In the early spring mist of Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, the conch shell blew. A cigarette was lit. And just like that, the 2025 Barkley Marathons began—not with a bang, but with a puff of smoke and a collective exhale from runners about to face one of the most punishing challenges in endurance sports.
This year, however, the Barkley bit back. Hard.
For the first time since 2022, not a single runner completed the race. Only a handful survived more than a single loop. Even veteran ultra-endurance athlete John Kelly, who’s finished the full Barkley before (twice, no less), could only eke out three of the potential five loops before tapping out.
Race creator Gary “Laz” Cantrell, never one to sugarcoat, summed it up as “a battlefield littered with the corpses of hubris and overconfidence.”
So what made 2025 so brutal?
A Course Designed to Break You
Each year, the Barkley course changes—sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. It always measures somewhere between 100 and 130 miles, with more than 60,000 feet of vertical climb, depending on how you count. But this year’s tweaks made it “extra spicy,” as one runner put it.
“The course was significantly harder than last year’s,” said one participant in the Singletrack documentary that chronicled this year’s race. That might sound like par for the Barkley, but context matters: in 2024, five runners finished the full course, a rarity that tends to prompt Laz to turn the screws.
And turn them he did.
The 2025 race began later than usual—a 12-hour delay from the traditional conch call start—leaving participants strung out and sleep-deprived before even taking a step.
The terrain, always punishing, seemed to conspire with the weather. Runners battled 50 mph winds, plunging temperatures, and torrential rain—all while navigating a course that many described as the most confusing in recent memory.
A Map, A Compass, and a Prayer
Unlike traditional ultramarathons, the Barkley isn’t run on marked trails. Navigation is key—and it’s intentionally cryptic. Runners must find hidden books scattered across the wilderness and tear out pages corresponding to their bib number to prove they’ve followed the course.
“Once you get to a book, that’s the hard part,” said ultra runner Max King, who bowed out early due to a nagging knee injury. “It’s like an Easter egg hunt. You think you’re in the right area, but the map isn’t GPS-based—it’s someone circling a general zone and saying, ‘It’s in that beech tree.’ But there are 20 beech trees.”
This year, even experienced runners like Kelly Halpin, a mountain athlete from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, struggled with the fine margins. She missed the cutoff for the first loop by just two minutes—despite what she called “almost perfect navigation.”
“I gave 100%. We found all the books right away,” she said. “Last year I wouldn’t have said it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This year, it was.”
Mental Chess at the Edge of Capability
Part of what makes the Barkley mythic is that it’s not just a physical race—it’s psychological warfare.
Runners carry minimal gear, filter their own water, and navigate entirely on foot without GPS. They’re isolated for up to 24 hours per loop.
In 2025, some runners reported spending over two hours searching for a single book, often with shredded maps and failing headlamps. The video captures several who got lost, cramping, dehydrated, or spiraling into sleep-deprived confusion. One even left a trail of paper behind her in hopes someone would find her.
“It’s not what someone’s physically able to do,” Laz reflected. “It’s what their mind is able to make their body do.”
The Barkley doesn’t just test endurance—it tests identity, willpower, and belief. It’s why elite athletes like John Kelly, who once completed the 268-mile Spine Race, keep coming back. It’s not just about finishing—it’s about the edge of human capability.
No Finishers, No Failure?
In the world of conventional races, no finishers would be a disaster. But at Barkley, it’s the very absence of success that defines its allure.
This year, even the “Fun Run”—completing three loops in under 40 hours—was elusive, with only John Kelly and Japan’s Tomokazu Ihara managing to do so. But even that achievement felt monumental.
“I think if I had the best possible run, and everything went right, maybe I could finish,” one runner said, exhausted and mud-caked at the yellow gate. “But that’s not quite how it works.”
Why People Keep Coming Back
If the Barkley sounds absurd, that’s kind of the point.
“I’ve never been afraid of a race like this,” admitted Steve Butler, a seasoned endurance athlete. “But you do hard things for a reason—to push yourself. Even knowing I probably can’t finish, I want to find my edge.”
There’s also a strange camaraderie among participants, most of whom are not elite ultrarunners. The 2025 field included everyone from professional mountain athletes to “Average Joe and Jane” types. All of them chasing a personal truth—hidden somewhere between the top of Bird Mountain and the creeks of the North Boundary Trail.
The Barkley Will Break You—or Build You
The Barkley Marathons are not for the faint of heart. Or the sane. It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery, layered in briers, fog, and fire roads with names like “Rat Jaw” and “Testicle Spectacle.” But it offers something few races can: a mirror held up to the deepest parts of yourself.
It’s not about medals or Instagram glory. It’s about reaching the absolute limit—and often, falling short.
And yet, that’s exactly why they come back. Year after year. Map in hand. Hope in heart.
Because at Barkley, finishing isn’t the only way to win.
