The Barkley Marathons Has Begun!

My understanding is that people have to want to get in before they are invited, is that not correct?

Were there really multiple sponsored runners being 'invited' every year in the past like there is now?

Because it's a huge pantload to claim that Barkley requires mental toughness that Moab 240 or Ultra Gobi don't.

Does anyone know what happened to Dubova? He was the BFC winner for 2021, so he's kind of an interesting case for Big Barkley.

Ah yes, the infamous Neckbeard "Marathon".

I've heard (unconfirmed) that BFC is only like 30% of the real Barkley, so that's not going to help you much.

Dubova is a great guy.

My guess is the weather at night did him in at Barkley.

Joking aside, I think there is really something to that. There's this element of a bunch of dorks in the forest being like, "no that's not part of the lore! Have you even read 100 race reports? Do you even know anything? You are not as big of a fan of this race as me. 😤"

Reminds me of walking into a trading card store in the 90s and a bunch of people sitting around folding tables all turn to the door and stare as if to say "we don't know you, and we like our little private world here, and we are very hostile to outsiders."

Yeah he seems like huge toolbag. Probably why Dave Baskwill admired him so much.

You basically described the Boston Marathon diehards, too. The ones that believe that it's "the one true race" and that any marathon other than Boston is vastly inferior.

I've always been curious about one thing about the race.

Why are there so few "groups" in the race? It seems like it would be significantly easier to complete the race in groups -- say an a group of ultra runners, a group of orienteer focused participants, and a group of slower athletes.

In the movie produced a few years ago it appears that Gary Robbins was significantly aided by following the eventual race winner. Robbins fell apart on the final lap when he was forced to go it alone.

Is it one of the unspoken rules of the race that people are supposed to complete the majority of the event solo to make it more difficult?

I look down on those people too. We are just out here to test ourselves, and anyone who tries to add layers of mythology on top of that just needs to calm down IMO. But I guess running is a highly personal pursuit for me, and mythologizing a race is at the complete other end of the spectrum: caring about what everyone else thinks. It's like "subscribe to our groupthink or GTFO"

I saw some of Jamil Coury's coverage of the event and it had Laz in a lot of the pictures. The dude is literally smoking or holding a cig all the time with his belly nearly busting out of his shirt. Possibly crazy or mentally unstable. And he's such a figurehead in the ultrarunning community WTF??? No wonder he doesn't want media attention.

Unlike many on here I like ultrarunning (up to 50mi races) but the Barkley Marathon is such a ridiculous event, I don't see why any serious runner like Harvey or Courtney would even bother with a basically 'unwinnable' event, high risk of burnout/injury, no coverage or publicity, etc.

I ran BFC in 2021, so I could tell you about it, but the 50K is actually about 40 miles with about 13,000 feet of elevation gain and a similar amount of descent. While BFC lacks the orienteering and most of the off trail elements, it's longer than a loop at Big Barkley. I was really just asking about Dubova because I saw that he had finished the first loop with the lead pack, and I wondered how his fitness was going to hold out.

Groups definitely are an advantage, and there's no unspoken rule against them. They are common, but only up to maybe 3-4 people and more typically only 2 people. The challenge with something this long is the logistics of managing a large group. Not only does everyone have to want to move the same pace, but they have to take the same length breaks in camp, agree on whether to sleep or not and when/for how long, stand around for an extra 2 minutes at each book for the entire crew to get their page, etc etc. Everyone is also obviously racing the clock, so the moment there's a disagreement on any of these topics the group will splinter. Once you're 15 min apart you might as well be 4 hours apart, so you really need a lot of group coordination to keep it together.

The events they specialize in (often multiple days) might as well be a different sport than 50 mile and below ultras. I doubt Barkley has a substantially higher risk of burnout/injury than a 24-hour track race or the Moab 240. It's a huge challenge that's borderline impossible, that alone draws a certain type of person who wants to attempt it, especially after having so much success.

Their sponsors will still get some coverage from tweets/people following along like this thread/etc, plus their contracts probably allow some low-key/fun events as long as they still do some high-profile ones too.

Five people out on loop 3 as of 3 hours ago apparently. Jasmin Paris, Thomas Dunkerbeck, Greig Hamilton, John Kelly, and Karel Sabbe. I think Kelly at least will go on to loop 4 but we'll see, the weather looks brutal.

You don't see why a highly accomplished ultrarunner, who regularly shows up to major races with a realistic expectation of winning, would be drawn to an event that is more challenging? They are already extreme athletes at the top of their game, the allure of Barkley is precisely that they're not sure they can even complete it. If you don't get it, it's because you're not the target audience.

The trading card analogy hits home hard, I was 8 at the start of the 90s and big into Magic(TG) among other things!

haha I'm glad. To extend it a bit:

You walk into that scene as a casual or a parent looking to buy a pack of pokemon cards. And everyone makes it extremely clear that you cannot just join in. And you're like "yeah, that's totally fine...it smells like BO in here, and I don't even play that type of game."

Karel Sabbe finished loop 3 in 32:21:49