John Kelly beginning his fifth and final loop of the 2023 Barkley Marathons, on his way to his second Barkley finish. Read on for more details on how the event played out on the men’s and women’s sides. In one of the sport’s greatest quirks, due to the course’s remote location and an imperative to protect the ecosystem in which the event takes place, which precludes observation of the event by most anyone besides a select few members of the media, nearly the entirety of the event coverage came via the Twitter feed of ultrarunner and longtime Barkley reporter Keith Dunn. Rain and fog, which have been omnipresent in some years, were absent in 2023. This year marked better weather than the event has seen in years, with the main environmental challenges being long hours of darkness and cold nights in the late winter setting. Runners are allotted 60 hours to complete all five 26-ish-mile loops, and up until this year’s event, only 15 runners had successfully done so in the race’s 36-year history. The notoriously brutal and mostly off-trail route covers roughly 130 miles and takes in about 63,000 feet of elevation gain. The event got underway on Tuesday, March 14, in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee.
In Dunn’s tweets he refers to “the guy with a Mohawk” who is right up there – that, unless we are mistaken, is Spine Race winner Damian Hall, a good friend and rival of Kelly.A file photo of Aurélien Sanchez during the 2019 John Cappis 50k.
No woman has ever finished but Jasmin Paris completed a ‘fun run’ 12 months ago (three loops inside 40 hours) and she too started well again. Kelly of course was the last person to finish (in 2017), Campbell is a three-time finisher (2012, 20) while Sabbe looked on course last year before hallucinations kicked in. Thanks to the closest thing to an official race feed – Keith Dunn’s Twitter account – we know that three of the biggest favourites, Kelly, Jared Campbell and Karel Sabbe are “all in or near the front group”. Obviously it also involves an incredible amount of ascent – or ‘vert’ – which is in the region of 12,000 feet as the runners tear pages out of hidden books and return them at the end of each lap to ‘Laz’, waiting at the yellow gate. Sub-9hrs in relatively favourable conditions for the first loop looks a decent benchmark, though the course can change year-on-year and it’s anyone’s guess whether it’s nearer 20 or 26 miles. Wade and Stuart dominate at Ultra-Trail Snowdonia by UTMB
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