An ultramarathon shrouded in mystery, as famously ruthless as it is strange, described in a 2014 documentary as “a race that eats its young.”
And again, the annual race based on a prison break, which begins with its founder blowing a conch and then lighting a cigarette, has won over all competitors.
The infamous Barkley Marathon wrapped up Sunday, and for the second year in a row, not a single person finished the punishing course through Frozen Head State Park, Tenn., in the allotted time.
“The 2026 Barkley Marathons are over. There are no finishers,” long distance race reporter Keith Dunn wrote about X on Sunday.
TThe Barkley Marathons, founded by Gary Cantrell and Karl Henn in 1986, were inspired by the escape of James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King, who ran nearly 20 miles in 54.5 hours from a nearby prison in 1977.
Ray was caught just eight miles east of the prison, and Cantrell, a long-distance runner, thought he could do better then, he told the media in 2006.
“I could have gone 100 miles,” Cantrell recalled at the time. “It turns out it’s not that simple.”
A field of 40 participants must run 160 kilometers in no more than 60 hours.
Its current course consists of five loops of 32 kilometers each around the park with an ascent and descent of 60,000 feet over five meters. As Runner’s World magazine points out, that’s the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest – twice.
One of the climbs is called “Rat’s Jaw.”
In its 40 years, only 20 people have completed the full course – including Canadians Ihor Verys won with a time of 58 hours, 44 minutes and 59 seconds in 2024. That same year, British runner Jasmine Paris became the first woman ever to finish the Barkley Marathons, 99 seconds shy of the 60-hour cutoff.
This year, a quarter of the 40 athletes made it to the second loop. Only four reached the third, inclusive Canadian-French ultrarunner Mathieu Blanchard, who finished third “because of the cold,” according to Dunn.
Only one person completed the third loop, in France Sebastien Raichon, but not in time to qualify for fourth. The runner must start the fourth loop at the 36-hour mark to continue.
In the end, the competition won, as it usually does.
“Fog, cold and wet weather were the features,” Dunn wrote in X.
Ihor Verys of Chilliwack, BC, became the first Canadian to finish the 160 kilometer Barkley Marathons, winning the event in 58 hours 44 minutes 59 seconds. He says he finished the race without sleeping.
Excuse me, conch and cigarettes?
Ah, you got that, didn’t you? To explain conch and tobacco, we must first support and elaborate on the history of the Barkley Marathons.
The Barkley Marathons are run at Frozen Head State Park near Wartburg, Tenn., usually in March or April each year. We say “generally” because there is no race website and no public registration. This year, as it began on February 14, marks the first race in the history of the Barkley Marathons.
As CBC previously reported, editor Gary Cantrell, also known as Lazarus Lake, keeps most of the details of the race under wraps. But we know he needs an entry fee of $1.60 US, to start the race by lighting a cigarette again Last Post played in the bag if a runner falls or does not finish.
Runners know in advance the date of the race, but not when the race will start within a 12-hour window, according to Runner’s World. Cantrell blows a conch shell to let runners know they have one hour to get to the starting line.
And, um, even though the competitors are usually elite ultramarathoners, apparently one in 40 is called a “human sacrifice” — something Cantrell believes he has no business being there, according to Runner’s World.
Since then the rules… more. There are no aid stations on this course, except for water in two places. GPS devices are banned, according to Triathlon Today, and the course changes every year.
“Participants are given a cheap watch set for ‘Barkley time’ (60 hour limit),” notes Canadian Trail Running magazine. Maps are also provided.
And did we mention pages? Yes, pages. Competitors must find and collect pages from 13 books hidden throughout the course, Canadian Trail Running explains, and missing pages lead to disqualification.
There is also no live tracking. As Canadian Trail Running magazine points out, viewers should rely solely on Dunn’s social media for updates.
‘It’s really hard,’ admitted the editor
There is more. We could go on, for example, about how lack of sleep has pushed some runners to hallucinate. According to Triathlon Today, in 2022, the Belgian runner Karel Sabbe asked for a way for the garbage before the locals called the police.
“It’s very difficult,” Cantrell admitted to the CBC Morning North when I visited Sudbury, Ont., in January.
Morning North8:33The man who started the “race that eats its young,” Gary Cantrell, is giving a speech in Sudbury
The Barkley Marathon is notorious for running. The man who runs those races is giving a speech in Sudbury. He stopped by the studio to chat with us before his speech.
So why do people do it?
“Because it’s a big challenge,” Cantrell said. “When someone makes you feel superior by witnessing what someone else can do.”
Blanchard, a Canadian in the final four, wrote on Instagram on Monday that the race doesn’t fit in today’s times, where everything is shared, commented on and consumed live. It can be disturbing, he writes in French, to participate in an event that is deliberately controversial and disrupts the modern system of sports.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he added.
“I can only say that I found something very powerful in Frozen Head.”
