The Barkley Marathons 2024. Conch shell at the ready...

[Taylormiffed]

No idea when it will start. Follow @ keithdunn on twitter as he's usually the only journo who attends.

Let's hope for another safe race. Maybe a woman can finish for the first time and hopefully there'll be a handful of Brits to cheer on. Although tbh, I'll cheer on anyone crazy enough to attempt it.

I am looking forward to it!

I think John Kelly normally hides his Strava map location just before the event but it's still showing today so I don't think we are quite imminent yet.

John Kelly had no run location on Strava yesterday - we might be getting close @Taylormiffed !

Overinvested here but a tweet and a rummage on the frozen head website does seem to indicate a very busy few days at the campsite from 18th - 22nd March.

To help get in to the mood

Just arrived on YouTube, it’s about Karl Sabbe in 2023

Twitter thinks that some potential runners have gone Strava quiet. I think it's starting Sunday or Monday.

It's usually roughly over a weekend, so I suspect it will be this one or the next.

I've activated notifications for all Keith's tweets!

Last year I treated myself to Frozen Ed's book - this year I'm getting "The Finishers" book (even though it's already out of date by two people!)

Will we hear anything before the tweet with the conch?

I've just looked up 3 likelies who have public Strava

One is still recording activity in usual location.
Two have both zero'ed

(Posting just to keep this thread near the top of "I'm On" - sorry if that annoys!!)

Aha - here it is 😊 Looking forward to another bonkers event for certifiable loons soon!

I think it must be very soon - no later than this weekend.

Because I don't think they'd do it over Easter weekend itself (genuine holiday-makers would be around, and they had enough trouble with hikers and books last year) and I read that Laz is doing a different trail event himself from 7/04 (OK, that was one tweet, so might not be accurate, but going in to April would be really quite late - unless undergrowth challenge is the feature to make it harder after 3 finishers in 2023)

Of the 3 likelies that I've been stalking on their public Strava, two have uploaded nothing for well over a week now, and the third now has a 4 day gap (in recent weeks, there's never been more than a single day off). So I'm speculating that 2 are already there (having travelled early and done a bit of acclimatising) and the other has perhaps just travelled.

PS: I managed to take this event over to one of the many Kate threads, as the best Twitter rumour I've seen about her is that she's in Frozen Head, ready to go....

Just found on Twitter (says posted 4 hours ago) - Taka’s spreadsheet, ready to go

Usual caveat - “A reminder to anyone not familiar with my spreadsheet: It's NOT a primary source, I'm just collecting all the online information in one place. There is ALWAYS misinformation on there, even I can't unbarkley the barkley”

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS7bFn8RH5Na4vVxNijCsFCiHeYqRksDi5D9ddC9Fz4yK7nOQhEg8HwG78lz-PFVB2EkFn4QlJKEXMV/pubhtml

Conch was blown at 3.16 local time (ie about 4 minutes ago)

Cigarette in an hour

FFS!!!!

Another tweet, saying "False alarm folks - it was someone's car alarm"

(But presumably it must mean that we're in the couple of days where the conch could be at any moment)

Edited to say - sorry, didn't mean to quote earlier post, and edit function doesn't seem to have option to clear it.

Time for

I found you! And just in time…

<settles in for the ride>

Thank you. I did think it had to be any hour now. Slightly peeved it clashes with my two office days a week, I'll have to dip in and out of twitter in breaks.

Here's for a safe race and a woman to do even better than last year.

Ah, rats. Never mind!

Never mind rats! There's been another tweet!!

Conch blown at 04.17

And this tweet hasn't been rescinded, so I think they'll be off in 53mins

(Wonders if car alarm was accidentally done on purpose so no-one slept through this year. Wonders if it's the usual field of 40 and if they will all start. Wonders what proportion of entrants are "tall guy with beard")

I can't believe people actually sleep through the start sometimes. I thought everyone had a support "team".

So cut off time is some time on Friday evening? I've just been refreshing my memory about this. Utterly bonkers! Thanks for alerting me, will keep an eye on this.

[Edited three times because I can't do mental arithmetic and adjust for time difference at the same time]

Trying to muster some who were on last year's thread

@megletthesecond @mummymummymummummum @Enthrallingstoryofstillnessandlight @OutDamnedSpot @MoneyInTheBananaStand @larfincow @NameChangeFor2023 @RelentlessForwardProgress @VaulterTech @AnnPerkins @Flangeosaurus

Exciting! Whets the best Twitter feed to follow for this? I've only just learned about it reading Jasmin Parrs's blog the other day.

It's 60 hours.

So in UK time, the final cut off will be on Friday 22nd at 21:17

There are some people on twitter who do really good analysis of the times of loops - if I find them again, I'll add them to the thread.

One diagram showed times for each loop and outcome for runners by that time - and from the way it presented data, it should be possible to predict when there can be interloopal unpdates

There is only one @ keithdunn

Taka's spreadsheet (linked above) is best way of keeping track of runners/times

Or are you after other accounts that usually tweet good stuff whilst it's on?

I’m sure I saw a version of this with a chart for each loop

But here are data from time of loop 1

Edited to add - you need to click on the images to see all the columns, they don't make much sense unless you do!

Brilliant! So looking forward to following again this year!