My run report of making it through 4.5 loops in 2000.
Want to hear my advice for Barkley "runners"?
Photos of the 1997 run.
Other Barkley links:
The "Official Barkley Home Page"
David Horton's Barkley Page
Steve Simmons' nightmarish Barkley photos
return to Blake Wood's running page
return to Blake Wood's Homepage
1997 Barkley Report
Barkley: there's so much to tell. Matt Mahoney already posted the results, so I'll concentrate on what it was like for me, a Barkley novice. Being one of the few to finish both the Barkley fun run and Hardrock, at the end I have a few words to say about how they compare.
It was very rough. Parts were quite scary and dangerous. It was endless miles of climbing over and under logs, through sawbriers, blackberry, vines, and poison ivy. It was shockingly slow. It was hide-and-go-seek with the books. It was humbling how many pathfinding mistakes I made. It made me wish I had time to do that fourth and fifth loop.
I thoroughly enjoyed meeting for the first time many of my internet friends, including Muffy Lanham, Ed Furtaw, Matt Mahoney, Dewayne Satterfield, Lou Peyton, and Mike Dobies.
I managed to finish the 60 mile fun run (three loops), one of three to do so out of 30+ starters, finishing in 39:57:35 - 2 minutes and 25 seconds under the 40 hour cutoff in a wild finish. Craig Wilson and Mike Dobies came in together more than an hour ahead of me. No one went any farther.
I relied heavily on my folks as crew (they drove out from California to pick me up at the Atlanta airport "on the way.") Dad wasn't able to pace me in this run, as he usually does in hundreds, but he got a taste of the course on a two hour hike that turned out to take eight hours, and left his legs torn to shreds by the sawbriers.
It was exceedingly difficult for a novice to find his way around the course without help from the veterans. Consequently, on the first loop I tended to run on ahead, and then stand and wait for others to catch up to show me the way to go when I got confused. I generally ran the first loop with John DeWalt, Eliza Maclean, and Buddy Brasington, but occasionally found myself with Jim Dill and Milan Milanovich. The chaps I made by cutting the legs off an old pair of levis, slitting them up the back, and fastening them with velcro saved my legs - I probably would have died of blood loss without them. My arms still ended up looking like I'd held a weasel by the hind legs and let him try to claw his way toward my shoulder. The first 20 mile loop was relatively fast - 9:30, although I ran away from the others over the last two miles (one of the few runnable sections).
It started to rain at the beginning of the second loop. This quickly turned even the runnable sections into slick mud that required slow, gingerly walking. I ran the first couple hours with Milan, but he was obviously feeling poorly and was going really slow, so I decided to risk going on ahead alone, knowing that I might blow any speed advantage by getting lost. Then the fog set in, and visibility was reduced to a 10' radius circle around my feet. Very difficult to navigate! My pace slowed dramatically - nearly six hours to book #2, which had taken 3:30 on the first loop (you ripped a page out of each of nine books on the 20 mile loop, to prove you made it. Several were nearly impossible to find. RD Gary Cantrell collected appropriate titles, among them "Why Aren't They Screaming?", "Don't Cry Now", "The Very Bad Thing", and "The Long Way Home".) A typical exercise in the dark and rain was trying to find the meadow below Coffin Springs that marked the beginning of the old mining road (one of several parallel roads!) that led to book #3: I took a compass bearing to where I thought it was (it wasn't marked on the map), but after bushwhacking for a while, decided I missed it. Was I high or low? Low, I decided. I climbed several hundred feet straight up the incredibly steep mountainside. No good. Must be below me. I started back down, knowing that I would eventually hit the creek, but then would never find the book and be forced to DNF. Several hundred yards downhill, I hit the meadow (very lucky! - it's not that big), and was back on track, having burned up an hour wandering around the mountainside.
But the worst was the 1500' vertical descent from Indian Knob (book #7) straight down a steep, sawbrier covered mountainside to book #8. During the day, this had been merely treacherous - large rocks covered with leaves and moss that threatened to slip out from under your feet. But at night, alone in the rain and fog, it was terrifying. I did much of it using my hands in a crab walk, as I carefully picked my way from boulder to boulder, occasionally slipping and whacking something hard enough to cry out in frustration and pain. I wished I had bailed at Indian Knob, and taken the DNF. I thought seriously of climbing back up and doing just that, but decided that I'd rather continue down and climb back up the other side (not as rocky). I knew there was no way I'd ever find book #8 in these conditions - it was hidden at the base of a particular, undistinguished tree, 50' above the creek bottom, a half mile (or so) below where I'd hit the creek. A DNF was certain. All I could do now was get back without hurting myself and take a one loop finish. But then, just as I was nearing the creek bottom, there were two flashlights above me! "Hello!!! Who are you?!" I yelled. It was Eliza and Buddy. Boy, was I happy to see them! Now I wouldn't die out here, and even better, they knew where book #8 was! They were surprised to see me - thought I was Dave Horton, coming back on his third loop, which was to be run backwards. Turns out that Dave (a heavy pre-run favorite to complete five loops) had made a serious tactical error - he began the second loop (before the rain started) in only a thin long sleeve shirt, and had to take a short cut back from Frozen Head after getting soaked and realizing it wasn't going to get any warmer. I almost made the same error - I wore only a t-shirt under a waterproof shell, but that was enough to keep me relatively warm as long as I kept moving.
With Eliza and Buddy for company, and with the brightening light of dawn, the remainder of the second loop was quite enjoyable, despite the rain. There was also the entertainment value of watching Buddy repeatedly have his feet slip out from under him, sending him sprawling in the mud, looking like a slapstick comedian on a banana peel. Eliza and I tentatively agreed to do a third loop together, but as we continued, Eliza talked herself out of it.
As we neared the end of the second loop, we were surprised that we hadn't encountered anyone on their third lap. Finally, Craig Wilson and Mike Dobies appeared. They generously offered to wait for me to catch up to them, but I waved them on, pointing out that it would take me about an hour and a half to get back. They suggested that Fred Pilon was seriously considering a third loop back at the campground, so I ran on ahead to catch him before he left.
I felt very strong when I arrived at the campground, but the elapsed time was about 25 hours - probably putting a fourth lap out of reach, since you had to complete three laps in 36 hours to continue. I thought I might possibly be able to do that, but that would leave no time to catch a nap - which I would definitely need before starting a second straight night out. And the second loop had taken me 15 hours - way too long!
Unfortunately, I learned that Fred had already decided to call it a day, and was asleep in his tent. I rattled his tent, woke him up, and encouraged him to come with me, but he was finished with Barkley, so off I went.
The third lap started well. By mid-day, the trail was beginning to dry out. However, I quickly discovered that finding the books in reverse order wasn't going to be easy. Each loop was effectively a brand new course - day, night, and backwards - it looked very different every time. I discovered that descending the correct ridge when ridgelines diverged left and right was a whole lot harder than ascending it with all the ridges converging. In fact, it was taking me about twice as long to descend a ridge and find a book than it had taken me to ascend it the day before! The day rolled quickly on, and I began losing 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there, looking for the precise locations of books I had expected to find easily.
With an estimated seven hours to go (it turned out to be eight), I started getting concerned about the time, and decided I better really start pushing, running every available spot and walking as fast as possible the rest of the time. As the day became dusk, and then night, it became apparent that I would probably have between one and two hours to spare before the 40 hour cutoff (11:39 pm by my watch, actually 12:39 am due to the daylight savings change.) It was a beautiful night! The stars were bright and Comet Hale-Bopp was spectacular in the west with a huge rooster tail of gas and dust.
With 2:30 left, I topped Jury Ridge. Below was book #1, then a final 1400' climb and descent over a pass on a reasonable trail to the finish. Hour and a half, I guessed. Below, just past book #1 I could see Craig and Mike's flashlights ascending the pass. I was home free, or so I thought. I started trotting down the switchbacks. Six switchbacks down, the trail dead-ended in a slide. Wait a minute... this doesn't look familiar! Must have missed a turn. I walked back to the previous switchback. No, no mistake, this was the only trail. I walked back to the slide and picked my way down, thinking I'd hit the trail below. The slide ended at the top of a cliff. I doubled back across the slope, finding no trail. Not a good idea to be climbing around on unstable ground above a cliff, by myself, late at night. I climbed back up to the trail. Once again back to the slide - still no trail. I climbed all the switchbacks back to the top of the ridge. I was definitely on the correct trail here - I remembered it. I descended again, looking carefully for spur trails, and ended up again at the slide. What the hell was going on?! What happened to the trail?! It HAD to be here! By now I'd burned up 45 minutes of my spare hour. My spirits sank. To have come so far, only to DNF my third loop so close to the finish! I climbed the switchbacks again, desperate now. Here, there was a spot in the leaves where someone had walked off the end of a switchback. I had checked this out before, and found that it petered out, but now it was the best chance I had. Perhaps I could pick my way across the slope, above the cliff, to where I could descend and pick up the switchbacks below. Looking more closely this time, I found that the faint path continued. I followed it. It became stronger. Pretty soon, I was back on the correct trail! But was there time? I sprinted down the trail, unconcerned about falling, praying that this really was the correct trail (I still had to locate book #1 at the bottom of it), and concentrating hard so that I didn't miss a turn. It seemed to take a long time to get to the creek, but suddenly there I was. Where was book #1? I had a moment of panic when it wasn't in the first set of trees I checked, but found it in the second set, ripped out a page, and took off up the trail. Too steep and rough to run, but I was power walking it as fast as I could, lungs and legs straining. 1:30 left - it had taken me an hour to get here on the first loop, fresh and in daylight, and this was a slightly longer uphill in this direction. Still, I figured I had 15 minutes to spare. The trail seemed to switchback up forever, the dark ridgetop giving no hint as to its distance. I began to have a strange hallucination that this was "Craig Wilson's experimental trail", congratulating him on the interesting parts and cursing him as I climbed around the deadfalls, only to realize with a shock that he had nothing to do with this trail, and then to fall into the hallucination again. Finally, I reached the crest - 30 minutes left. Down I sprinted, feeling that I had plenty of time, but not wanting to waste a minute, in case I lost the trail. Luckily, my quads were fine, but my feet really hurt - I hadn't taken care of them as I usually do in these runs. Down, down, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. I could hear people at the campground now, but still couldn't see any lights. I passed my Dad, who had walked up the trail looking for me. "You'd better hurry!" he yelled as I flew by. I sped up even more. Five minutes left. This was taking forever! I hit the junction where the trail met the dirt road above the campground, rounded a corner, heard other runners yelling for me, sprinted up to the gate, slammed my hand down on it, and checked my watch. Two minutes and 25 seconds to spare! Other runners congratulated me - I was touched that they all seemed to be up to see me in, even though it was nearly 1 am and all of them had every right to be sawing logs.
So... which is harder: Hardrock or Barkley? This is actually a
subtle, complicated question. Comparing apples and oranges
comes to mind. I think my pre-race prediction
that the challenge of Barkley is mostly psychological is
correct - having to decide every 20 miles to do ANOTHER 20 mile
loop is brutal. In a single loop hundred, like Hardrock, you
can at least pretend that the next 20 miles will be easier.
However, I felt much better after 60 miles of Barkley than I
usually do at the 60 mile point of a hundred - the terrain was
so bad that I simply couldn't run fast enough to get tired. I
wouldn't have hesitated to continue for a fourth and fifth loop
if I had been at least five hours faster for three. It could
be argued that I wouldn't have felt so good if I HAD been that
much faster, but I don't think that's true - most of that five
hours was spent running around trying to get back on course or
find a book, not resting. Sixty miles of Barkley has 30,000'
of climb, almost as much as 100 miles of Hardrock, but it's all
in relatively moderate doses, 1000' to 1500' at a time, rather
than the mind boggling 5000' continuous climbs of Hardrock, and
it's at 1500' to 3000' elevation, not 8000'-14,000' elevation,
like Hardrock. If I had to make the comparison in a single
phrase, I'd say Barkley is slower, but Hardrock is harder.
Nevertheless, Barkley is a one-of-a-kind race, and I feel
privilaged to have been able to participate in it.
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