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 was very confused by Jim Mann - originally Taka's spreadsheet had him down as coming from Utah or somewhere and I thought oh so it's not the British Jim Mann, there's another crazy ultra runner out there with the exact same name! How strange 🤣

Yes @SuncreamAndIceCream I thought there were only the 2 Brits, spotted Jim later on and wondered how I'd overlooked him before. This explains it!

Really enjoying this thread - what an amazing year this is turning out to be.

Thanks for the elevation graphic @AuntieStella - that’s a lot of up and down!

I absolutely think that women like Paris and Spinks should be recognised for what they acheive. But it’s unlikely. I do a pub quiz every week, and often the sports round is one I score zero in - full of mindless endless football, rugby and golf questions. But recently there was a round on Women in Sport and I scored 9 out of 10. So few women reach any sort of level of recognition, but perhaps women excel at a different sort of thing to what men excel at? We are certainly much better at stamina events, and also sports where bravery and more than your average mental focus is required, but these do not make for good spectator sports. The BMs is not a good spectator event, nor are any of the other long distance, out in the wild events out there, but these are where women excel. It’s what I do - some kind posters have recommended I look up other impressive women but I am already aware of them, and already count myself a teammate of impressive women you will never have heard of here heading out to Europe to compete in international equestrian events similar to the BMs with some success.

The events I compete in are heavily map dependent, and I scrutinise the routes with a magnifying glass (yes I do! 🤣 A sad hobby but it’s my hobby.) A previous BMs route would be a really interesting evening in for me, 🤣🤣 But anyway. Back to the race - I am very hopeful Jasmine will finish this one - she has good time left to do it in, but a whole last loop is a long way to go yet.

There's a rumour on Twitter that Laz has promised to get Small European Woman tattooed on himself if Jasmin finishes.

I hope it's true! And that she finishes 🙏

That's one of the things about the Barkleys - GPS devices banned - runners issued with a watch by Laz and it's just one that tells the time

So old fashioned compass and map skills needed, and why first-timers rarely do well (unless they really can hook up with a veteran for a couple of loops). Laz has commented that this year inadequate map reading was a main factor in loop 1 failures

I was trying to find the original Washington Post article that talked about the route but suspect it's vanished into archives, so here's a version from Pinterest. It's from the 2006 event; no finishers or completed fun runs that year - that was probably weather, not the course per se - but the course will have evolved since then. One deliberately vague comment about this year is that there was a new fork in the route and one way will take you to utter hell but the other means you almost certainly won't finish

Barkley Marathons Course Map | The Washington Post | Gene Thorp Map | Barkley marathon, Marathon running, Trail running (pinterest.com)

SEW far SEW good!!

Yes, this is the sort of stuff I like to see! 🤣 I teach navigation by map, compass and stopwatch techniques. We are only allowed a stopwatch too, no GPS. I lost my stopwatch recently in a race. I am a self confessed absolute map geek.

Seven of them out!

Anyone else thinking next years pack are in for it! Laz will consider the course far too easy now and no doubt throw in some more hills/ books

Just catching up but omg Jasmin - absolutely rooting for her!!

We are only allowed a stopwatch too
I think those are allowed at BM100 too

Anyone else thinking next years pack are in for it! Laz will consider the course far too easy now and no doubt throw in some more hills/ books

It's 13 books at the moment I think.

I've been looking at Taka's spreadsheet (as you do when there's no prospect of good-news updates for hours, but your mind is more of a Frozen Head) and have noticed that the increasing numbers of runners doing more loops goes hand in hand with the event becoming more international. (since about 2017, though 2021 is an outlier as many international competitors could not travel as there were still covid restrictions, and of course there was no event in 2020). Before 2012, the event was almost entirely US runners (and before 2010, nationality wasn't even listed)

If you look at nationality of those who do the best (not always finishers, as some years there were none, especially the bad weather years), then even though the US still has the largest number of entrants, there are (progressively) fewer US runners making it to the final loop (whichever loop that was)

So Laz has a balancing act - does he want this to become an international elite event (with more making it to the later loops - the noticeable thing about this year is that the attrition rate of those who completed one loop was way lower than typical across later loops) or does he want to keep it more quirky, which is most of its appeal?

Like so much to do with the Barkley, we'll have to wait and see

Looking at this years

That's a very interesting thought @AuntieStella

The lure of the Barkley is the mystery, the low key, self-sufficient nature of it isn't it. It's become a really really interesting event. The lack of information makes it more gripping.

Laz has created an event which is pretty well designed to resist those forces of commercialisation. The numbers have to be low because the park is a delicate eco system, there are rules of conduct to abide by and there no point even applying unless you are willing to totally buy in. It's really difficult. Extremely good runners have failed to complete a single loop.

It will be fun to see where the race goes next. I agree that it is definitely really popular internationally, among people who don't even run! I think he will just make it harder. This year has been exceptional I think in the calibre of runners who are now experienced enough in the course to finish and the weather has been extraordinarily kind.

I remember Spinks in her write up saying it was very, very hot during the day time and at night on the same loop it was so cold she put on every item of clothing she had. She was worried that she was getting hypothermic and decided that she was going to drop out and go back to camp. It's not been like that this year I don't think.

Oh I've found the answer to yesterday's question - who is String bean?

It's Joe McConaughy - his insta tag is thestring.bean & he produced last year's docu on the Barkley (which is on YT & I might watch in the long hours waiting for SEW to finish).

Just been catching up on a documentary about Nicky Spinks which brings home just how brutal that course is. And I love this Damian Hall quote:

“The Barkley is a Kafka-esque hell. But it’s my kind of hell. When I say hell, I mean a deliberately confusingly outdoor library.

“My running problem may have become a Barkley problem. If Laz lets me in again, I’ll need to sharpen my nav skills, sleep-depravation management and perhaps turn over a new leaf and train as a librarian.”

I really enjoyed that Nicky Spinks documentary. It showed how fantastically bonkers the whole thing is!

Howie Stern has just added another photo of Jasmin looking amazing and is reporting that Jared waited for her to go so she could choose clockwise. Good on him if that's true.

Every completed loop 4 - worth clicking on the image to see it all

Would you happen to have a link please 🙏 x

https://run247.com/running-news/trail/barkley-marathons-best-documentaries it's the third link@Enthrallingstoryofstillnessandlight

Fabulous, thank you!

@Enthrallingstoryofstillnessandlight the first doc on that list, the race that eats its young, Is fantastic if you haven't seen it .

I just watched the “Touch the Gate” documentary having never heard of this race before today. What an awesome event, in the literal sense of the world. Most people couldn’t dream of contemplating something like this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

I'm watching the race that eats it's young. Only 99p on Prime.

I am sure it used to be on YouTube! I remember watching it on there I'm pretty sure. Only the trailer is on there now.

I’m so invested in this! It’s my ambition in life to run an ultramarathon and Jasmin Paris is iconic!