Barkley Marathons race guide

How the race works

The Barkley is five loops of a course that is not marked and is mostly off trail. Runners have 60 hours in total, so about 12 hours per loop, and the clock keeps running while they rest and eat at camp between loops. You must start the fourth loop within 36 hours to stay in the race.

There are no aid stations. Water is left at two points on the course, and crews can only help at camp. GPS is not allowed. Runners copy the route from a master map the day before and navigate with map and compass, carrying a cheap watch that only counts down time.

How people get in

Nothing about entry is published, and the details below are what runners and journalists have reported over the years. You need to find out from someone who has run it when and where to send your application. It has to arrive on the right day, and the race fills that day.

• An application fee of $1.60, said to be a penny a mile for the 60 and 100-mile distances.
• An essay on why you should be allowed to run, and an entry form with absurd questions.
• Successful runners receive a "letter of condolence".
• First-timers bring a licence plate from their home state or country. Returning runners bring an item Laz chooses each year, from socks to a white shirt. Past finishers pay with a packet of Camel cigarettes.
• One place goes to a runner Laz considers least likely to finish a loop, sometimes called the human sacrifice. In the Guardian, Laz said it is never someone who asks to be the sacrifice.

• How entry works at other ultras

The course

The route changes every year, and Laz tends to make it harder when people finish. Only he knows the exact distance and climb. Runners and reporters estimate each loop at around 26 miles and the full race at about 130, with somewhere between 54,000 and 67,000 feet of climbing depending on the year and the source.

The climbs have names that tell you most of what you need to know: Rat Jaw, Testicle Spectacle, Little Hell, Big Hell, Checkmate Hill, Meatgrinder and The Bad Thing. Rat Jaw goes straight up a power-line cut through sawbriers. Chimney Top, at 3,120 feet, is a real peak in the park and has caught out even experienced finishers.

Since the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary closed in 2009, the course has included a tunnel under the old prison, close to the wall James Earl Ray climbed in 1977. The prison reopened in 2018 as a visitor attraction with tours, a distillery and a restaurant.

• Practise finding the route

Everyone who has finished

Since the five-loop race began in 1995, 20 runners have finished a total of 26 times. Fifteen editions, including 2025 and 2026, have ended with nobody finishing. There was no race in 2002, when the park was temporarily closed, or in 2020, because of COVID-19.

The 2001 finishes of David Horton and Blake Wood are counted in the usual tally, although Wood's own results page notes they were disqualified for a small route error.

Recent editions

History

In June 1977 James Earl Ray, who had been convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, next to what is now Frozen Head State Park. He was caught about two and a half days later, roughly 8 miles away. Gary Cantrell, a local runner, was struck by how little ground Ray had covered. "I could do at least 100," he later told the Guardian.

Cantrell, who runs as Lazarus Lake, founded the race with his friend Karl "Raw Dog" Henn and named it after his neighbour and running partner Barry Barkley, who died in 2019. The first race, in 1986, was about 50 miles, and no one finished until 1988. The five-loop, 100-mile format with its 60-hour limit arrived in 1995, when Britain's Mark Williams became its first finisher.

The documentary, books and how to follow it

Most people discover the Barkley through The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young, directed by Annika Iltis and Timothy James Kane. It follows the 2012 race, the one with three finishers and a new record, and toured film festivals from 2014 before a wider release. The filmmakers first heard of the race through Leslie Jamison's essay The Immortal Horizon.

Where Dreams Go To Die, by Ethan Newberry, follows Gary Robbins's attempts in 2016 and 2017. For reading, Frozen Ed Furtaw, the first finisher of the original short course, wrote Tales From Out There (2010), and Jared Beasley's The Endurance Artist (2025) is a book about Laz and the race.

Visiting Frozen Head State Park

Frozen Head State Park covers more than 24,000 acres of the Crab Orchard Mountains near Wartburg, Tennessee. It is named after Frozen Head peak, often iced or snowed over in winter. The park is open to everyone outside race week, but most of the Barkley course is off trail. Stick to the marked trails.

There are three campgrounds: Big Cove, Flat Fork Primitive and backcountry sites. The park closes at sunset. Big Cove and Flat Fork were due to close for renovation from July 2025 for about a year, so check the reservation site before you plan a trip.

• Frozen Head camping and reservations

Could you prepare for the Barkley?

Entrants are usually experienced ultrarunners with strong navigation skills, and many have tried more than once. The challenge is the combination: steep off-trail climbing through briars, navigating with map and compass for days, and keeping your judgement while badly short of sleep.

If you are drawn to it, start with long days of off-trail navigation and steep hiking, then build up to multi-day races where you look after yourself. The Barkley Fall Classic, a 50K in the same park, is a much more accessible way to see the terrain.

• Practise finding the route
• Compare ultra race formats

Questions people ask