It’s an ultramarathon shrouded in mystery, infamous for being as merciless as it is strange, described in a 2014 documentary as “the race that eats its young.”
And once again, the annual race based on a prison break, that starts with its founder blowing a conch and lighting a cigarette, bested all of its competitors.
The infamous Barkley Marathons wrapped up Sunday, and for the second year in a row, not one single person finished the punishing course through Frozen Head State Park, Tenn., in the time allotted.
“The 2026 Barkley Marathons is over. There are no finishers,” longstanding race reporter Keith Dunn wrote on X Sunday.
The Barkley Marathons, created by Gary Cantrell and Karl Henn in 1986, was inspired by the escape of James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King, who ran about 20 kilometres in 54.5 hours from a nearby prison in 1977.
Ray was captured only eight miles east of the prison, and Cantrell, a long-distance runner, thought he could do better in that length of time, he told media in 2006.
“I could have made 100 miles,” Cantrell recalls saying at the time. “It turns out it’s not that easy.”
The race field of 40 participants must run 160 kilometres in no more than 60 hours.
Its current course consists of five loops of 32 kilometres each around the park with a climb and descent of around 60,000 feet over the five laps. As Runner’s World magazine points out, that’s equivalent to climbing Mt. Everest — twice.
One of the steeper climbs is nicknamed “Rat Jaw.”
In its 40 years, only 20 people have ever finished the full course — including Canadian Ihor Verys won with a time of 58 hours, 44 minutes and 59 seconds in 2024. That same year, British ultrarunner Jasmin Paris became the first woman ever to finish the Barkley Marathons, with 99 seconds to spare in the 60-hour cut-off.
This year, a quarter of the 40 runners made it to the second loop. Only four made it to the third, including Canadian-French ultrarunner Mathieu Blanchard, who dropped out in the third “due to cold,” according to Dunn.
Just one person finished the third loop, France’s Sebastien Raichon, but not in time to qualify for a fourth. A runner has to begin loop four by the 36 hour mark in order to continue.
In the end, the race won, as if often does.
“Fog, cold and the wet weather were factors,” Dunn wrote on X.
Ihor Verys from Chilliwack, B.C, became the first Canadian to finish the 160-kilometre Barkley Marathons, winning the event with a time of 58 hours 44 minutes 59 seconds. He says he completed the race without sleeping.
Sorry, a conch and a cigarette?
Ah, you caught that, did you? To explain the conch and cigarette, we must first back up and explain more about the history of the Barkley Marathons.
The Barkley Marathons is run in Frozen Head State Park near Wartburg, Tenn., usually in March or April of each year. We say “usually” because there’s no race website and no public registration. This year, with a Feb. 14 start, marks the earliest race in the Barkley Marathons history.
As CBC has previously reported, organizer Gary Cantrell, also known as Lazarus Lake, keeps most details of the race secret. But we do know that he requires a $1.60 US entry fee, starts the race by lighting a cigarette and has The Last Post played on a bugle when a runner drops out or doesn’t finish.
Runners know the race’s day in advance, 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 start line.
And, um, while the competitors are generally elite ultramarathoners, apparently one of the 40 is called the “human sacrifice” — someone Cantrell believes has no business being there, according to Runner’s World.
From there the rules are… something else. There are no aid stations in the course, except water at two places. GPS devices are prohibited, according to Triathlon Today, and the course changes every year.
“Participants are issued an inexpensive watch set to ‘Barkley time’ (the 60-hour limit),” notes Canadian Trail Running magazine. They’re also handed maps.
And have we mentioned the pages? Yes, the pages. Competitors have to find and collect pages from 13 books hidden along the course, explains Canadian Trail Running, and missing pages result in disqualification.
There’s also no live tracking. As Canadian Trail Running magazine points out, observers have to rely exclusively on Dunn’s social media for updates.
‘It’s pretty hard,’ admits organizer
There’s more. We could go on, for instance, about how the sleep deprivation has pushed some runners into hallucinations. According to Triathlon Today, in 2022, Belgian runner Karel Sabbe asked a trash can for directions before locals called police.
“It’s pretty hard,” Cantrell admitted to CBC’s Morning North during a visit to Sudbury, Ont., in January.
Morning North8:33The man who started the “race that eats its young”, Gary Cantrell, is giving a talk in Sudbury
The Barkley Marathons are notorious in the running world. The man behind those races is giving a speech in Sudbury. He dropped by our studio to chat with us ahead of his speaking engagement.
So why do people do it?
“Because it’s a tremendous challenge,” Cantrell said. “When someone makes it you feel elevated just by witnessing what someone else can do.”
Blanchard, the Canadian in the final four, posted on Instagram Monday that the race is at odds with modern times, where everything is shared, commented on, and consumed live. It can be unsettling, he wrote in French, to take part in an event that deliberately resists transparency and disrupts the modern sports system.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he added.
“I can simply say that I experienced something very powerful at Frozen Head.”
