The Barkley Marathons: the hellish 100-mile race with 15 finishers in 36 years

At 6.54am on 8 March 2022, 39-year old Johanna Bygdell from Sweden was perched next to her tent in the middle of Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, eating breakfast with her boyfriend when she finally heard the noise she had been both craving and dreading. It was the blowing of a conch, marking one hour until the start of arguably the world’s most hellish race: the Barkley Marathons.

“Finally, let’s get the party started,” she thought.

Bygdell made her final preparations, packing clothes and food, and honed in on her goal of finishing the annual 100-mile ultra endurance challenge. This year, around 40 other determined runners from around the world gathered behind the race’s famous starting line, a yellow gate, with the same hope.

But finishing the Barkley Marathons is an anomaly. Since its conception in 1986, only 15 runners have managed to conquer the merciless course – which features punishing sections with names such as Checkmate Hill, Little Hell, Rat Jaw and Testicle Spectacle.

Most years see no finishers at all in the race’s 60-hour time limit. And 2022 was no exception.

Despite no one finishing, one Barkley first-timer, Jasmin Paris, beat the clock to become the first woman in a decade to complete three loops – otherwise known as the ‘fun run’.

“This was one of the years that the Barkley felt like an entity in itself, picking people off one at a time that you thought would finish,” says race director Gary ‘Lazarus Lake’ Cantrell (most runners just call him ‘Laz’), who co-founded the race in the decade following the 1977 breakout of Martin Luther King’s assassin, James Earl Ray, from the nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. During his 55 hours of freedom, Ray covered just 12 miles of ground. “I could do at least 100,” mocked Laz.

As is tradition, Laz lights a cigarette to kick things off – an unorthodox start for an unorthodox race. When the embers glow, participants have just 60 hours to complete five rounds of the same unmarked 20 mile (give-or-take) loop: twice clockwise, twice counterclockwise, with the leading runner dictating the final loop direction – if any make it that far. One hundred miles in 60 hours may not seem too tough a task – after all the world record for the distance on foot is just under 11 hours. But the Barkley Marathons course is unmarked (competitors are allowed a map and compass), has an accumulated ascent of more than 50,000 feet through thick woodland, and is subject to temperature extremes.

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“The first lap was run in really hot conditions, too hot for my liking, and then the second lap was the opposite, unbelievably cold with lots of rain,” said British runner Nicky Spinks after competing in the 2019 race.

All the while, racers must locate books hidden along the route as proof of completion. That task was something first timer Enrico Frigeri, a 34-year old teacher and personal trainer from Brazil, struggled with amidst the gnarled terrain and extreme weather.

After completing the first loop alongside a race veteran, Frigeri entered loop two alone, but struggled to navigate the course and therefore locate the books in time. “It was then I knew that Barkley had won,” he says.

Still it was an impressive feat, given that he only began training for the event 45 days prior, after being hospitalised for three months. “Just completing the loop was fantastic. I feel very satisfied,” he says.

With no official race website, quirky race legends are left to reverberate within the running community – some true, some not.

After paying just $1.60 to apply, successful entrants receive a ‘letter of condolence’. “Virgins” (first-timers) must contribute a licence plate from their home state or country as part of their race fee, while returning competitors must submit an additional requested item. Changing from year to year, previous examples include a pair of socks and a flannel shirt. In the rare instance a previous race victor returns to take on the course, a pack of Camel cigarettes suffices as payment: the antithesis of modern-day ultrarunning race fees, which can sometimes be upwards of $1,000 for well-known races.

Laz chuckles when asked about the “human sacrifice”. He or she is the runner Laz allegedly believes is the least likely to complete a lap, and is assigned the No 1 bib.

“It’s a common misconception,” he says. “People write in and say ‘I want to be the human sacrifice, I’ll be terrible!’ No. Everyone who’s there are accomplished runners. Everyone who’s there belongs. The people who are the human sacrifice are the people who don’t want to be the human sacrifice.”

Race veterans play a crucial role in the race, with their accrued knowledge helping to maximise their chances of succeeding.

“You have to have a mix of people,” says Laz. “Very few people are going to give their best effort the first time. So once people have gone through this whole process, you try to give people the chance to give their best effort out there. If everyone was new then it would be catastrophic.”

With plenty of veterans returning this year, including record-breaking ultra runner Courtney Dauwalter, Laz is surprised 2022 didn’t produce a champion. “You’re always rooting for people to complete it. You know how much they put into it and how high their hopes are, but you can’t always count on it. I really thought we would have a finisher this year,” he says.

One veteran, Tomokazu Iraha, a 44-year old running coach from Japan, was “very pumped” to return for his third attempt at the race after an involuntary hiatus due to the pandemic. Running with two years of Barkley experience behind him, Iraha felt confident.

“I was mostly on my own unlike the past two attempts,” he says. “It felt great!”

Despite his experience, however, he was one of the earliest to be “doomed”, according to Laz – proof that predicting the Barkley is a fool’s game. Iraha fell and hit his knee on a rock during the first loop, and time constraints forced him to pull out after the second.

“By the time I got to Little Hell, the heavy rain made the steep climb very slippery, so it was like moving three steps forward and sliding two steps back,” says Iraha. “My feet [were] wet and cold until finally they became numb. I had five hours … to make it under the loop two cut-off [26 hours 40 minutes], but not for a five loop cut-off. So the best I could have done at this point was a fun run.

“When you are fresh and in a different mind set, you think you should go for that third loop. But after you are beaten down and have a low body core temperature after a very cold and rainy night, you don’t have that mindset anymore. I touched the yellow gate at 26:15:27, giving me enough time [to consider] a third loop turnover. Laz and all the others encouraged me to go for it: ‘You’ve got this, Tomo!’. So I went to the bathroom to rethink as I sat underneath a warm shower to bring my body temperature back up … but my body refused to go back … my third Barkley was over.”

Like others, however, Iraha is undeterred; he aspires to be the first Asian man to finish the Barkley. “It’s kind of scary to do a challenge when there’s such a high chance for failure,” he says. “But I am sure that’s the beauty of the Barkleys. And that’s why I’m hooked so much.”

Laz shares Iraha’s optimism for 2023. “You’ve got people that are ready,” he says. But it is the Barkley Marathons after all. “You never know what’s going to happen.”