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.

Little clip here of Jared and Jasmin at the interloopal stage before going out for Loop 5. It's about 5 minutes long but I don't think there's much before 2.20 or so. Include Jared's incredible offer to Jasmin of the chance to go in the clockwise direction, which I believe is considered to be a touch easier.

Less than 6 hours now to cut off

And probably more than 3 before anyone is in.

Not heard if anyone has passed the Fire Tower (in either direction) and Keith's tweeting about cats, vets and other random stuff

Well, the vet is less random, I suppose. Dr Paris has a PhD in leukaemia (AML) in dogs.

I welled up a bit watching that Gasp0de. Mostly at her courage of going on when clearly her digestive system had gone into 'nope' mode. Going to share that with dd who when runnng an ultra with me had similar issues (albeit at about 70k). Took all her courage to push through that.

Looks like Keith has woken up now. Did he not know that an awful lot of people in europe needed him to be awake!

I think it's a bit shit that a private conversation has been recorded and published.

But absolutely everyone is rooting for Jasmin, including her fellow runners.

It's 10.43 am there

I don't think the lack of tweets is because he's been asleep, but because there's nothing to say. With loop 4 splits in the range 45.46 - 46.29, we'll be looking at (typical) finish times of 57.30 onwards

So unless there's a fire tower sitrep for any of them, I'm mildly surprised he's tweeting at all.

Not sure if this old or today, but another commentator has just tweeted

“Runners who come to Barkley. They are not just good athletes, they're good people."

• Laz

Apparently all counter clockwise passed the fire tower some time ago, which make sense if you look at the map.
The clockwise runners still have time to get there. It looks like the fire tower then the prison.

I had vaguely heard of this run before but now ..I'm so invested.
Rooting for Jasmin...
For those of you who have run ultras of similar total mileage what is it , do you think , that makes this so hard ?
Is it the navigation skills needed, the terrain or the sheer loneliness of it for the runner ? So while some of us can get physically fit enough to run the distances it's having a whole new mental strength that sets these runners apart ?
This comes from a runner who is "just" at old fashioned marathon level.

Keith has just tweeted that Ihor has gone down Rat Jaw - which means he's passed the fire tower

I used my best pens for this 😊. (Hope it's right!)

Very good, but you've got competition! (Click on image to see whole thing.)

Does anyone else keep reading Ihor as Thor?

Aaaw, Lena put more effort into hers. Mine is sorely lacking trees.

My twitter feed sodding refreshed itself and I can't find the tweet again. But in a thread about the 8 words from Jared that ought to win him every outstanding sportsmanship of the year award 2024, someone quoted a comment from Laz. I don't know if it's old or if it was said today, or even if I've got it word-for-word:

"The Barkley doesn't just attract good athletes, it attracts good people"

Sorry for the two posts about what Laz said - I was having phone difficulties too and thought the first attempt hadn't posted and I've only just spotted it was there.

Taka has updated his spreadsheet so the Magnificent Seven are now ordered by their loop 4 split (and Jasmin's nationality has been corrected to Scotland UK). We don't have all the interloopal times (either for these runners or from previous years as comparisons) ie it doesn't give loop 5 start times

Ihor is first clockwise runner reported to have reached fire tower / Rat Jaw. The next clockwise runner is Damian, whose loop 4 split was approx 30 mins longer, and then Jasmin 15 mins after that.

Really hoping for more Rat Jaw news soon, as a finish from there is possible in the remaining time (~4.27 hours)

Oh god, the suspense! It’s too much!

So we might start hearing about finishers in 90 mins or so?

I could barely hear what was being said tbh, Jasmin looked in another world. I've done a few ultras, I was delirious at 50 miles, completely delirious! The longest I ever was out there for was 20 hours doing 105km, it's unimaginable what they're doing absolutely unimaginable.

During the Spine, Jasmine had said that she just tells her body it’s not going to sleep, whether it wants to or not -it’s not an option…these people are a bit superhuman. Come on Jasmine , it’s in the bag…it really is✊🏻✊🏻

I had never heard of this until this thread but total invested and spent a lot of today reading about it and sharing with others.
Utterly awe-inspiring!

@Theredjellybean I've run 4 100 miles and a fair few 100ks and 50 miles...nothing like the terrain difficulty of this sort of race.

I've never really found the running bit hard, what I've found hard Is the eating enough, even when your really tired and its the last thing you want to do, and the mental exhaustion. In a long race somethings going to go wrong, probably several things, but if you get lost and miss a turn, or forget to fill up your water at the aid station, the more tired you are, the more it throws you in a way it wouldn't if you'd slept....

in a race once I realised I'd left a pole opening a gate a few miles back and was just unable to think, should I leave it, should I go back, it just seemed this massive insurmountable problem.

@RelentlessForwardProgress ..I'm in awe...I'm in training for marathon du medoc...mostly practicing the drinking bit..
I'm going to watch all the documentaries later.

Well it's a long time since Keith tweeted about Rat Jaw

So either something has gone badly wrong for the clockwise Green Runners or Keith, and of course Laz, are playing with us

Home - (thegreenrunners.com)

Just saw a photo of Jasmin passing the tower with less than 4 hours to go!
searchingforzocherman on instagram posted it.