Notorious as one of the most difficult ultramarathons on the planet, the Barkley Marathon is an ever-changing route through around 160km of rough Appalachian backcountry. Very few competitors complete the course within the 60-hour time limit. After 2025’s race resulted in not a single completion, 2026 attracted a strong field eager to face the seemingly impossible.
This week’s mini-documentary covers the 2026 Barkley Marathons. (There are various versions involving different degrees of torture, including one deliberately misnamed “Fun Run.”) This year’s contest took place in February, and we follow the runners as they pit themselves against deliberately torturous conditions.
Completing a loop of the Barkley. Photo: Screenshot
Hardest course yet?
Against footage of the course and the starting area, the narration brings us up to speed on the Barkley. It demands extreme physical endurance, of course, but also requires runners to jump through esoteric hoops just to sign up. Once the race begins, they have to navigate by map and compass alone, tearing pages from hidden books to prove their progress.
We meet our challengers: three-time Barkley finisher John Kelly, near-finishers Max King, Damian Hall, and Sebastien Raichon, and a new, but highly anticipated, face: Mathieu Blanchard. Blanchard is a highly accomplished endurance athlete and professional trail runner.
The race starts, as it always does, with enigmatic founder Lazarus Lake lighting a cigarette. Then they’re off. Blanchard and King complete the first lap (of five) first. Raichon is close behind, then Hall. They’ve just run through 30km of brush, changing elevation and icy streams. We watch them set out again without much delay, as John Kelly makes fifth.
Barkley Marathon founder Lazarus Lake holds court at the starting line. Photo: Screenshot
Severine Vandermeulen is the first woman to complete Loop One. With only one previous woman finisher, the pressure is on. She assures the crowd at the gate that it was “very easy.”
But several runners drop out, and more fail to complete the first loop before the cutoff. The pack doesn’t thin out much on loop two, and Raichon, Blanchard, and Hall continue to lead, but Max has fallen two hours behind. The film, like the runners, keeps moving, and we’re quickly down to four.
The view up Rat Jaw, an infamous section of the course. Photo: Screenshot
And then there were four
Only Max, Raichon, Blanchard, and Hall start loop three. A few hours later, Blanchard is back in camp. Recognizing the risk of hypothermia, he had wisely surrendered. The difficulty of the Barkley has certainly impressed him, but so too, he says, has the community. For such a punishing challenge, the interpersonal side is almost gentle, with a real sense of camaraderie.
Raichon is the first to complete the three-loop Fun “Run” after 38 hours. He is, he tells Lazarus, very happy. He will be the only one to complete a Fun Run in 2026.
“Once again, the Barkley won,” our narrator says. Nobody seems very upset; the harder the course gets, the more people will flock to it, the more exciting it will be when someone actually does the “impossible.” Here’s to 2027.
