The Barkley

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A Storm Trooper at the Barkley

Nick Gracie / 06.04.2006

I can now confirm from personal experience the Barkley is one of the hardest foot races in the world – if not the hardest.

There were 33 starters; 22 finished lap 1 (20 miles) within the cutoff (13 hours and 20 minutes), 5 finished lap 2 (40 miles within 26 hours and 40 minutes) and nobody finished lap 3 officially (60 miles in 40 hours). Myself and Brian Robinson from California completed the ’60 mile fun run’ unofficially in 40:07, the other 3 who set out on loop 3 quit half way through the loop.

At 6.08 on April 1st the conch shell rang out and we knew we had an hour to get ready. As the runners set out at 7.08 the weather looked good after a night of heavy rain. As we made our way up the immediate 1500 ft climb an obvious leading group developed lead by Jim Nelson, the only person racing who had previously completed the 100 miler. Jim was followed by myself, Todd Holmes from Colorado, a seasoned adventure racer including 3 eco challenge finishes and a number of Barkley attempts and Brian Robinson from California, part of the US go-lite running team and an impressive record of being the first person to complete the ‘triple crown’ within one year (The Appalachian Trail (2,168 miles), the Continental Divide Trail (2,558 miles), and the Pacific Crest Trail (2,645) a total of 7,371 miles in 300 days).

As we made our way through loop one we eventually lost Todd, the heat was taking its toll on everyone and I felt we were all going a little fast but we were keen to have a good first lap to set us up for the 100. Jim, Brian and I completed the first lap in just over 9 hours and after a quick transition set off on lap 2. As darkness fell Jim got very tired and decided to stop. Brian and I continued on – it was both our first time at the race and we were hoping to gain from Jim’s numerous running’s of the course and his obvious experience in completing it in 2004.See All Event Posts