Bird Mountain in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, home of the Barkley Marathons

Amazing Feats

The Barkley Marathons: The Race Almost Nobody Finishes

A $1.60 entry fee, a secret application, a cigarette for a starting gun, and a course so brutal that only 20 people have ever finished. In 2026, nobody did, for the second year in a row.

By Written Facts StaffOctober 4, 20263 min read

Most races want you to finish. The Barkley Marathons, held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, is built so that you almost certainly won't. Since the current format began in 1995, the full race has been finished 26 times by just 20 people. In February 2026, nobody finished. Again.

How it started

In 1977, James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary near the park. He was caught after about 54 hours in the woods, having made it only around 8 miles. Race founder Gary Cantrell, known as Lazarus Lake, heard that and thought he could cover at least 100 miles in that time. The Barkley was born.

The rules

Five loops, officially about 20 miles each, for 100 miles. Runners say the real distance is closer to 130 miles, with enormous climbs.
60 hours to finish all five, so about 12 hours per loop.
No GPS. Runners navigate by map and compass and a hand-copied master map.
Books hidden on the course. At each book, runners tear out the page that matches their bib number. Miss a page, and the loop doesn't count.
Crews can only help back at camp between loops.
Three loops within the cutoff counts as a "Fun Run," which tells you everything about the race's sense of humor.

Getting in

There's no public sign-up. Runners have to find out how to apply, then:

Pay $1.60.
Write an essay on "Why I Should Be Allowed to Run in the Barkley."
If accepted, first-timers bring a license plate from their state or country.

Only around 40 runners start each year.

The start

There's no set start time. At some point in the night or morning, a conch shell blows. Runners have one hour. The race begins when Laz lights a cigarette.

Jasmin Paris, 2024

In 2024, British runner Jasmin Paris became the first woman ever to finish, with a time of 59:58:21, about 99 seconds under the 60-hour cutoff. Five runners finished that year, a rare good year for the race.

2025 and 2026: zero

2025: no finishers.
2026: the race started on February 15, the earliest calendar start in its history. Dense fog and rain turned the course to mud. Of roughly 40 starters, only 12 finished even one loop, the fewest ever. France's Sébastien Raichon was the only one to complete three loops, finishing a Fun Run in 38:05:46. Nobody started a fourth loop in time.

Why people keep coming back

The Barkley isn't about winning. Most of the field are elite ultrarunners who will fail, and they know it. They come for the challenge of something that might be impossible on any given year, and for the handful of times it isn't.