No fewer than five ultra runners managed to reach the finish line in time on Friday evening of the infamous ultra run in the Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee – the Barkley Marathons. The race is generally considered to be the toughest (and most expensive) running race in the world.
The Ukrainian Ihor Verys was the fastest: he took only 58 hours, 44 minutes and 59 seconds. This was followed by John Kelly (who finished for the third time), Jared Campbell (four-time finisher), Greig Hamilton and yes, the British ultrarunner Jasmin Paris. The 40-year-old athlete arrived just in time and wrote sports history.
Only 17 preceded her
Since 1989, only 17 athletes have finished this crazy ultra run, the last of which was Karl Sabbe. The 34-year-old Belgian was the third ultrarunner last year to reach the finish line just in time. In the six years before that, no one completed the race within the maximum duration of 60 hours.
With its grueling course and mysterious registration process, the Barkley Marathons (designed by local ultrarunning legend Gary Cantrell) are as infamous as they are fascinating. Although there is no website and no official registration form, there are more than a thousand registrations every year. Ultimately, only 40 selected people are allowed to participate.
What is known is that prospective participants must justify in a letter of approximately one page why they should receive a starting number for Barkley from the eccentric organizer. There you pay according to the specialized magazine Runner’s World a symbolic $1.60 administration fee for. Starting number 1 is reserved every year for the person who gives organizer Cantrell, who personally starts the race by smoking a cigarette, the smallest chance of completing the Barkley Marathons.
The challenge mainly lies in the terrain and the extreme fatigue caused by chronic sleep deprivation. The race runs over a 160 kilometer long course, with participants having to complete five identical loops of approximately 32 kilometers, alternating clockwise and counterclockwise. They are given a maximum of twelve hours for each loop, but the route is unmarked and there are no landmarks. Participants can only count on a compass and a drawn map.
Extreme course
The route, which changes every year, leads through unspoilt nature where no one ever visits. Participants have to trudge through bushes and vast fields full of blackberry bushes, with gigantic height differences to be overcome every year, a total comparable to twice the height of Mount Everest (8,848 meters high). In short, this bizarre race excels in difficulty due to the unprecedented combination of distance, height difference and orientation. No wonder the race is sometimes called the “Five Loops of Death”.
Along the way, participants must also complete all kinds of bizarre assignments, such as collecting pages from a book that tell the folklore surrounding the Barkley Marathons and that correspond to their starting number. And without the use of modern GPS watches or other aids. Updates about the participants are scarce and mainly arrive via X, which only adds to the mystique of this extreme challenge.
First wife
How tough the Barkley Marathons were this year was evident from the first figures that trickled in via X in recent days. After ‘only’ seventeen hours, the first half of the field had already dropped out of the race. Just after the halfway point, the field was even led by the British Jasmin Paris, the first woman to successfully complete this legendary ultra run. An achievement to be proud of.
