For You Runners
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https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/60-hours-hell-story-barkley-marathons/
The Barkley Marathons is 100 miles long, but it’s not an ultramarathon. Runners competing in it slog through the mud, look for hidden checkpoints, and cross through a dark tunnel, but they’re not running in an obstacle race like Tough Mudder. The course is barely marked, and forces competitors to negotiate mountains and thick underbrush in rapidly changing conditions, but the Barkley is not an adventure race.
So what, exactly, is the Barkley Marathons, the legendary event that every year draws 40 people to Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park to attempt to finish a 60,000-vertical-foot course in under 60 hours? Ask anyone who has tried it, and you’ll get one answer: It’s the most brutal race on earth. Only 14 hardy souls have completed the full distance since the race started in 1986, including two runners at this year’s edition in April. And every time someone does, the course is tweaked.
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Oh it’s a classic but often unknown race. Really cool, history, with an eccentric yet organized dude who sets it all up. It is well worth an hour or two to dive into YouTube documentaries or articles about it.
@89th said in For You Runners:
It is well worth an hour or two to dive into YouTube documentaries or articles about it.
Thanks!! I have never hear of it before.
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The wiki is a short and good read about how unique (and hard) the race is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley_Marathons
BTW this year a woman finished it for the first time.
Link to video
