The Barkley Strikes Back: 2025's Brutal Return to Form

Nearly at the last possible minute, the 2025 Barkley Marathons began on Tuesday, March 18th, at 11:37 AM.
After a record five finishers in the previous year's race, one of the biggest questions heading into this year's event was whether — and how — the course would be adjusted to once again push the limits of human endurance.

The 2024 race had been memorable not just for its record finishers but also for the camaraderie among the elite field. Runners launched an all-out assault on the course, with top navigators fanning out across book locations and relying on collective effort to maintain an advantage. As Lazarus Lake later remarked, with so many elites working together, “the course could not kill them all!”

What would the 2025 field look like? With front-runners like Jared Campbell, Greig Hamilton, Jasmin Paris, Ihor Verys, and Damien Hall absent, how would the veteran presence take shape? How might book numbers and locations change? What new sections could be added to the course?
We would soon find out...

One emerging theme from this year's Barkley was the figurative "revenge" of the course after two consecutive years (2023 and 2024) that saw a combined total of eight finishers.

It's easy to forget amid those triumphs that Barkley is just as well known for long droughts without any finishers at all — stretches like 1996 through 2000, 2005 through 2007, and 2018 through 2022. Looking back at what happened before and after those barren years may offer helpful insights now.

Ten hours into Loop 1, it was clear something was different — chances for a repeat of 2023 and 2024 were rapidly diminishing. After all, no runner had ever gone on to finish the full Barkley after completing their first loop in more than 9.5 hours.

In the howling wind and rain, John Kelly was the lone runner to complete even a “Fun Run” at the 2025 Barkley Marathons, finishing in 39 hours and 50 minutes. Afterward, he took the ceremonial bugle and played his own taps.
In one of the most grueling editions in recent memory — an event that reduced most of the field before the end of Loop 1 and saw no one come anywhere close to completing five loops — John was one of the few runners still moving by Loop 3 and the only one to reach the gate within the 40-hour time limit.

What a performance — in a year that seemed to underscore just how significantly Carl and Laz had dialed up the difficulty.

Following the 2025 event, there will surely be discussion about the recalibration of the course — what happened, why, and whether this version is (finally?) designed to be truly out of reach. Or, as Joe McConaughy recently described it, the Barkley equivalent of the sub-two-hour marathon.

Watch the full documentary for a deeper look at how the 2025 event played out!

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