Ultramarathons are kind of crazy

The video linked below is a great 1-hour documentary[1] about one guy—Karel Sabbe—who finished the Barkley Marathon (Wikipedia), which is,

“[…] an ultramarathon trail race held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Morgan County, Tennessee, United States. The course, which varies from year to year, consists of five loops of the 20+ mile, off-trail course for a total of 100 miles.”

The video is named #17 because he’s only the 17th person to have finished the race in its 40-year history. And people aren’t necessarily getting better at it: In 2022, for example, no-one finished.

#17 − To finish the Barkley Marathons by Karel Sabbe (YouTube)

People swear that the loops are more like 25 miles long, not 20+ miles. You have to run all five loops in 60 hours or less. There are about 20,000m of incline/decline as well. Also, you run at night and day. Also, you have to run each lap in the opposite direction of the previous one. Jasmin-Paris-2024-Barkley-Marathons-winnerAlso, you can’t use a GPS (that’s why no-one knows how long the loops are). Also, you have to collect 13 pages from 13 books along the way on each loop. You have to get the right pages. Also, it’s cold. Also, it’s sometimes hot. Also, you only pay a $1.60 registration fee. If it’s your first time, you have to bring a license plate from your home state and/or country. Only 40 people are invited to run each year. Doing only three loops is called the “fun run”.

There’s a longer documentary called The Barkley Marathons: The race that eats its young. It used to be on Netflix, but of course it’s not there anymore—because why should you be able to re-watch something on a service like Netflix?

Anyway, in this year’s race, the winner of the French version of the Barkley, the Chartreuse Terminorum, which is also 5 loops, but of 60km each, Sébastien Raichon didn’t even make it four loops this year. Beware: even if you can read French, the web site is nearly unnavigable—probably deliberately so. Chartreuse Terminorum (Wikipedia) has more information, but also only in French,

“La course se déroule du vendredi au lundi. Le parcours comporte cinq boucles de 60 km pour un total de 25 000 mètres de dénivelé.”

It also has books and, like the Barkley, is designed to have as few finishers as possible. It also costs only €3 (1 cent per kilometer). Each entrant must bring, instead of a license plate, a bottle of alcohol from their home region.