The Barkley Marathon isn’t for the faint-hearted. And track and field fans know exactly why. Let’s just say, 60 hours, that’s all a runner gets to push through a five-loop course, rounding off to exactly 100 miles. PS: the course is not just insanely long, but also completely unmarked. Scary isn’t it? Well, wait till you know how it got scarier this year. In the event’s 40th version, the ultramarathon has lived up to its brutal legend. Looks like the marathon just got in the runners’ bones once again.

Last year, the Barkley Marathon runners outperformed themselves. For the first time, five track and field runners finished the race, including Jasmin Paris, the first woman to do so. Since then, rumors were afloat that the event was getting easier. Naturally, the screws were tightened this year. Navigation was made more intricate, trail sections were hardly distinguishable, and the terrain was heavily overgrown. And the result? It came out just as expected. Let’s just say the race retained its moniker as the ‘world’s hardest race.’

As per the results, the Barkey Marathon for the 25th time in its 40-year history and for the first time since 2022, has had no runner finish the race. Yes, zero finishers, you read that right. 40 runners arrived at the start line at the Frozen Head State Park,(via invitation only) and the race kicked off at exactly 11:37 a.m. The first loop of about 20-25 miles was meant to be completed in 12 hours. Turns out, just 10 racers made it past that. Yes, a whopping 75% of runners got whipped out in the first leg itself.

Finally, it was only one man, John Kelly who entered the third leg of the race within 40 hours. But this lap, called the “fun run” was infamously supposed to be run in reverse. That’s when he tapped out. He couldn’t go ahead. 39 hours, 50 minutes, and 27 seconds, that’s all he had in him. It is believed that this section was supposed to have a new 45-minute section this year which was nasty. No wonder, Kelly, the track and field runner who is already a three-time winner in the marathon, backed out before he could even get to the fourth section.

No GPS navigation, nothing at all, still the guy managed to reach so far. Yet, in the end, the winner of this year’s Barkley Marathon was the Barkley Marathon itself. Some are leaving sarcasm-slapped comments that after its historic uptick in 2024, the zero finishers result once again feels like, “Nature is healing.” But here’s how the track and field fans are responding to this.

Track and field fans left enraged at the Barkley Marathon results

“Totally pointless.” Well, there was one fan who did not mince their words. And went on to label this marathon as a race that was totally unavailing. While another one chimed in with, “Looks like Laz strikes back after last year’s record finishers.” 

Apparently, a lot of changes were made this year for the sole purpose of making things difficult. In fact, the third week of March, the race has never been held this early. However, per Run Outside, it looked like the race founder, Gary Cantrell aka Lazarus Lake looked forward to bringing out a colder, wetter, and windier condition. That would mix things up, right?

Well, not all track and field fans were amused. One of them wrote, “As cool as the Barkley marathons are, they’re incredibly stupid on the basis that the guy who created them has never done them. I’ll make a race call Hetzels Pretzel where you have to run a 100 miler without aid stations in 10 hours “because it’s hard.”” Well, this ultramarathon is nearly a mythical challenge. And that’s what fans are now coming out to point. The whole idea behind the creation.

One of them even cited, “Unpopular take; Laz created an unfinish-able event this year which is disrespectful to the runners.” Well, with time restrictions, complicated rules, and nearly unrealistic conditions, the race does throw curve balls at the runners. But they seem to match up to the challenge. Last year, five of them completed even though some said that version was rougher than ever.

But here’s a question many track and field fans are thinking about. Why did John Kelly quit? Well, even after he knew this year was his golden chance to tie Jared Campbell‘s 4-time mark. But per Run Outside, he just had 20 hours and 10 minutes to go through 2 more loops. So yeah, the odds were stacked against him.

But that’s not what most fans believe. One of them wrote, “Jesus. At least understand the race before writing a report on it. John was not allowed to continue. He didn’t ‘chose’ to stop, he completed the first three laps too slow.” Well, technically Kelly was 10 minutes under the cut-off time. So he could have gone ahead if he wanted. But looking at how he completed the last two loops in approximately 14 and 13 minutes last year, it just didn’t make good sense right? What do you think about it? Let us know below!