running in but then you know not far from the gate I started getting more anxieties about sort of well oh is everyone else finished and they're waiting for me will be angry um and then I had this really moving moment of my own really when I was approaching the gate and because you're tired and you can't well this is pr
obably my problem that when I'm tired I can't work things out very clearly I thought they thought I was finishing like I had the pages of course I was coming from the wrong direction for starters and no one had s me at the fir Tower so they all knew that I hadn't done it but I I almost wanted them to stop cheering because they were giving me a wonderful reception and I actually went like this to to make it clear that I haven't done it I don't deserve um these Applause but they you know they carr
ied on anyway and that was um yeah that was really really touching actually and then and then it was probably a bit under an hour um yeah my first thing was where where's Jasmine as she finished um and then yeah I got to see uh you know two two finishes come in and Sebastian come in as well who had done similar to me slightly better than me but yeah an incomplete fif fifth Loop um and Talking of singing actually where there's a wonderful moment I forget which Loop but in the dark we're all runni
ng on this a bit of candy ass Trail and um he's just started singing uh in Fr um just it just felt really surreal but really perfect it was beautiful um so yes Sebastian who those who don't know is one to the glassier twice um he yeah so he came in and then and then I think there's maybe 20 minutes 15 minutes 10 minutes five minutes and and yeah people were having the conversation of it's still a great achievement you know I think most people and yeah people um most people I don't want to sort o
f um pretend I'm still hopeful I I was still hopeful I hadn't sort of but but yeah most people doing the maths um and then we have this mini drama where John Kelly's young son oldest son was wearing red like Jasmine and he's just down the bottom you can see to like a corner and he comes around the corner and someone shouted Runner which means obviously Runner coming in so we all go oh oh it's not there isn't it's not Jasmine but he carries on sort of waving his arms and and and he's running acro
ss the road and we can't tell is he just playing does he know what's going on is he or something and then and then yeah and then Jasmine comes around the corner with um I think about 3 minutes because I was just constantly looking uh but it's quite a it's quite a mean uphill it's one of those uphills you really don't want you know in 100 mile when no one's looking you probably hike it but really you know you could run it but actually the steepest bit is just around the corner as well I think you
've just done the more steep bit and then it's it's quite it's quite an unpleasant Hill me and John ran it on one of our loops and um yeah we were both cursing it um so it's a r run there at the end of however miles we think it is possibly even 130 um and yeah I ran down I was I was trying to give you a time update of like exactly how much time you had but yeah you were only you were only looking at one thing and that thing was yellow um and but I could see there were two minutes then and I thou
ght that's probably a minute minute and a bit like that that I think we're okay but it was yeah it was just magical and then I don't know if you remember the next minute or two but you sort of Conrad was with you and he sort of cheered you to the gate and then sort of turned round and came back I tried to give him a hug so he of go on the video Conrad's there with you when you he's he's he's cheering you in and you get to the gate and he runs off where did he go well I think he was just letting
Jasmine have a moment sort okay but but Jasmine you know you were you were kind of hyperventilating or or yeah you were in a massive oxygen deficit and and then so I actually sent her back I said I'm not sure if she's okay or not and no one's really doing anything and there aren't any there aren't any Med there no um but there was an element of well for me at least was oh is she is she going to be okay and then yes someone someone said we needed can of Coke or something and three people dashed o
ff and a can of Coke arrived um um and you seemed you know it wasn't long before you were sitting up and yeah but it was yeah just just amazing to witness um yes yeah I've never thank you for giving that yeah yeah well thank you can you remember can you remember those moments um yeah but the kind of overriding feeling when I finished was just I need to breathe you know like that desperate desperate need to breathe like I like my body I guess was signaling to me like from the even from the storyb
ook trail that I needed to slow down and I was like I'm not listening to you type thing and then just um if anything I asked it to go faster as I was trying to run up that hill um and uh yeah I guess every all the signals were screaming to me you need to stop cuz I can't do this anymore um and so I think in yeah I I sort of now get why triathletes sometimes collapse like meters from the line you know you see those videos and I sort of get that now um because you feel kind of yeah so I was just I
think in the first few few kind of first minutes certainly I was just desperate to breathe and I was just yeah was just breathing but um yeah I just wanted to say thank you to you Daman because obviously it's kind of been a shared journey and you've obviously coached me through all this these these years of trying to attempt this so um yeah it's like well I I sometimes feel like a bit of an imposter coaching coaching somewhat as talented and As abute Nails as you because um yeah I even you know
even without a coach you're going to do you're going to do very well anyway um but um yeah that was that was incredible thanks um yes nice one good bimble good bimble yeah uh Jasmine you um talked about going up that final Hill and saying I never have to see you again I know Damian's coming back um do you want to do it again I me well you know honestly I don't at the moment I don't think that I'm I'm not rushing back um one thing I can tell you for sure and I already feel a bit sad and nostalgi
c is about not being there um to see the whole yeah for the whole thing you know like it's already kind of grown close to my heart in terms of yeah it's a kind of I guess anything that you do like that where it's so hard it it's kind of you know it's a LoveHate relationship you know and certainly there's a lot of love there as well in terms of the actual kind of time out on the course it's very beautiful at times out there you know the sunsets and sunrises and um just the time spent in the fores
t but mainly the people like the the kind of Barkley family like I'm going to really miss that I'm going to miss being there next year and seeing all those familiar characters and sharing time out on the trails like I mean that was it was an incredible privilege to get to share so many miles with so many Fantastic people kind people you're part of that family now though you know you you there are there are plenty of guys who I mean Gary Robbins John how did you pronounce his surname feggy I thin
k yeah I mean he's been coming back for years you know and and um Jared's always there and John's always there and you know there are loads of guys that are always there um you could just you can just be one of those people you know that you help the Next Generation yeah the problem problem for me is that I already struggled and I know Damian's got the same kind of dilemma I already struggled with the idea of flying to the states I'm trying you know obviously represented like I'm part of the gre
en Runners I'm a co-founder of the green Runners um we you know were're aiming to kind of try and reduce the impact of of of us as Runners on on the environment on and on kind of contribution to the climate crisis and so one of the main pillars is how thinking about how you move and we know that traveling to races or events is is is generally the biggest contributor to your kind of carbon footprint as a runner so for me flying to the states when I i' said specifically that I was going to try not
to fly to races if at all possible um was for me a kind of a big decision and it wasn't that something that happened completely lightly and I did it for Barkley because it's there's no getting away from it it's Unique there's nothing like anywhere else um it's not a race you can replace with something else um there's nothing that you can do at home Al so I did it for Barkley but now that I've done it I just you know I feel I'm just satisfied you know I just I left it out all that I left it all
out there I did it and I answered that question in my head of is am I capable of it and I've you know and I've done it um I don't even know as well for that reason if I went back whether I would be able to do it again or not CU so much of what carried me through that last leap was that desperate desire to get it done and to prove it to myself and and you see that in other people that have been there before people can't necessarily do it every year it needs a bit of time to sort of build up that
desire to get it done again um and I don't feel right flying for years you know multiple years each year to to to do that race for that reason and it's a big commitment for the whole winter you train for the whole winter essentially for this race and you know a family and there's other things in in in to get done as well so there are other things that is absolutely yeah no I that had gone out of my head really when I I said about going back every year of course I mean Damian you put up with so m
uch flak on on Facebook and on social media for your stance um you know what what what do you feel about um going back is it how much of your um environmental Consciousness is weighing heavy on a desire to finish this race yeah I mean I was hoping that would be sort of an added motivational element to you know sort of focus me at the in the moments of of of you know this means it's it's um yeah Financial cost and environmental cost and all but Al you know to some people a reputational cost as we
ll of of um or at least because of my connection to the green Runners um um so I was hoping that would make spur me on to you know get it done this year so you're not flying next year um I mean similar to Jazmin I yeah I've pledged to you know only fly once a year maximum I can't think at the moment I have to be care phrase this I can't think of anything else that I would fly for I don't want to be hold totally to that but just in case you know I don't know in a few years some amazing idea comes
up or some amazing new race but at the moment there's nothing else that I could think of that I would fly for um and yeah I I would like to try one more time but yeah that would be my third if I did fly the next year it would be yeah I did three years without flying that would be my third flight in six years which um I think I think it's pretty reasonable um um really um but yeah ideally ideally wouldn't wouldn't you know get it done next time so I don't have to fly after that um but yeah I mea
n Jasmine and I both if we're racing in Europe and stuff we get yeah we get buses and trains and and and or or lifts um it' be it'd be a heck of a triathlon wouldn't it to you swim the Atlantic Cycle down to Tennessee and then run the Barkley that would no uh what what is next for the green Runners Jasmine what's what's on the agenda what are the next things that you need to achieve with the green Runners I mean I guess we it's been Barkley in many ways has actually been really positive for the
green Runners it's given us a lot of publicity a lot of like it's definitely entered a lot more people's Consciousness I mean large reason for doing all the interviews that I'm doing is whenever I can I try to get a mention of the green runners in um and so it's kind of reaching people in all areas of life and actually all over the world even so done interviews in kind of all over the world for for media Outlets um but in terms of what we're doing I guess yeah continuing to spread that message j
ust to kind of bring it home to people it it's just just more more generally across as I say the UK and across the world about those pillars of how you move how you fuel how you kit up and how you speak out but largely I think how you speak out we know that how you speak out is I think it's the most important one is because collectively we we're only going to kind of make a difference if we collectively demand quicker action and more significant action on climate change um so like the green Runn
ers for example in sport we're you know calling on um trail running or you know running events to drop kind of um sponsors that are linked to fossil fuels for example um we had this petition to call on UTMB who are obviously a huge kind of um leader in in trail running and lots of lots of event events might look up to them and and and follow their example that we to to we called on them to drop D here as their headline sponsor so that sort of thing um we're involved heavily in the you know the c
limate relay um so and yeah so the kind of is far reaching but I'd say that kind of the the kind of big ongoing thing that the thing that's going to um you know see lots of change and new things coming in is that sort of pillar of how you speak out and that's where it'd be great to kind of get people involved and that you know that for PE everybody's got a different Comfort levels in terms of speaking out but it might even just be a case of talking to your friends at your local running club and
kind of spreading the message about the green Runners and doesn't have to be anything as dramatic as um you know um marching on Parliament or or whatever it is but there's all sorts of way get involved Daman just just on that has there has there been any direct contact between yourselves and uh Katherine petti or anyone at UTMB about dashia I mean have you had any direct conversations with them what what's the deal true um I guess I'm just trying to yeah how much what what how much can we say um
I just just to add a couple of things to Jasmine there is yeah we did get we have had a significant bump bump in membership um after her run uh at Barkley um so obviously people yeah people don't see the debate I think most most you know reasonable people don't see the debate as simple as oh they flew so so you know it's all pointless um so we've had yeah significant bump in membership and and know people in America as well and yeah John Kelly joined us recently which which helps um and also ye
ah the running out of time relay is June I'm pretty sure which goes from um Ben Nevis down to Big Ben and this will be the third year and it yeah it's really quite joyous to be part of actually and it's like to be an activist all you're doing is kind of going for a run but that it does count for something and it you know it tries to check out the website because it tries to kind of weave around the country as much as possible and there are you know you can cycle bits if you're injured or you kno
w and and it's quite a leure Pace it's um it's brilliant to be a part of actually yeah um tell me the oh I I'm pretty sure if you just put running out of time relay okay um I'm pretty sure that would come up highly in the searches first two or three hits um yeah starts in June um yeah UTMB I guess yeah we sort of started off this we we felt strongly that high carbon sponsors aren't welcome in in in running um so we started this petition it sort of yeah went like wildfire really I think almost 3,
000 people people signed it within within a week or two um and UTMB quite quickly got in touch and said do we want to have a chat so I think we we um yeah I shouldn't say too much but we've chatted to them three if not four times um um I mean I don't know where are we now I I think I think there's I'm struggling to say I don't know if the chats have been productive or not I think we both shared you know shared our views in a civil way I you know I do applaud them for reaching out and as they hav
e with the other the several other disputes they have going on with other areas of our community um I think they listened or at least acted like they listened um I mean if they've signed us signed a certain contract for a certain amount of time I mean realistically you know they're not realistically going to end that contract early but what we sort other measures like could they be telling their other races or asking their other races to be aware that you know a high carbon sponsor is is differe
nt to a sportsware sponsor for example and sends a very different message um so yeah we haven't had a chat for a while uh and it and and I imagine it will be something we might pick up on again this year uh we'll see but um yeah we've had some chance I think it made an impression on them the depth of feeling um that the petition generated and I think that in itself is a really positive thing because it sends that message to other event organizers that actually maybe this actually is something th
at the running Community really cares about um and actually you know and for future decisions whether it affects their sponsor currently or not um The Hope is that it will affect future decisions on sponsorship both by the UTMB group and other event organizers so I think that's the key thing and it was very heartening for us to see the depth of feeling and the kind of response it generated in the running community so I think we've got a lot to build on yeah I mean I think that's the the difficul
t thing um I you know I I um picked up on when I spoke to them about the one of the other issues the Gary Robins issue um I I did a video on the Gary Robbins thing they very quickly contacted me and and I felt I felt like it was a bit of a little bit of lip service but at the same time it I I felt like they did they did get it and whether it would affect like you say future plans and and future thoughts about what they because they they don't want to alienate the community do they but and they'v
e managed to do that on quite a few levels haven't they yeah yes interesting times interesting times um talking about petitions Jasmine you know I've started a petition I have seen that yes thank you um yeah I feel I feel like I'm getting far too much attention for the for the for everything far too much praise um but yeah I saw that and um yeah I was very touched by all the people signed well listen you know I I I'm I'm not it's not necessarily about giving you you know a glitzy night out at an
awards ceremony but I you know um hopefully it's again it's it's spreading to to some people who may not be aware of of what you've achieved um the the message that you know if you challenge yourself you can do these things and I know that you know um we haven't really spoken about it today but empowering women to get out there stand on the start line of of ultra races and and and do things that they perhaps were afraid of doing perhaps didn't think that they were worthy of of participating in
and getting out there and and achieving stuff they didn't think they could yeah thank you very much yeah that's that's why I hope that that I ble to spread that message now yeah that's a that's that's a wonderful thing I think yeah but but if you do win sports Personality of the year um you know I want to thank you he wants to be the plus one no no you can be the plus one Daman you can be the plus one I don't want to go have you got a tux no these are my best clothes by the way this th this was
this was me being quick and concise in my interviewing technique it's it's only taken us an hour and 10 minutes what do you think it's pretty good wasn't it yeah cheers Damian I'm going to let you go thank you very much guys it's been a real pleasure talking to you um I appreciate your time and I know we we've been we've been a little while um it's time for bed isn't it thanks Jasmine thanks see you take care byebye
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