The first link is 2023’s race. The second link is 2014 and is probably how most people learned about the race since it was on Netflix. It’s amazing to compare the two race years to see how much it has changed in terms of competition and popularity.
I just watched the first video thus far and wow. Thank you for sharing! I thought maybe competing in something like this would be only for people in their 20's 30's because I am getting older, but I heard other people are in their 40's.
This inspired me to do something more competitive than just run on a treadmill every other day. Reminds me of high school cross country running a little.
I don't know, I just watched two of these and found them both pretty boring compared to climbing videos. Look up Adam Ondra, Alex Megos, Alex Honnold, Margot Hayes, the Reel Rock channel, the North Face channel, the Patagonia channel or maybe that movie about Janja. One of my favorite is Action Directe:
This one is not on the list and it's my favourite. Not the most well-produced of the bunch, but it captured a mood that I didn't find in any of the others.
> At 3:10 P.M. eastern on Thursday, Dunn tweeted that eight runners had moved onto loop four—a race record. That bunch included Paris and Campbell, whose quest to break his own Barkley finisher record lived on. While Paris completed loop four 10 minutes back from Campbell, Campbell waited for Paris to start lap five so she could choose her direction.
This is a lovely bit of sportsmanship[^1]. The person who finishes the 4th lap first gets to choose what direction to go out on the 5th (last) lap, then the remaining runners have to alternate. The course is a lot more difficult one direction than the other. Campbell waited to start his 5th lap to give Paris the choice what direction she wanted to run her 5th lap.
[^1]: I've run a few ultras. It's a sport that seems to either engender or attract good sports. Probably due to the shared suffering.
100% with you. I do a lot of trail running and the community is consistently supportive, positive, and the biggest competition tends to be with yourself (your demons, your fatigue, etc.).
This is true whether you're doing a run in Norway, California, or Japan... Universally wonderful people.
A few year's back at Big's Backyard Ultra (2014), one of the last two runners had to catch his plane back to his home country. As you probably know, to win Big's you have to be the sole runner to complete a final lap, however many laps that is. Because the other runner didn't think this was a fair way for him to win, they both stopped running together on the 49th lap (204 miles) and that year there was no winner.
My wife's a trail ultrarunner, and says that there's a lot more camaraderie. She suggests part of it is due to the fact that the races are so unpredictable, that direct comparisons and even "time" aren't all that meaningful. Another friend suggested the same thing about cyclocross.
> In addition to running, competitors must find between 9 and 14 books along the course (the exact number varies each year) and remove the page corresponding to the runner's race number from each book as proof of completion. Because of this, competitors are only issued odd numbers. Competitors get a new race number, and thus a new page requirement, at the start of each lap.
> Upon arriving, first-time Barkley runners, known as virgins [no comment], are required to bring a license plate from their state/country as part of the entrance fee.
Worth pointing out that it's rare for anybody to finish.
It was a year of historic firsts at the Barkley Marathons.
No race is more notoriously impossible to finish. Over the first 37 years, only 17 people had done so.
That all changed on March 22, 2024, when an unprecedented five runners completed the race, smashing the record of three set last year.
In one of the YouTube videos, there's a line from him along the lines of "if people do finish this year, it might be the last event as people will find it boring and not want to turn up.x
The number of applications to participate are not publicised - but it's an infamous race amongst ultrarunners, so I suspect they get quite a lot of applications. However - the way to apply is also not publicised, so there are probably a fair number of people who'd like to enter but don't figure out how.
Congratulations to everyone who finished. I got deep into reading up on this race a couple years ago. I think about it when I'm doing my little hikes. I can't imagine. But I'm mostly fascinated by the character of Lazarus Lake, his avuncular sadism, and the rituals and ceremonies surrounding the whole race.
> With three finishes under his belt, it may seem like a fourth one was clandestine for Campbell, 44
Not sure how clandestine is being used here. Incorrectly I guess. I miss copy editors.
> When people try to set up similar events, say, in Europe, they make them put a tracker on everybody because the government wants to protect you from yourself. But we’ve always done it. They’ll say, “Well, the tracker wouldn’t make a difference because it doesn’t tell the runner where they are.” But it tells the runner someone knows where they are.
> I’m transitioning it over to a guy named Carl Laniak because I won’t be around forever. We just had to get rid of the nonproductive qualities. He had empathy [laughs] and other things that serve no purpose in a race of this nature.
Doing a solo expedition isn’t a race. Very different things. The closest race I know to an expedition is the Badwater 135, which is 135 mile run from Death Valley to near the top of Mt Whitney. But that’s significantly easier than Barkley if percentage of people who finish is the metric.
See, to me the obvious comparison was to the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race, because of the loops. I hate loops, I'm a walker not a runner, so these aren't things I have any ambition to attempt, but personally I'd rather spend six hours going to somewhere (even if to then immediately get in a car and be driven back to civilisation) than three hours in loops repeating myself.
In other ways these are very different races - Sri's race is literally around a single city block, over, and over, and over again - there's no significant climbing element, it's not really possible to get lost and it's mostly about the mental state needed if you are sufficiently capable of the running itself. But the loops, that's what jumps out at me.
Wow, I haven't heard of this one before. I'm no couch potato these days, but that's the kind of feat that makes me realize I am far from fit, it seems insanely difficult to even navigate the trail.
Very hard to compare because it's usual - indeed basically mandatory - to climb Everest as a group whereas it's forbidden to attempt these ultra races in that way, the competitors aren't even allowed to help each other during a loop.
Also they're not kidding about Everest's death zone - it's genuinely incompatible with human life up on that mountain, whereas while its no stroll in the park where this race is held, it's not going to just kill you if you stay there a bit longer - the strict timer is because many more people could complete the loops at a slower pace. Not me, but probably most serious entrants.
Standing on the beach looking up at Mauna Kea[1] and then standing next to the telescopes at the summit just an couple of hours later (including a height-adjusting stop midway), this got me curious: what's the highest mountain one can realistically climb "in one go" (ie as an expedition) starting at sea level?
> He would start with a swim in India's Bay of Bengal, walk over 700 miles across the Indo-Gangetic Plain, through the Himalayan foothills and climb every single one of Everest’s 29,029 feet. By starting at sea level, Tim added hundreds of miles and close to an extra 10,000 feet of elevation to the typical Everest expedition, which usually starts from Lukla at 9,383 feet.
While slightly taller, around 200 meters or 650ish feet higher than Mauna Kea, Google Maps says it takes 94 hours to walk from Morrow Beach (closest I could find) to the top of Mt Whitney, compared to just 23 hours from Waikōloa Beach to the top of Mauna Kea.
So in that regard I kinda feel Mauna Kea has an upper hand still. But good suggestion, it is technically higher.
Not to diminish this feat, what an amazing finish!…
I doing know anything about the race designers, so what and why is the motivation behind this “race”? If it’s impossible to finish, why does anyone spectate?
He (Laz) only creates special races, truly sadistic ones. He has zero interest in putting on regular 100 milers. There are thousands of those, but his races are among the most challenging and interesting in the world. He also invented the even more sadistic Backyard Ultra format!
It's really hard to broadcast on TV because of the logistics and (usually) remote locations. But it would be amazing to watch a 100 miler in Paris or greater France, where they already have a huge ultra scene.
I’m surprised she is the first women to complete it as I recently read an article in Scientific America [1] that said the new evidence from exercise science shows women are better physiologically suited than men at long distance running.
Because of the science here I wonder if there’s bias or even sexism in selecting who is allowed to run this race. Or is there something unique about this race that contradicts what we now know about long distance running?
Something to consider is that many of the advantages that the article says women have might not be as relevant in the context of "one-off" events (even something smeared over a few days).
One advantage listed pointed was the higher fat stores, and a higher preference to burn fat rather than burn muscle. But modern food and fueling strategies (and this is of course race/event dependent) can also erode that advantage. If you can continuously dump glucose into your system at the right rate, you'll limit your body's need to tap into muscle or fat stores at all. In this race, you can carry whatever you want in your pack during a lap, and every lap you have the opportunity to refuel and pick up more food.
The timescale that this race occurs over probably isn't enough for the recovery advantage to really show, but uh... I've never run an ultra (or a normal marathon...), so I really can't judge.
Finally, the very nature of races (and having a time cut-off) is just soooo different from if endurance hunting for your life style. In a race, burning up all your matches to just barely cross the finish line in time (or at all) is a winning strategy. In real life, burning all your matches to catch an animal on a hunt is -generally- not a winning strategy (if it means that you'll be in recovery and shit at hunting for the next 2 days). If hunting-gathering is your life, your strategies should be built around consistency and risk management. Many of the advantages listed in the article seem like powerful tools for risk management. As your sport (or your metric) better approximates the risk management scenario of "life as a hunter-gatherer" I think you'd expect the female advantage to show more prominently, and maybe eventually dominate.
How could women be better physiologically suited at long distance running than men, when for example there are around 2500[1] men that have a better time than the women's marathon world record at 2:11:53?
Or compare the men's record at UTMB (100 mile race) at 19:37:43 vs the women's record at 22:30:54.
As a former ultra runner who never competed in barely, women traditionally do better downhill, they are lighter, have a smaller stride length (more agile), and Barkley has a lot of downhill. It's a loop also so comparing it to utmb or any race that isn't a loop or onb isn't quite the same. Men do better uphill traditionally where there is more power and lung capacity required, which Barkley has plenty of also. One thing no one has really pointed out is most ultras alow for a pacer after a certain point. This is vital once you start to lose your ability to think. It keeps you from getting lost, keeps you on pace, ensures you drink and eat at the correct times, mentally it gives you someone to keep you motivated, keep you sane, so on. In Barkley you see runners grouping together to compensate for the lack of a pacer but the fifth loop they send each runner out in the opposite direction so they do the final loop solo, when everything is at its worst. For example, in 2022, Karel Sabbe was found asking a trash can for help getting back on course because he thought it was a women, on his fourth loop.
Honestly, I am surprised it hasn't happen prior to this year, minus the fact that there are just so few finishers.
The article isn’t about pure time, it’s about overall endurance over time. Women tend to finish ultramarathons at a higher rate than men, but not typically faster than men.
So to answers the OP's question: the reason she's the first woman to finish isn't necessarily because of bias or sexism, but could rather be simply because of the very challenging time limit, and the fact that the women's world record ultra times are around 10-15% slower than the men's on all distances from 50k up to 6 days (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon)
AIUI the difference between the sexes is less for long distances than it is for shorter, faster events, not that women are faster than men. Therefore the probability of a woman finisher in this race is theoretically not much less than a man finisher.
So it's not surprising that there's not much of a competitive tradition in marathoning that brings as many women into it as men, or that encourages them to train as hard.
It's also true that some peoples' body types seem more naturally suited to it. See Kenya's domination in distance-running events. They have a cultural tradition that celebrates endurance running going back thousands of years. Even if that timeframe is too short to exhibit genuine selection pressure, it still has an effect. Their children have been raised to run.
There is probably no inherent reason why women don't show the same speed or endurance as men, just as there was no actual science behind the widely-held notion that no one could break the four-minute mile. But it will take time to make up for past discouragement and outright discrimination.
We observe the same in ultracycling where Lael Wilcox is among the fastest.
The thing is traditionnally sports have been invented by men with charactetistics/rules that suited men first.
You also have to take into account that in any society influcenced by patriarcal and sexism schemes, it is logical that they ate simply more men participating. The base level of a group always increase with the participation and competitivity within that group.
> The thing is traditionnally sports have been invented by men with charactetistics/rules that suited men first.
Take a look at the history of the concept of marathon; I think your claim is a stretch. Running fast from point A to point B isn't some kind of patriarchal conspiracy.
Also you make two contradictory claims, which one is it?
1) that the sport inherently is sexist in design, so of course women aren't winning
2) that women would be winning if the sport had more women competing
The first claim is that less women are competing because it has been invented by men for men (and only a long time after were women allowed to compete)
which is not contradictory nor opposite to claim 2 that the level of women would increase if there were more women competing.
Look at pro cycling. 25 years ago I was riding in circle around an elite women cyclist as a junior. Now they haven't reached the same level as I had and are still far away from elite men (who are also much more to compete) but they are much closer because there is more money to the sport, more women competing. Now if races were 5to 10 times longer the difference would probably be lower as found in ultracycling events.
If you make something tilted against group X, group X will not look very good in the distribution of performance.
If those people in group X participate at a lower rate as a result, group X will look even worse in the distribution of performance. You'll be selecting the best from a much smaller population.
I do think there's some merit in the argument that many athletic events have been developed to showcase and compare male athletic capability. (Of course, a few are the opposite!)
To the opposite point: the reply says "women are failing cause the event design is biased" and also "women could do perfectly well if not for society making them not play"
Which one is it. If society didn't hold back women, would they win or not? Arg 1 says no, arg 2 says yes.
If the event were fairly constructed, arg 1 says they'd win, arg 2 says they still wouldn't.
So you've identified two possible problems; if the first is true (events are inherently biased) that completely proves that social discrimination is irrelevant (because the event design is so sexist women can never win)
If the second is true (women only lose because society holds them back) then the claim that the events are inherently biased (enough to totally prevent female wins) has to be false because either they can or can't win ex social bias. Qed either claim being true forces the other to be false, the args are contradictory.
EDIT: yes, I may be falsely thinking point-wise rather than distributionally. Both of the factors you mention do push women out further in the distribution of placements
> EDIT: yes, I may be falsely thinking point-wise rather than distributionally. Both of the factors you mention do push women out further in the distribution of placements
Even pointwise they are complementary arguments. When something is biased against you, you are less likely to participate. When less people like you are present in an activity, it's even harder. When there's fewer people like you around, the rules may tilt even farther away from being good for you. These effects all compound and reinforce each other.
Why have you locked off the easy complimentary answers: "women generally are smart enough to know running 100 miles at once isn't that useful" or "women on average have more important things to do". Nobody crows how men also have the largest Warhammer figurine collections and the largest trains sets due to sexism. Women just have different and generally more reasonable interests.
Why would someone trap themselves in an ideology which depends on believing that women are physically equal to men when men are obviously bigger, stronger, more insanely competitive and dedicated to meaningless status games. That's not necessarily a plus.
Also you still haven't really explained why "run X miles from A to B" is a tilted contest. Yet "swim Y miles from France to England" (an event I believe women are somewhat better at than men?) isn't.
> Why have you locked off the easy complimentary answers: "women generally are smart enough to know running 100 miles at once isn't that useful" or "women on average have more important things to do".
I think you've not understood the argument; the difference between women and men narrows as distance increases. Women might even have an advantage on the longest comps if they participated at a greater rate-- that's the topic that started the subthread we're in.
> new evidence from exercise science shows women are better physiologically suited than men at long distance running.
The average doesn't tell you the shape of the distribution matters
Men's distributions on some things are a bit flatter than women's. As a result, the number of men at the endpoints (for those things) can easily exceed the number of women at those endpoints even when the women's average is higher.
This is such an under-appreciated point! Even in a sport where the average female is at an advantage over the average male, the top performers will likely still be male due to the higher variance in the male population.
Well it's just one article, so don't take it too seriously (and, though I just skimmed the article, it is possible that they do have an agenda, so maybe take it even less seriously).
It's quite interesting though that women perform relatively well at ultramarathons: for example no woman has real chance against top men in basketball, baseball, 100 m sprint etc, but in very long ultra marathons women even win sometimes.
I listened to Courtney Dauwalter on JRE (and then on other shows and indie movies), and she won the Moab 240 [1], a race where they run for days.
And I'm not saying that women are better suited than man, and races with 15 attendees aren't scientific studies, I'm just saying that it can be sometimes competitive and it's quite interesting.
Even Courtney wins a stacked ultra outright. 200 milers are just a hobby thing. So at any event there might not be a single world class athlete. Courtney will beat most men on pretty much any distance and most professional runners on anything starting from a 100 miles. She runs into the UTMB top 10 which is insanely strong. To ever win it the drop out rate for the top ten men would need to be 100% since at least 10 men run the race at a pace exceeding hers. Just takes one coming through
I only skimmed the article but a few things jumped out at me that confirmed what I was going to suggest anyway, so let's go with that :)
"Better suited" is not the same thing as faster.
Less cellular and muscular breakdown might mean they're typically able to recover faster and perform better day after day, while not necessarily indicating that faster men's single-event times have some kind of sexism as a root cause.
The article discussed fast twitch vs slow twitch fibers and how men could be more powerful but worse at endurance, but again, what is the limit of endurance? As another reply to this post suggested, modern athletic performance foods might help men overcome what would otherwise be a disadvantage in multi-hour efforts. Of course, those same foods/fuels are likely designed with men in mind in the first place!
Exactly. Plus people that finish it can run really hilly 100 milers in ~16 hours. And they finish this one ins just under 60 hours. So I'm guessing it's quite a bit more than 100 miles!
I don't think that's something women need to prove or have publicity about, I was asking more so about social familiarity with this person. but thanks for the details
Why does this matter to you, is important to you or your identity to feel or believe that men are better than women? Does the success of this woman hurt you or your beliefs in any way?
I'm a man and I'm incredibly surprised, pleased and admiring to know that a female woman has won this race. I would on the other hand, be disappointed and saddened and dismayed to hear that a male person claiming to be a woman had won.
Why does this matter to you, is important to you or your identity to feel or believe that biological women are better than trans women? Does the hypothetical success of a trans woman hurt you or your beliefs in any way?
depends on how early the article is or the source, this event has never come up in any of my feeds so its not likely I would have any exposure outside of this conversation
The article says mother of two, I’m not sure why you’re confused. Are you trying to start a culture war debate?
> Paris, who juggles being an elite runner with being a mother of two and an animal veterinarian,
If you actually cared in this particular scenario and aren’t just trying to cause a shitstorm, you could’ve found the article below in less than a minute.
> thanks for being more familiar with it and letting me know, like I asked
I’m not familiar with this person in the slightest, I googled “Jasmin Paris pregnant” and found the proof you were looking for.
Have you ever read an article about a transgender athlete that didn’t mention the fact that they were transgender?
If you can find an article published by a news organization about a transgender athlete that neglects to mention that, I would be incredibly surprised. That’s why I’m not giving you the benefit of the doubt in this line of discussion, you’re complaining about an imagined problem that doesn’t exist.
> replying to your inline edit
Do you not consider the incentives when examining the actions of people and organizations? I suggest you start if you aren’t doing that.
News organizations sell controversy, transgender athletes are controversial. No competent news organization is going to miss out on clicks by neglecting to create controversy by mentioning the fact that a transgender person is transgender. Not because the news organization necessarily supports transgender individuals, but because they want to make as much money as possible.
Companies care more about money than supporting minority group ideology in virtually every case. That’s why I think you’re incorrect about your complaint that the media doesn’t properly identify transgender people.
If you really think a news org will let ideology trump revenue, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
I wasnt familiar with this event or this athlete, and this was a discussion channel present that matched my level of interest in finding out more
What word would you use if you had a question, if all the intuitive phrases are false positives for trolls?
I understand that you fundamentally disagree, but in which way was the accurate way to disagree: what your reaction was to, or what the other person’s was to? If you cant tell then maybe you’re both incorrectly applying your disdain?
the unresolved point that the community flagging every response doesn’t reveal
> I understand that you fundamentally disagree, but in which way was the accurate way to disagree: what your reaction was to, or what the other person’s was to? If you cant tell then maybe you’re both incorrectly applying your disdain?
I think both myself and the person who claimed your question might be to devalue the achievements of women both had equally valid points we made. Perhaps we were both wrong about your true intent, but people “just asking questions” about hot button items that are only tangentially related to the article under discussion are usually trying to stir shit. You’ve convinced me that may not be the case here as you’ve being civil during this discussion.
https://youtu.be/IEIerVw1vsw
https://youtu.be/LZ-DE-hmiGE
https://youtu.be/NDZdsqbcGTU
They inspired me to start running again.