The Barkley Marathons Has Begun!

Just to add. In addition to what you said about navigation, yes Nolans is easier also because you can use a GPS watch, phone whatever, just no mechanical aid such as a bike etc... You can go and do as much of the "course" ahead of your attempt as you want. No paper map with a crude hand copied route. You can even pick any day of the year you want to do it, so you can choose the best weather possible for your attempt. No bs mind games being played by an overweight chain smoker. Even with these advantages still only 15% finish it under the 60 hours.

And as far as the participants, Nolans attracts mostly accomplished ultra runners. Barkleys attracts "tough guys" and other people who like really hard things, but they are not necessarily elite athletes, I mean you can probably list the most accomplished athletes on 2 hands that have attempted Barkley. It was some obscure event for years and now its blown up so everyone and their mom want to do it. Along with its nearly impossible entry process, none of this suggests its going to have some huge quality of athletes attempting it.

Yes Barkleys is really tough. But it is mostly tough for psychological and contrived aspects most of which have nothing to do with physical fitness. Nalons is pure fitness and mountain skills. Barkleys is estimated to have what 50-60 thousand feet of gain? Nolans with 90 thousand feet should pretty much say it all.

I wouldn't call navigation a contrived aspect of the event. If you value mountain skills, why not orienteering skills? I'd say it is one of the most fundamental mountain/outdoor skills, especially if you are wanting to move fast. It is also undervalued in the U.S. outdoor/mountain culture. I don't agree with the dismissals used by some in these threads of orienteering being a "treasure hunt", as if it's by chance that some find the controls/books and others get lost.

I got into orienteering having a good outdoor background (including mountaineering/ backpacking). I am lucky to live in a place with a local club that use to put on two dozen, accessible (~$5) events per year when I started, so I'd race weekly in the summer. I was the fastest runner at the meets, and though I knew how to read a map and use a compass, I sucked for a long time. Though I was competitive and able to win the moderate and easy courses, on the hardest courses, I'd be lucky to be only 25% back of the winner, and more often 50%-100% back (or sometimes DNF). I know exactly how the people who can't find a book at Barkley feel, because I was in that position dozens of times.

I didn't take building orienteering skill that seriously, like some of my friends did who improved faster, so my orienteering skills sucked for a long time. I basically just did all the meets, learning by doing/trial and error, and didn't practice skills outside of meets. I also directed meets yearly, designing up to five courses per meet, setting up and taking down all the controls, etc. It took me a full decade before I finally was able to win the long/hard course at a local meet. So, I'd say the barrier to entry to really navigating well in all conditions (night, fog, rain, etc.) is higher than many runners would expect.

Here is a blog post about the orienteering GOAT's navigation technique. It's about he went from a merely a great map reader to GOAT. It should provide some insight into what it takes to really navigate well.

My thoughts on the difficulty of entry is that if you have a profile of someone who might be able to finish Barkleys, and you have the interest, you'll have a good chance of getting in by asking the right people/getting an invite. That's why you think of someone who might have a chance to do well, like Jasmin Paris, or Dauwalter, next you know, you see them on the line. It's like Laz is a fan of that edge of the sport.

I think navigation-wise, I would agree with you. You might get actually lost in Frozen Head because you don't have strong visual cues like in the rockies. I have hiked those nolans 14ers as well, but I recognize the off-trail route finding would be much tougher than that. The consequences of messing up route finding on Nolans are not inconsequential. You can't just retrace your steps or walk out to a highway very easily. The elements of Nolans are tougher and more life-threatening (above treeline in the rocky mountains for multiple days without 4 breaks at a fully furnished base camp). Plus, there won't be experienced veterans on your nolans attempt shepherding you 4/5 of the way through. And at Barkley, once you've done one lap in each direction, you technically know the course, while each step of Nolans is on new trail you haven't experienced yet.

Justin Simoni did a bikepacking tour of the 100 highest summits in the state, and regularly bikes-then-hikes Longs Peak even in winter, and bailed on nolans after 7 summits.

I think Nolans just extracts a heavier toll, without any unnecessary contrivance. It's easier to plan for, but harder to actually do on a physical level. No debating there are tougher elements of barkley though. And as far as finishing % - there is a bias based on who even bothers to attempt nolans let alone announce it publicly. Thru hiking the appalachian trail has a similar finishing percentage if I recall correctly, but I wouldn't say it's easier than nolans, because a bunch of goobers go out and do it. Remember in the barkley doc - where they show the military-type guy getting lost on his first lap? I think there are plenty of barkley entrants like that fella every year.

I couldn't confirm it with a few minutes of searching, but I recall someone saying that off-trail hiking in Frozen Head is not generally allowed, so that would rule out what you're suggesting (not to mention the difficulty of not knowing where the runners usually go). I'm not certain of this, though.

You raise some really good points that I mostly agree with. There is certainly way less room for error with decision making in the Rockies. Barkley runners consistently hit bad weather that complicates the race, but hitting bad weather (especially thunderstorms) on Nolan's could easily become life or death. I'll say that most serious Nolan's attempts to my knowledge are done by people with extensive history and familiarity with those mountains, and very little of the route is new trail for them. (The short Adidas documentary on Sabrina Stanley's recent FKT is a good indication of how much many people prepare for Nolan's by running the actual route).

I absolutely agree with your second point though. Nolan's is a beautiful, natural linkup in the Rockies with nothing but the 60-hour time limit being in any way contrived, while Barkley is a highly contrived suffer fest. Though I thought the military guy in the Barkley doc was the sacrificial virgin? I was under the impression that nowadays all Barkley entrants except for the virgin had extensive endurance experience, whereas any idiot (like me) can go out and give Nolan's a try. But I am much less familiar with Barkley than I am with Nolan's. I'll also bring up Jeff Garmire- this is a sample size of 1 person with 1 attempt at each. However, he was able to complete Nolan's, with backpacking gear, while on the last leg of the Great Western Loop. Meanwhile he completed 3? laps of Barkley with full preparation and training.

For the record, I did hike the Appalachian trail in sub-100 days and when I was capable of doing that I was nowhere near the physical or mental capabilities to do Nolan's. But it's hard to compare the difficulty of something spread over multiple months to the difficulty of something that takes less than 3 days, and your overall point still stands.

At the end of the day this doesn't really matter but it's fun to debate. I'm hoping I can get out and give both a try someday to judge it for myself :)

As I've said, anyone can go out and give Nolan's a try at any time. I'm under the impression that Barkley is more rigorously vetted, so that (with the exception of the sacrificial virgin) everyone in the race has an extensive background in endurance events. For example, there is no way I have the experience to get into Barkley, let alone give it a serious attempt. I do think that I have a reasonable shot at completing Nolan's, and I am going to be attempting it this summer if training goes well. Obviously this is completely anecdotal, but I think it illustrates the point that I'm making.

The orienteering guy chimes in to say it's not contrived to throw orienteering into an ultra as it's part of "mountain skills". If an "ultra" threw in some 5.14 climbing (to be climbed at night in the freezing rain while awake for 60 hours), you'd be arguing climbing is clearly mountain/outdoor skills and this would not make that ultra a niche event? Give me a break.

I'm glad you enjoy orienteering, but it is exactly what makes this a niche event. BTW, can you tell me where they teach kids orienteering skills in total fog (can't see more than 5 feet), pouring rain, in the middle of the night after being awake for 60 hours? Sounds like the usual orienteering events you attended? I thought that would have made it niche even for orienteering, but, you're the expert.

Had you hiked the AT before your sub-100? I regret doing it so fast now that I'm older. Could have spent more time with people or explored certain spots on a whim. Looking back, it feels like I was running from demons or something.

Best of luck with Nolans. Hope you reconsider doing the barkley though ;)

I brought up mountain skill in reply to the person who admired mountain skills while discussing Nolan's.

My local orienteering club is in the US (Alaska). I've run and won night-Os before, and sure, meets have been held in pouring rain and fog, and in winter (ski-O). They don't cancel running races for rain or fog either (see Desi's/Kawauchi's wins at Boston). I've never traveled for races, so I can't tell you much about the rest of the scene in the rest of the US. Orienteering is popular in Scandinavian countries, is run in all weather, and there are some really big/mass participation night events (often in relay format between clubs, lasting all day/night).

Barkley Marathons is not advertised as a standard running ultra, so it's not "throwing orienteering into an ultra". Are you saying events like this should not exist? I've always considered it a form of adventure race, like the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic, which can be kind of extreme, though much simpler in terms of rules (get from start to finish through a particular wilderness area under human power).

If they did throw in 5.14 climbing into a race, I wouldn't denigrate that race. It could potentially be an awesome adventure race worth observing. Imagine Alex Honnold vs. Dean Potter (RIP) vs. Ueli Steck (RIP) racing up the Eiger or some nasty Himalayan mountain. In the '90s, I often free soloed easier climbs in my running shoes while running through Castle Rock State Park (in CA), sometimes side-by-side speed free soloing with a climbing buddy who also ran. It'd be uninsurable racing, but combining climbing and (non-ultra) trail running was my jam back then.

That they run night events on purpose shows that orienteering is a sport that recognizes that daylight makes things easier, and they want to test skill in more difficult conditions (so they obviously don't cancel events for fog or rain).

No fog, but orienteering kids in a bog (cute video), something you don't see in cross country running:

An orienteering vlogger does night orienteering intervals.

At the moment I don't have any regrets. I wasn't planning on hiking it so fast but I didn't love the heavy party bubble that I started out in and just started putting in big miles to get ahead of the people. Coming from a running background I really loved challenging myself physically in that way.

There's absolutely things I missed out on by not taking my time more, but the social aspect of thru hiking is a very small part of why I do it. The money that I saved on the AT relative to my initial budget, along with being able to put in mileage, let me hike the CDT this past summer between college semesters. If the AT had taken me 6 months I would have simply worked a job last summer. For me the hiking is 50% about being immersed in the terrain and the outdoors, and 50% about the physical and mental challenge. My pace maximized what I was after, and I will definitely hike the AT again someday and have a whole new experience.

Now as for the running from demons aspect of things, that is something I need to figure out.

Yeah I vibe with that too. Luckily I went sobo so I only had a month or two of heavy partiers, and I was headed in the other direction. Seemed like a totally different experience some people were doing. Absolute sh!t shows in some shelters that I learned to avoid. Actual rager parties! Some guy set up his tent next to mine then got on the phone with some trail angel lady that was following their bubble, and he got word that his gang was in town so he packed up to get a ride from her. Totally different experience. I don't know what it's even like now, I imagine intolerable if you're in the thick of things!

You're not thinking logically here. I never said any of these things are "Easy". They are all hard. And I said distance running events are "equally hard" *IF* one is pushing themselves 100% to their max limit....and that is an individual thing. A sub 2:20 marathon for me might be a 2:50 marathon effort for someone else. The pain and the challenge in that sense is a constant. Hence "equally hard". Has nothing to do with the finisher rate or the time or the competition. Just an individual's limits and suffering....which should be a constant. 5km too easy for you? Then run faster!

Do 100-mile and multi day ultras have many more things that can go exponentially wrong in them (compared to a low 2-hour, flat road marathon)? Of course! There are many, many variables that can go wrong and that need to be considered in a races with longer durations. Weather, gear, nutrition. DNF rate will be higher. That doesn't by default make them "harder" though.

And this is a stupid argument like saying "oh the 800m is 'Harder' than the 1500m" or "oh a 50-miler must be twice as hard as a 26.2 mile race".

I did horrible at UTMB when I finished there once. But I was able to finish and it I walked it in pretty much the last 40-miles (like a lot of ultra runners walk during most 100-milers). However, I was reduced to a shaking skeleton at the Boston Marathon and physically unable to finish one year. In that case the Boston Marathon was I race I couldn't finish...but UTMB was actually pretty "easy" to *Just Finish* compared to Boston. But they were both races I was embarrassed about. I knew I didn't race up to my potential. They were both epic failures. They were both hard.

But that is all in my own individual experience and going with individual levels of pain and limitations. Which really is the only thing one can compare with a "Race" like Barkleys or an FKT effort like Nolans 14 (which I actually have covered most of the route).

Sure The Barkley's event can be "made harder" and simply "made impossible" on paper if Laz just lengthens the course and shortens the time limit. But that doesn't mean the effort of the racers is going to be "more impressive" or "harder" if they are reaching their full potential and individual limits for only 2 or 3 laps.....and which they can also do in a standard 5km or a half marathon....