By Davy Crockett 

Both a podcast episode and a full article

The famous prison and the start gate


The Barkley Marathons, with its historic low finish rate (only 15 runners in 30 years), is perhaps the most difficult ultramarathon trail race in the world. It is held in and near Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, with a distance of more than 100 miles.

The Barkley is an event with a mysterious lore. It has no official website. It is a mystery how to enter, It has no course map or entrants list is published online. It isn't a spectator event. For the 2018 race, 1,300 runners applied and only 40 selected.

Those seeking entry must submit an essay. The entrance fee includes bringing a license plate from your home state/country. Runners are given the course directions the day before the race and aren't told when the race exactly starts. They are just given a one-hour warning when the conch is blown. To prove that they run the course correctly, books are placed a various places on the course where the runners must tear out a page from each book matching their bib number. If they lose a page or miss a book, they are out. Directly opposite of most ultras, the course is specifically designed to minimize the number of finishers.

The inspiration for creating the Barkley in 1986 was the 1977 prison escape by James Earl Ray from Brushy Mountain State Prison. Ray was the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. He spent more than two days trying to get away in the very rugged Cumberland Mountains where the Barkley later was established. Ray's escape has been a subject of folklore. This article will reveal the details of his escape, where he went, what he did, and why he was only found a few miles from the prison.

This is how the madness of the Barkley Marathons started...



Please consider supporting ultrarunning history by signing up to contribute a little each month through Patreon. Visit https://www.patreon.com/ultrarunninghistory





Gary Cantrell (Lazarus Lake)

In 1978, Gary Cantrell (later also became known as Lazarus Lake), was an accounting student at Middle Tennessee State University. He was a tough marathon runner with eight finishes to his name at that time. He even finished one marathon after shotgun pellets struck him in the legs during a race. (It turned out that there were some hunters in nearby woods shooting quail).

Cantrell was interested in stepping up to run an ultramarathon, so in 1979, he and his fellow “Horse Mountain Runners” created their own ultra to run, Strolling Jim 40-mile Run in Wartrace, Tennessee. It was named after a famed horse and became one of the oldest yearly ultras in the country. This was Cantrell’s first experience at creating a tough race. He said, “Six or eight doctors will be in the race and that sort of surprised me. You’d think of all people they’d know better.”

Cantrell’s masochistic race directing skills were further honed when in 1981 he put together “The Idiot’s Run” in Shelbyville, Tennessee consisting of 76 miles and 37 significant hills. He was surprised when several runners expressed interest. He said, “Is there no run so tough as to discourage these maniacs? If we had a 250 miler through Hell with no fluids allowed, I think we’d get 10-15 people.” A dozen runners showed up for The Idiot’s Run and only two finished.

The next year, 1982, he extended “The Idiot’s Run” course length to 108 miles and eliminated flat sections, gaining experience adjusting courses each year to make them harder. Cantrell explained, “The objective isn’t so much to see who finishes first as to simply see who survives for the longest distance. I’m confident this is the single grimmest race held anywhere in the world.” An article about his race was printed in newspapers across the country. Six of the twelve starters finished that year, the winner in 17:43:45, so it wasn’t really that hard. Cantrell could do better and did,