Morgan County — The Barkley Marathons has grown from a small and ridiculous race in Morgan County, Tennessee, into an international phenomenon followed around the globe. The brainchild of former ultra-marathoner Gary Cantrell has especially grown in popularity in the last few years, coinciding with the release of a documentary on Netflix and other high-profile media coverage.
"The race itself has not changed. The outside and exterior has because so many more people know about it. We've had to start credentialing media because we get so many film crews from around the world," said Cantrell.
The added media attention is a burden and a blessing. The media can help inform people about the event while also allowing them to stay away.
"It is not a spectator event. I hate it, because everyone wants a piece of that feeling [of the Barkley Marathons]. We just don't have room for people to come here and watch. This is all set up at a small campground. The runners are gone for several hours at a time in the middle of the woods. We need the media to let people know about the race because that's the best way for them to experience it," said Cantrell.
The hoopla is the result of true substance. The race is as intriguing as it is insane.
Runners have to complete five 20-mile loops up and down the hills of Frozen Head State Park within 60 hours. Runners do not know when the race will start, other than sometime between midnight and noon on Saturday. They are given one-hour advance notice of the start when Cantrell blows a conch shell. The race begins when Cantrell lights a cigarette.
The runners also do not know the course until just before the race when they are given a crude map to where books are stashed in the woods. The runners must tear out the page of the book that matches their race number. Each runner receives a new number after completing a loop. Runners cannot use GPS or altimeters.
The course changes every year, so anyone who finishes technically sets a "course record."
The Barkley dishes out huge doses of humility to the biggest egos in the running world.
"I want to finish. I've come close, but far," said champion runner Jamil Coury, who is about to make his fifth attempt at the Barkley Marathons. "I finished four loops one year, but was eight hours over the cutoff."
In the previous 32 years of the Barkley Marathons, only 15 runners have finished within the time limit. Some of those 15 were able to repeat the feat, so there have been a total of 18 finishes within the time limit. In 2017, Morgan County native John Kelly became the fifteenth person to successfully complete the race while another runner narrowly missed the cutoff.
"You take the best athletes in the world and a little over 1 percent of them finish. It fills those kind of athletes with this intense desire to find out if they can be part of that 1 percent," said Cantrell. "This year we have runners from Japan, Wales, France, Sweden, Bolivia, Serbia, and so many other places."
Thousands of people apply for the Barkley each year, if they can figure out how to apply. The rules for registration are shared by word-of-mouth. Then 40 runners are chosen from the pool of applicants to participate.
"There are still people that this has become like a lifelong quest," said Cantrell.
There is no prize money. Finishers merely earn the admiration of peers around the world who generally know immediately if someone completed the course. The Barkley Marathons has developed an intense following on Twitter using the hashtag #BM100.
The first race was in 1986. The idea for the Barkley Marathons was inspired by the prison escape of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin, James Earl Ray, from nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in 1977. The race does not honor Ray. It mocks his attempt to run through the rugged terrain in Frozen Head State Park."
"We were laughing because he ran for two and a half days and only made it 8.5 miles. I was young and cocky and thought I could have made it 100 miles," said Cantrell.
For more history on the Barkley Marathons, see the 2014 in-depth story (link below) that won WBIR a National Edward R. Murrow Award for sports reporting.
March 2014: Ridiculous Barkley Marathons race reams runners