Trail Mix | Barkley Marathons: no finishers again in race ‘that eats its young’, but lessons in prioritising fun from former winner John Kelly
- No runners reach the end of the famous 100-miler in Tennessee, which was has only seen 15 finishers in 33 years
- HK4TUC finisher completes three laps out of five, but cannot add Barkley to his resume
One of the favourites to win this year’s Barkley Marathons – the notorious 100-miler with a 60-hour limit and deemed the world’s toughest race – unexpectedly dropped out after running two of the five 20-mile loops this past weekend.
“Long story short: I quit,” wrote John Kelly on Twitter. “I was good on time, felt strong, conditions were (relatively) good. But I know what 5 loops takes and realised I don’t have that motivation any more. And I was no longer having fun.”
The ultramarathon trail race takes place each year in Tennessee in the United States, with a total elevation gain equivalent to climbing Mount Everest twice from sea level – all while dealing with forbidding temperatures that range from freezing to boiling, navigating unmarked trails on a course that is only made public the day before the race, and enduring an onslaught of thorny saw briars.
Hundreds of runners apply for the 35 to 40 slots available each year. In the 33 years since the race started in 1986, only fifteen people have finished.
Why such a high attrition rate? As Gary Cantrell, the race director and founder, put it to The New York Times, “The Barkley is a problem. All the other big races are set up for you to succeed. The Barkley is set up for you to fail.”