Refresh X – formerly Twitter – because the Barkley Marathons has begun once again. This year the world’s most notorious ultrarun started earlier than at any point in its history, with runners setting off on Valentine’s Day for what will almost certainly become the hardest days of their lives.
For decades the Barkley Marathons has carried a near-mythical reputation: brutal, punishing, and almost impossible to finish. Only 22 athletes have completed it in roughly forty years. Race founder Gary Cantrell – better known as Lazarus Lake – was even shocked when five runners finished in 2023, including the first woman ever. The following year he responded the only way he knows how: by making it significantly harder. The result? No finishers at all.
What exactly is the Barkley Marathons?
Competitors must complete five loops through unforgiving wilderness, navigating entirely on their own – no GPS allowed. The route changes every year, making preparation essentially useless.
Instead of traditional checkpoints, runners must locate books hidden in the forest and tear out the page matching their bib number. Miss a book? You keep searching – because without the page, you don’t start the next loop.
Across the legendary “Five Loops of Death,” participants cover roughly 200 kilometers and nearly 20,000 meters of elevation gain within 60 hours. On paper, each lap allows twelve hours, but reality is harsher: most drop out after one or two loops. Even completing the three-loop “Fun Run” is rare.
Origins in a prison escape
The race traces back to 1977, when assassin James Earl Ray – the killer of Martin Luther King Jr. – escaped from prison near Petros. After two days in the wilderness around Frozen Head State Park, he had managed just 13 kilometers.
Cantrell famously claimed he could have covered 100 miles in that time – and eventually created a race to prove it. The first edition took place in 1986; the five-loop format arrived in 1989. Officially the distance is 100 miles, but in practice finishers nearly always exceed 200 kilometers.
Hallucinations, mystery, and ritual
The terrain is wild and trackless. Combined with 60 hours of near-continuous movement, it pushes runners deep into sleep deprivation. In 2022 Belgian ultrarunner Karel Sabbe famously hallucinated so severely he asked a trash can for directions before locals called police.
Mystique is part of the event:
- No public registration process
- Only ~40 runners selected from more than 1,000 applicants
- Entry fee: $1.60 and a license plate from your home country
- Acceptance letter: written as a condolence note
Bib number 1 is jokingly called the “human sacrifice” – the runner least likely to finish.
Even the start time is secret. Within a 12-hour window, Cantrell blows a conch shell; runners then have one hour before he lights a cigarette – the official start signal.
This year, that cigarette was lit on February 14.
And somewhere deep in Tennessee’s winter forest, another group of endurance athletes has begun wrestling with a race designed not to be conquered – but survived.
