The 2025 Barkley Marathons is over, with no finishers and only one Enjoyable Run completion by the U.S.’s John Kelly.
Going again a yr, the 2024 Barkley Marathons noticed a document variety of finishers — 5 in whole, together with Jasmin Paris (U.Ok.), the occasion’s first-ever feminine finisher. This unprecedented consequence left many speculating that the 2025 Barkley Marathons course could be the toughest but — and that expectation seems to have been met.
The Barkley Marathons is an unmarked ultramarathon at Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, consisting of 5 20-plus-mile loops — previous opponents report protecting as much as 26 miles on a single loop. Navigation by GPS just isn’t allowed, and runners should use a map and compass to navigate to areas on the route and gather pages from hidden books in lieu of a extra conventional dibber system. The route and e book areas fluctuate from yr to yr, and over time, race organizers purportedly make the race tougher to complete.
John Kelly cooling off on loop three of the 2025 Barkley Marathons. All images: Jacob Zocherman
To be able to be awarded an official end, runners should full the 5 loops in lower than 60 hours. Runners who don’t make the interim cutoffs to proceed on for a full end nonetheless have the chance to finish a Enjoyable Run, if they’ll end three loops within 40 hours. This yr, this appeared about as a lot as anybody may aspire to.
The occasion has no set begin time, solely a 12-hour begin window. Throughout that window, the race group blows a conch shell to sign the occasion will begin in an hour. For 2025, the race started on Tuesday, March 18, at 11:37 a.m. U.S. EDT, underneath comparatively cool climate and partly cloudy skies, as race director Gary Cantrell, aka Lazarus Lake, lit his ceremonial cigarette. This was the most recent begin time on document for the occasion.
The Barkley Marathons entrants record is stored secret, and the names of members aren’t typically talked about within the group’s protection till the occasion’s superior phases. This makes understanding the race dynamics, not to mention the essential race roster, largely speculative. On this article, we share what we’ve been capable of collect occurred. Do depart a remark to offer additional verified data or tell us what your expertise “on the market” was like.
2025 Barkley Marathons Ladies’s Race
This yr’s roster appears to have included a small variety of girls, however amongst them some with the potential to turn out to be the second Barkley Marathons girls’s finisher. We imagine these girls included Kelly Halpin, Christiana Rugloski, Claire Bannwarth (France), Dena Carr, and Isobel Ross (Australia). The race, nonetheless, had different concepts, and we perceive that this yr no girl made it so far as loop two.
Kelly Halpin on the 2025 Barkley Marathons. She made it the furthest of this yr’s girls’s subject.
For Ross, this was her third effort on the Barkley Marathons. In 2019, she completed the primary loop in 16 hours, 50 minutes, virtually 5 hours over the cutoff to proceed, however was not postpone, and returned in 2022 for one more throw of the cube. Her luck didn’t enhance, because the two-time Australian path champion failed to finish a single loop. This yr, but once more, she was awarded a DNF on loop one.
Bannwarth additionally would have regarded like a promising hopeful. She specializes within the longest, most grueling of races, and has twice gained the U.Ok.’s 268-mile Winter Backbone Race. She additionally set a self-supported quickest recognized time on the 500-mile Colorado Path, simply a few weeks after her fifth-place end on the 2023 Hardrock 100. This was her Barkley debut, and like Ross, she failed to complete the primary loop.
A smiling Claire Bannwarth listens as “Faucets” is performed for her DNF of the 2025 Barkley Marathons.
We perceive Halpin was the highest girl finisher and got here the closest to ending a loop. She got here to the race with some Barkley expertise, having tapped out on loop two within the 2024 version. She informed iRunFar, “They made the course considerably more durable this yr and I missed the cutoff by two minutes for ending loop one. However it was actually enjoyable. Palms down, the toughest course I feel in historical past, they usually additionally gave us the most recent begin time in historical past. As a comparability, I completed my first lap final yr in 10.5 hours. This yr, I completed in 13 hours, 22 minutes. And that was with all my information from final yr’s course and virtually completely navigating the course and discovering the books this time. It was nuts.”
And so for one more yr, the course has gained, and there have been no girls finishers of the 2025 Barkley Marathons.
2025 Barkley Marathons Males’s Race
The attrition price at this yr’s Barkley Marathons was increased than ever, with what we imagine solely 10 of roughly 35 males making it by the primary lap throughout the allotted time. Early studies from the race’s lone media feed, Keith Dunn who posted sporadic updates on BlueSky and X, indicated that the race was already not on time on earlier years: “The primary runner has come by the Hearth Tower in [circa] 7:00 hours, over an hour slower than final yr.”
Whereas particulars stay obscure, we perceive the primary again after loop one was three-time Barkley finisher John Kelly. Subsequent again after that was French orienteer and path runner Maxime Gauduin. After that and in an uncomfirmed order had been France’s Sébastien Raichon and Japan’s Tomokazu Ihara — on his sixth try on the Barkley Marathons.
We imagine the U.S.’s Ian Farris, who has accomplished a loop a pair instances earlier than, was within the combine among the many early runners again from a profitable loop one. We additionally perceive runner and excessive altitude mountaineer Chris Fisher was among the many males’s subject, however don’t but know the end result of his race.
Among the many early drops was multisport icon Max King, who we perceive sustained a knee harm.
Tomokazu Ihara on loop three of the 2025 Barkley Marathons.
As loop two commenced with 9 runners remaining within the race — a type of loop-one finishers opted to retire — it already appeared uncertain that we’d see a finisher this yr. The remaining hope was dissipated when the 24-hour mark arrived and no runner had returned from the second lap. For comparability, greater than 10 of us completed two laps in underneath 24 hours each in 2023 and 2024.
There have been studies of bewildered runners returning having did not navigate the loop, with one in all Dunn’s posts studying: “Two runners have come again after wandering round Stallion Mountain and some different locations earlier than coming again. ‘I received the total Barkley expertise of being navigationally embarrassed.’ ‘We noticed fairly a bit!’”
Ihara was again first, ending the second lap with 24:32 on the clock, adopted by Kelly in 25 hours even, and Gauduin and Raichon collectively in 25:29. The 4 finishers of loop two continued on into the third lap, with Ihara main the cost.
Sébastien Raichon was visibly struggling after two loops.
Gauduin, who seemed to be in plenty of ache after the second loop, was the primary to drop. We perceive he withdrew with out amassing any e book pages, and three remained on loop three.
When Ihara and Kelly handed by the Hearth Tower on loop three, their hole remained at about half-hour, and it appeared believable they each may obtain a Enjoyable Run end. The race’s 36-hour interim cutoff for beginning loop 4 got here and went within the nighttime hours between Wednesday and Thursday, with none runners ending loop three. From there, it was a closing four-hour wait to see if any runners would attain the end of loop three by the 40-hour cutoff for a Enjoyable Run end.
With 10 minutes to go, John Kelly arrived again to the notorious yellow gate that marks the beginning and end of every loop, stopping the clock at 39:50:27, incomes a Enjoyable Run end, and rounding out his ninth look on the Barkley Marathons.
Then, simply two minutes earlier than the cutoff, Sébastien Raichon returned to the end, nonetheless, he didn’t full the total loop and was tapped out.
Because the 40-hour cutoff got here and went, Tomokazu Ihara was nonetheless on the right track, additionally lacking the chance for a Enjoyable Run end in his sixth try at Barkley.
Over BlueSky and X, the Barkley Marathons’ lone media entity Keith Dunn made his conventional declaration: “The 2025 Barkley Marathons is over. There aren’t any finishers.”
[Editor’s Note: We’ll keep updating this article as more info comes in on how the race played out. Please comment to share details if you like. The article was last updated at 12:30 p.m. US MDT. Thanks so much to Taka who maintains this public spreadsheet of info which collates Keith Dunn’s info, as well as Maggie Guterl and Kelly Halpin for their input on this year’s event.]