This past April the 32-year-old data scientist became only the 15th person ever to finish the Barkley marathons-approximately 130 miles of thrashing through Tennessee wilderness- within the 60-hour cutoff. John Kelly has a pretty strong mental game. Fail to bring back all 13 pages and you are disqualified.Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! To ensure no shortcuts are taken, 13 books (with titles such as “Heart of Darkness,” “A Time to Die”) are hidden along the routes and runners must tear a page from the book corresponding with their bib number. Instead, runners have to make notes from a master map and then navigate their way through often thick undergrowth with nothing more than a compass.
Oh, and there are no fixed trails to follow. Gradients are commonly steeper than 40 degrees. Runners who make it to the end will ascend and descend 120,000 feet - the equivalent of climbing up and down Mount Everest twice. What makes the Barkley so fiendishly tough is the unforgiving terrain of Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. There are many longer ultra-marathons, some of which take place in 40-degree heat.
To complete the Barkley Marathons, you need to navigate five 20-mile loops of the course within 60 hours. Indeed, in its 33-year history, there have only been 15 finishers in a field containing the world’s most elite ultra-marathon runners. It took place last weekend, but you will not find any list of winners: for the second successive year no-one completed it. More mean-spirited than Jose Mourinho protecting a 1-0 first-leg lead, more devious than an Eddie Jones press conference. Billing itself as the “Race That Eats Its Young”, the Barkley Marathons is the most evil event in sport.
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