Editor’s note: As an April Fool’s Day prank, we published a story that David Goggins had declared he would take on the 2026 Barkley Marathons (and, in keeping with Goggins’ persona, that he would crush it). Before we even published the story, I found myself inspired by the idea that Goggins, perhaps the most divisive figure in endurance sports, would take on ultrarunning’s most illusive challenge in the Barkley, so I decided to write the following opinion piece. Perhaps we can collectively will this fiction into reality, as I can think of no better athlete-event fit in this moment.
Each March, a few dozen ultrarunners step into the mist-choked woods of Frozen Head State Park with nothing but a compass, a headlamp, and a head full of doubts. The Barkley Marathons isn’t just a race—it’s part ritual, part theater, part Appalachian horror story.
In 2025, the event reasserted its cruelty. After a historic year in 2024, when five runners completed all five loops—including the first woman to do so—the Barkley course struck back. No finishers. No mercy. Just the sound of a dented trumpet playing Taps and the failure that the tune signals.
For race creator Lazarus Lake (real name: Gary Cantrell), this was not just inevitable—it was necessary. The Barkley is meant to taunt its participants. If too many cross the finish line, it loses its power. The course must remain one step beyond human capability. The finishing gate nearly close enough to touch, but like in any nightmare, just out of reach.
Ironically, that very success marked a turning point. The Barkley, long a cult favorite, now risks becoming a known quantity. It has gone mainstream, with satellite coverage, social media speculation, and YouTubers dissecting the course’s every soggy twist (two feature-length YouTube documentaries dropped on the same day after as the Barkley unfolded, capitalizing on the allure). Its mystery is still intact, but its cultural moment demands a new act.
If this is theater, we need a new foil.
And there is no better antagonist—or protagonist, depending on your allegiance—than David Goggins.
Why It Has to Be Goggins
David Goggins is, by his own account, the hardest man alive. A former Navy SEAL turned ultrarunner, motivational speaker, and viral sensation, Goggins built his brand on the principle that suffering is optional—and often preferable. He’s run 100-mile races on broken feet, completed more than 4,000 pullups in 24 hours, and documented his feats in Can’t Hurt Me, a bestseller that has become a sort of sacred text for the hustle-hard crowd.
He is relentless. He is polarizing. He is everywhere.
He is also, in every conceivable way, the opposite of the Barkley.
Where Goggins is loud, the Barkley is silent. Where he boasts on social media, the Barkley has no official website. Goggins courts the camera. The Barkley hides from it. He treats every event as an opportunity for inspiration—or confrontation. The Barkley offers neither. It is a labyrinth of fog and bramble, daring you to enter.
This contrast is what makes the matchup so perfect. Goggins doesn’t just represent a challenge to the course. He represents an existential challenge to the ethos of the event itself. Could a man who believes that every feat of endurance is “mind over matter” truly understand, or survive, a race designed not just to test toughness, but to humiliate the idea of mastery?
Despite speculation and invitation, Goggins has never actually started the Barkley. In 2017, he was invited by Cantrell to participate but reportedly declined due to a scheduling conflict related to his book launch.
Still, he’s no stranger to Lazarus Lake’s world. Goggins won the 2016 Strolling Jim 40 Miler—another of Laz’s events—but the Barkley remains unfinished business.
And the timing couldn’t be better. For all of Goggins’ epic past achievements—including second place at the 2020 Moab 240 (238 miles), third at Badwater 135 in 2007, and wins at the McNaughton 150 Miler and HURT 100—he hasn’t had a major, headline-grabbing ultra result in some time. He’s been busy promoting books, selling out theaters, and expanding his media footprint. In short: he’s been building the brand.
But even the biggest stars in endurance need to re-up their bonafides from time to time. The Barkley is not just another race—it’s the race. And for Goggins, entering now would be a moment of potential reinvention. Or, perhaps, a reminder: this is what real suffering looks like.
He might also, uniquely, be equipped to meet the moment. As a former Navy SEAL, Goggins has been trained to endure and adapt in the harshest environments imaginable. Navigation—so often the undoing of talented Barkley runners—is a core competency of military training. During the Land Warfare phase of SEAL training, candidates are drilled in advanced land navigation skills, map reading, terrain association, and route planning, often in high-pressure, unfamiliar settings. These aren’t just theoretical exercises—they’re critical mission-based skills honed through experience in wilderness terrain under physical and psychological duress.
The Barkley demands more than lungs and legs; it demands the ability to think clearly while everything else falls apart. Few athletes have built their legend more thoroughly on that exact skill set. If anyone could enter the Barkley already possessing the mindset and survival savvy to stand a chance, it’s Goggins.
A Spectacle Worthy of the Hype
There is a pro wrestling logic at play here—though it’s less about spectacle and more about archetypes. Lazarus Lake is the cryptic manager, in one corner, scheming to reinvent the rules. The race itself, the heel. And in 2025, the course has reclaimed its villain status. The fans cheer—not for runners, but for the challenge. For the course to hold. For nature to win.
Enter Goggins: the brash challenger. The loudmouth who walks into the dark woods like he owns them. The kind of presence who would bring with him both massive scrutiny and massive hype.
Some purists would scoff. They’d say he’s too flashy, too self-promotional, too Instagram. But that’s exactly why it would work. Goggins is the foil the Barkley needs. And perhaps, deep down, the one it wants.
Because here’s the secret: the Barkley is not static. It evolves. It adapts. It responds to its moment.
And right now, the sport of ultrarunning is teetering between the raw, analog brutality of the old ways and the shiny, social-media-savvy, personal-brand-driven new era. Goggins, for better or worse, embodies the latter.
A showdown between him and the Barkley wouldn’t just be compelling. It would be symbolic.
Goggins is the Perfect Victim
And yet, that’s exactly what makes him the perfect victim.
Because while Goggins might think he’s the protagonist of this story—the lone warrior entering the arena to take down the beast—he’s actually the bait. The Barkley doesn’t just need another finisher. It needs a worthy adversary to devour. Someone with stature. Someone divisive. Someone whose loss would be celebrated by half the crowd and dissected gleefully by the other.
This is where professional wrestling logic comes in. Characters fall into two classic roles: the “face” (hero) and the “heel” (villain). But these roles shift. Heroes turn heel. Villains get redemption arcs. The drama lives in the reversal.
In 2024, after a record five finishes, the Barkley turned heel. It became cruel again. Harsh. Unforgiving. But every heel needs its foil—a loud, brash contender to step in and get flattened. In 2026, the Barkley can flip the script. It can become the face.
To do that, it needs someone with main character energy. Someone who believes they’re stepping in as the star, the savior, the ultimate test case. That’s Goggins. His confidence, his bombast, his mythos—they would all become part of the drama. He wouldn’t just run the Barkley. He’d become part of the story.
And when (not if) the Barkley breaks him, it wins the narrative war. It reminds the world that this course doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve done. It humbles everyone equally. Especially those who walk in thinking they can’t be hurt.
The Barkley as Myth Engine
The Barkley is not interested in making stars. It’s interested in breaking them. Runners like Gary Robbins, Courtney Dauwalter, and Mike Wardian have all faced the Barkley. All of them failed. In the ultra world, this is not shameful—it’s expected. You fail, you try again, you fail better.
But that’s the genius of the event. The Barkley has become a kind of narrative factory. It doesn’t just produce stories. It produces legends. And like all great mythologies, it thrives on conflict.
In 2024, it was the underdog triumph. Jasmin Paris, the British ultrarunner, became the first woman to finish the race—a historic moment that briefly made the Barkley feel like it was tilting toward humanity. The race, it seemed, was evolving.
Laz was not pleased. In 2025, he fought back. Rumors swirled of new twists to the course. Book placements were trickier. Time cutoffs unchanged. What followed was a massacre. No finishers. Just bruised egos, shredded legs, and the familiar sound of “Taps,” played to mark each DNF.
The Barkley doesn’t want to be solved. But it also doesn’t want to be ignored. And this is why Goggins matters.
He wouldn’t just challenge the course. He would provoke it.
The Real Test
Would he finish? Probably not. That’s not the point.
The point is the spectacle. The clash of two titans, each iconic in their own way. One, a man who believes the mind can conquer all. The other, a course designed specifically to disprove that.
In many ways, Goggins’ entry into the Barkley would be his most vulnerable act. Not because it would break him physically—it might—but because it would force him to confront a truth he rarely acknowledges: that some challenges are not about willpower. They’re about humility. About facing a thing that cannot be beaten by grinding alone.
And yet, he might surprise us. He often does.
The Next Chapter
The Barkley Marathons will continue. It doesn’t need Goggins to survive. But if it wants to evolve—if it wants to remain the mythic, maddening, magnificent monster it has become—it needs to choose its next story wisely.
Let Goggins be that story.
Let the man who cannot be hurt face the course that cannot be conquered.
The Barkley has broken legends before. Goggins might be next.
Goggins would never enter Barkley – his ego wouldn’t allow it. Sad but true. Let him stick to events that he can complete.
I understand that you want to promote your race, and polarizing is certainly a clever marketing strategy.
Yet I cannot help but feel thrown off by your misrepresentation of David Goggins. I don’t say this out of a hagiographic impulse. He has never called himself “the toughest man in the world” – others did. Depicting him as a “loudmouth” and merely someone who hasn’t participated in runs for allegedly “building his brand” is factually wrong. He’s had severe issues with his knees – and if you were remotely acquainted with the facts, you knew that that was no joke.
To further set your version straight: David hasn’t posted anything in months. He’s not by far the selfish, self-centered and vain show-off you want to depict him as. But I understand that you set him up as such to polarize and build attention.
Yet I agree that your race would be a great challenge for him, and many people would like to see him do it. The haters would want to see him fail. Either way, the controversy he would create by merely showing up to your race (I know you don’t organize it, but you’re advertising it) would certainly attract the attention of a lot of people and establish a good reputation for the race.
I couldn’t disagree more. Gym-bro culture and toxic masculinity are exactly what the Barkley doesn’t need. The PED chugging, grunting, groaning, caricatures of humans represented by Bell Curve freaks of nature like Goggins are inappropriate for the Barkley and for life in general. The mere participation of an attention whore like Goggins will inspire people to do things that are unhealthy and frankly stupid. It will bring people to this hobby that will destroy a GREAT culture. Leave it alone.
The Barkley is this pure thing. Not that Laz is ever going to listen to anyone but Laz…but please don’t continue down this path. This way…there be monsters.