Tag: Barkley

After John Kelly’s dramatic finish in 2017, five years passed without a single finisher of all five loops at the Barkley Marathons. The subsequent unsuccessful attempts could be explained by a number of circumstances:...

For the fifth consecutive year, the Barkley Marathons course in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, conquered all of its 38 entrants. “I’m amazed that we ended up without a finisher,” said race director Gary “Lazarus...

Once again, since its inception in 1986, The Barkley Marathons were held at Frozen Head State Park in Wartburg, Tennessee, and concluded with zero finishers this year—for the third time in a row.This year’s edition didn’...

If a runner knows one thing coming into the Barkley, it’s that they know nothing. The starting time, the exact route, the conditions they’ll face – even many of their opponents – all of these are mysteries to be revealed...

WE WAITED. I waited. The race staff waited. Crews, defeated runners and the media, everyone waited. We stood there staring at the woods, and the woods stared back. In this day of GPS, spot trackers, cell phones and...

Uncertainty is, perhaps, the cruelest foe of all. The race was slated to begin in the dark, at 0142 hours. Mere minutes into the race, the field entered a netherworld in which the choices were pitch black without a li...

A flicker ignites the end of a cigarette. A deep inhalation precedes a release of smoke into the Tennessee sky. Less than three weeks later, this very gesture will launch 40 people into the wilds of Frozen Head State Par...

To sum up the 2015 Barkley in a nutshell, there were a lot of runners who ran quite well for a very long time. And then they all flamed out. Not only were there no finishers in the 100-mile main event, no runner reached...