The Barkley Marathons 2025: Barkley Wins

The conch has been blown, the cigarette has been lit, and the world’s most notorious ultramarathon has begun. 

At 11:37am local time on Tuesday 18 March, the runners of the 2025 Barkley Marathons started the 60-hour race. 

This is the race as it happened.

• What Is The Barkley Marathons? 
• Tuesday. Hour 0. The Conch Is Blown
• Wednesday. Hour 15. Only 10 Make It To Loop Two
• Wednesday. Hour 24. Loop Three Begins
• Thursday. Hour 40. Barkley Wins

WHAT IS THE BARKLEY MARATHONS?

The Barkley Marathons is unlike any other race. Runners have 60 hours to complete five viciously hilly off-trail loops around Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, running something like 120 miles, with twice the elevation of Everest, all without course markings or a GPS watch to help them. 

There are checkpoints along the way, each with a book which runners must tear a page from each time they pass. If they happen to miss a checkpoint, or lose a page, or don’t make cut-off times, they are out of the race.

It’s arguably the hardest race in the world. Since 1995, around 1,000 people have started the race but there have only been 26 completions, by 20 different runners.

In 2024, five runners finished the race including Jasmin Paris who became the first woman to ever finish the Barkley Marathons – she did it with 99 seconds to spare. 

There’s a secrecy and mystery to the race. It’s brutally difficult, with conditions unimaginable for most runners, over an exhausting time period. There’s no live tracker, no live video feed, no crowds of supporters, and we follow the whole race via the intermittent updates by a man called Keith. 

The race has inspired books and numerous documentaries about how tough it is, and about the characters that take on the race. 

THE 2025 BARKLEY MARATHONS: AS IT HAPPENS! 

TUESDAY. HOUR 0. THE CONCH IS BLOWN

There is no set start time; the race dates change every year. 

With runners gathered in tents and campervans in Frozen Head State Park, they await the official notification that the race is about to begin: the blowing of a conch shell. 

Race director Carl Laniak blasts on the conch at 10:37am, meaning the race will start at 11:37am. A wave of messages spreads around the running world: the Barkley Marathons are about to begin.

It’s a late morning start this year, affording the 40 anxious competitors a lie-in that none of them are likely to have enjoyed. 

The final hour sees runners rush to complete their preparations before gathering at a yellow gate where race creator Gary Cantrell, known as Lazarus ‘Laz’ Lake, will set them off with his equivalent of a starter’s gun: he lights a cigarette.  

After multiple failed attempts, the conch was blown at 10:37. The 2025 Barkley Marathons begins in one hour. #BM100. pic.twitter.com/oFAdsCgSir

— Keith (@keithdunn) March 18, 2025

Runners have 60 hours to complete five loops. They have a 98% failure rate as they attempt to navigate Son of a Bitch Ditch, Rat Jaw, Meth Lab Hill, Meat Grinder, Checkmate Hill, Candy Ass, Big Hell, Middle Finger Ridge. There are no aid stations, and just two points where water is available. 

At the end of each loop – assuming they make it – they start the next in the opposite direction.

Given how there were three finishers in 2023 and five finishers in 2024, there’s great expectation that this year’s race will be the hardest course yet. But the weather – for now – is good. Clear, warm, no rain for perhaps 36 hours. 

What we know so far is that John Kelly is in the race. He is a three-time finisher – and four-time failer – of the Barkley Marathons (read his website if you want to know more about the race).

Last year’s winner Ihor Verys is not in the race, and neither is Jasmin Paris. 

More details and more names will emerge as the race progresses… 

WEDNESDAY. HOUR 15. ONLY TEN MAKE IT TO LOOP TWO.

“For as bad as you guys make it sound, it is worse.” – a runner #BM100

— Keith (@keithdunn) March 19, 2025

The race is more brutal than ever. 

To get to book one, runners had to climb up 1,500ft then back down 1,800ft. The message is clear: if anyone is going to win, they’re going to have to be very, very good.

There were four drop outs in the first eight hours. One runner made it only seven miles in that time. Runners were returning to camp on ‘Quitter’s Road’ from all different directions. Other DNFs hadn’t worked out how to get back yet.

The first two runners completed the first loop together in 9:44:55 and 9:44:57 – that’s more than an hour slower than last year.

The two runners quickly turned around and started loop two. One runner described the course as “on the verge of perfection; there is no margin for error.” Perfection isn’t a sentiment many others would use.

Three more runners finished loop one in under 11 hours and began loop two. Meanwhile there were more and more dropouts. 

Runners had 13 hours and 20 minutes to finish loop one and begin loop two. After that time, 14 had already quit the race and 16 runners were still out on loop one and would be unable to continue. Each year there is a ‘human sacrifice’, a runner who has no right to be in a race this tough. It takes them 18 hours to complete the 20+ mile loops and return to camp. 

Only 10 runners continued onto loop two – one with just 30 seconds to spare. They are now running in the opposite direction, in the dark. 

Details of who is still in the race remain patchy. An unofficial doc tracking the runners suggests the remaining 10 include: John Kelly, Tomokazu Ihara, Thomas Calmettes, Chris Fisher, Julien Chable, Sébastien Raichon, Maxime Gauduin, Tim Landy, Ian Farris and Chris Fisher. 

Other runners known to have started include: Ben Wernick, Claire Bannwarth, John Clarke, Max King, Raphaël Daco, and Christiana Rugloski.

WEDNESDAY. HOUR 24. LOOP THREE BEGINS.

The race that eats its young is the appropriate description for the Barkley Marathons. 

By sunrise on the second morning, approaching the 24-hour mark, only six of the 40 starters remain in the race.

Five people are still on their first loop – their cut off was 11 hours ago and they’re still out there, somewhere. 

After 24 hours, no one had returned from loop two. Last year, eight people completed loop two in under 20 hours, and 12 did it in under 24 hours. Weather conditions are similar; the course isn’t.

Japan’s Tomokazu ‘Tomo’ Ihara is the first person to finish loop two, returning after 24:32. It’s his sixth attempt at the Barkley Marathons. In 2019, 2023 and 2024, Tomo completed a ‘Fun Run’ of three Barkley loops. He’s out onto loop three before the next person completes loop two, and he has around 15 hours to make it three fun runs in a row. 

John Kelly completes loop two in 25:00, then Sébastien Raichon and Maxime Gauduin came in together at 25:29. They all get out onto loop three, and they need to make as much progress as possible in the daylight. 

Three loop one quitters have finally returned to camp.

Barkley is winning right now. 

Beginning Loop 3. #BM100 pic.twitter.com/WPRB4Q4bJG

— Keith (@keithdunn) March 19, 2025

THURSDAY. HOUR 40. BARKLEY WINS.

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A post shared by Jacob Zocherman (@searchingforzocherman)

There was hope on Wednesday afternoon. Only slight, but it was there. Four runners were out on loop three and there was at least a chance of completing a Fun Run – three full loops. 

Maxime Gauduin was the first back to camp. He couldn’t find the first book and tapped out. Three runners remained: Tomo Ihara, John Kelly and Sébastien Raichon.

And then the weather changed. The bright, fair conditions went full Barkley in the dark. Strong winds and steady rain came as the clock passed 36 hours – and past the point where there was any hope of anyone finishing the race. 

The small crowd in camp waited in the swirling wind for the sight of a head torch emerging from the dark. 

After 39 hours, 50 minutes and 27 seconds – less than 10 minutes inside the cutoff – John Kelly reached the yellow gate and completed a Fun Run. He tapped out; he had no chance of a fourth loop. 

Sébastien Raichon followed soon after, two minutes inside 40 hours, but he wasn’t able to complete the full loop. 

Tomo Ihara made it back after 40 hours. He is tapped out of the race. 

The Barkley Marathons won in 2025. There are no finishers. 

The toughest race in the world got even tougher this year.

***

Lead image from John Kelly