The last time someone crossed the Barkley Marathon finish line was seven years ago. Participants will be busy for the next few days. The best way to follow updates about the race is through the hashtag #bm100 on Twitter. The world-famous marathon, for which participants pay only the amount of one dollar, takes place annually at Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, America.
If you don’t make that cut-off, you will be eliminated from the race. Not only the distance and the inhospitable area make the Barkley Marathon a real torture for participants, but also the fact that you have to start the next loop (32km) every twelve hours. Participants cover 160 kilometers over five loops, through inhospitable terrain and with a basically countless amount of altimeters. Fail to bring back all 13 pages and you are disqualified.It is considered the most brutal ultrarun in the world, and that is not surprising in the past 35 years there have only been 15 finishers and furthermore all participants in the Barkley Marathon dropped out early. To ensure no shortcuts are taken, 13 books (with titles such as “Heart of Darkness,” “A Time to Die”) are hidden along the routes and runners must tear a page from the book corresponding with their bib number. VERY excited to announce that we have the incredible Jasmin Paris talking about her Barkley Marathons experience on the live chat 6:45 - 7:15pm Wed 6 April. Instead, runners have to make notes from a master map and then navigate their way through often thick undergrowth with nothing more than a compass. Oh, and there are no fixed trails to follow. Gradients are commonly steeper than 40 degrees. Runners who make it to the end will ascend and descend 120,000 feet - the equivalent of climbing up and down Mount Everest twice. What makes the Barkley so fiendishly tough is the unforgiving terrain of Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. There are many longer ultra-marathons, some of which take place in 40-degree heat.
To complete the Barkley Marathons, you need to navigate five 20-mile loops of the course within 60 hours. Indeed, in its 33-year history, there have only been 15 finishers in a field containing the world’s most elite ultra-marathon runners. The course, which varies from year to year, consists of five loops of the 20+ mile, off-trail course for a total of 100 miles (160 km). It took place last weekend, but you will not find any list of winners: for the second successive year no-one completed it. The Barkley Marathons is an ultramarathon trail race held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Morgan County, Tennessee. More mean-spirited than Jose Mourinho protecting a 1-0 first-leg lead, more devious than an Eddie Jones press conference. Billing itself as the “Race That Eats Its Young”, the Barkley Marathons is the most evil event in sport.
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