UKC

Saw that Inov-8 made an announcement about Nicki Spinks and Damien Hall yesterday, figured it must be soon.

Sure enough, from Eoin Keith's fb:

"After a brief memorial, laz lit the cigarette at 9:54.  The 2023 Barkley Marathons has begun. #BM100 Eoin is off!"

Let the impromptu non-dot-watching begin!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS7bFn8RH5Na4vVxNijCsFCiHeY...

Nice! I imagine that'll fill up slightly as the event progresses. Some good names up there!

Top reporter: https://mobile.twitter.com/keithdunn

I read somewhere that Jasmin Paris is also there - what a line-up!

look at the 2023 tab on the link I posted

Great to see so many familiar names in there, it'll be interesting to see how they all get on.

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that Jasmin hadn't had the best lead-up, but I hopefully that'll be countered by the benefits it being her second year. It sound like the first year is something of a rapid learning curve!

Forecast looks cold but dry. Maybe there'll be a finisher for the first time since 2017?!

Bit of background info on some of the starters we know about so far.

Notes on the UK + Ireland starters:

• Nicky Spinks: 
  • Second time at Barkley:
    • Finished 1 loop in 11:32:53 in 2019
  • Has previously simultaneously held the women's record on the Big 3 Rounds in the UK
  • Only person to have completed doubles of all 3 - some taking up to 57 hours, which bodes well for later Barkley loops if she can get through the first couple
  • Winner of lots of fell races too, including four wins at the Fellsman.
  • Finisher at the 450 miler Tor de Glaciers

• Damien Hall: 

  • First time at Barkley.
  • Men's course record holder and winner of 2023 Spine Race
  • Has held, or currently holds, FKTs for Pennine Way, Coast-to-Coast, Paddy Buckley Round (summer+winter), Cape Wrath Trail, South West Coast Path.
  • Lots done in the UK, and a few notable results abroad, including a fairly surprising 5th at UTMB 2018. 
  • Focused on orienteering this winter apparently, which sounds very necessary for success at Barkley.
• Katie Wright:
  • Second time at Barkley:
    • Finished 1 loop in 12:47:24 in 2022
  • A few good results at Tarawera, as well as a few entries at Big's Backyard Ultra.
  • Not able to find out a huge amount about Katie, anyone else got any more details?
• Jasmin Paris:
  • Second time at Barkley:
    • Finished 3 loops in 39:49:56 in 2022 to complete the first female Fun Run since 2013. 
    • From post race media, she seemed confident that she had the potential to finish all 5, so particularly exciting to see she's back so soon.
  • Winner of many classic fell races, as well as two time British Champion
  • Like Nicky, she has also held records on the Big 3 Rounds in the UK
  • Overall record holder on The Spine, from 2019
  • Winner of multiple World Sky Races, as well as a series title.
• Tom Hollins:
  • First time at Barkley
  • Has won The Spine Race previously
  • Completed a vertical marathon - 223 ascents of Pendle Hill, in October last year, for charity. 
  • Has also completed a solo double BG round, mid-winter's day BG round, Wainwrights round, and more
• Eoin Keith:
  • Second time at Barkley:
    • Finished 1 loop in 12:09:13 in 2018
    • Finished second loop over time, with broken collar bone
  • Numerous top performances, including wins, at both Spine and Summer Spine. Record holder on the Summer Spine too.
  • Holds the record to run from Malin to Mizen, the length of Ireland.
  • Many wins over many years of orienteering, mountain running, ultra running, 24hr running, everything. 
  • Lots of recent victories in vets categories, which I will only skip over due to Barkley having no prizes based on age!
• Billy Reed:
  • Second time at Barkley:
    • Finished 1 loop in 11:32:54 in 2019, completed alongside Nicky Spinks
  • Really struggling for details here, aside from a few good Highland Fling results, along with good performances in a range of races in Ireland. Again, any extra details?

Previous finishers:

• John Kelly:
  • Most importantly... a former finisher at Barkley!
    • 5 loops in 2017
    • 4 loops in 2016
    • 3 loops in 2015, 2022
    • 2 loops in 2019
    • In 2022, he lost his pages on loop 3, and spent all his banked time finding them. Still seems motivated to finish another time.
  • Lots of records and wins from time in the UK over the last few years, including Pennine Way, Spine Race, Wainwrights Round.
  • First completion of a Grand Round, including the Big 3 UK Rounds, linked by bike.
  • Ex professional Ironman triathlete, with the record for the slowest swim to still finish under 9 hours.
  • Recently just missed out on the US standard for road marathon Olympic qualifying, with a 2:26:50 road marathon. Speedy bloke!
• Jared Campbell
  • 3 time Barkley Finisher:
    • 5 loops in 2012, 2014, 2016
    • 3 loops in 2013, 2021
    • 1 loop in 2019

Other shout outs:

• Karel Sabbe
  • 2 starts, 2 fun runs (both times, he was the best performer that year)
• Remy Jegard
  • 7th start, never completed more than 1 loop
• Pavel Paloncy
  • Relatively well known in the UK, with a string of results and record attempts over the years, including the Spine Race, and winter attempts on the Wainwrights Round, and Pennine Way

How come Nicky Spinks is listed as the human sacrifice on the doc? I wouldn't have thought her a total no-hoper?

It might just be a typo, but perhaps she's had a woeful build up to the race?

I'd never heard of this race, the origins and ethos sound brilliant.

It's definitely not a typo - she's been given bib 1 - but I don't know why Laz chose her. Seen a few other people confused too, I think it's only the third time it's been given to a veteran rather than a virgin. Maybe Laz is just having a laugh?!

The idiosyncrasy of it is just brilliant - so much freaky weirdness (the conch warning sometime within a 24 hour window, the ripping pages from the books, etc) combined with a distance and altitude gain/loss that looks completely doable (on "normal" terrain) within the time except that the terrain sounds absolutely nuts and some of the accounts of people "losing it" due to sleep deprivation and exhaustion are just legendary.

Was it last year the person in the lead on the 4th circuit IIRC was "rescued" by local police because he was off route in a nearby town happily chatting to a wheelie bin!

That’s brilliant, thanks.

I reckon Jasmin has a good shot at finishing this year, John Kelly and Jared will also hopefully have a good run and we will see a great race. Best ‘dot watching’ of the year.

There's a film called 'The Barkley Marathons, the race that eats its young,' well worth watching.

There's some updates on Keith's Twitter now!

From@KeithDunn

Through the tower so far (actual descriptions given to me): guy with glasses, guy with funny pants, nondescript guy, a real big smiling guy, a tan guy, the guy with a big grin, small European woman, tall guy with Mohawk-ish hair, another guy, tall guy with black beard.  #BM100

Great isn't he?

"Big smiling guy has begun loop 2, followed by nondescript guy, tall guy with black beard, and small European woman."

I'm starting to decipher his names, putting @keithDunn updates together with the spreadsheet finishing times linked above, it's possible to work out who he is chatting about.  I'm not sure Jasmin Paris will be best thrilled to have acquired the nickname 'Small European Woman'.

Yeah it's a bit of a puzzle but it's starting to make some sense.

This looks like the fastest set of Loop 1s for a while - 15 people back under 10 hours. And conditions seem to remain good. However, last year 14 people got back in sub 10, 19 in sub 10:15, and still nobody made it past a fun run. So although this seems like it could be the year for a good few finishers, there's still plenty of time for anything to go wrong!

Riveting.

Edit: starting to make some sense, but not perfect sense, ie. Karel Sabbe was not Tall Guy with Beard in the leading group, that was Albert Herrera Casas. So everything has to be taken with quite a hefty pinch of salt!

JK and Damian (plus others) on loop 3 now, look to be going very well. 

This is a brilliant overview, thanks for taking the time. 

Think it's for rent/sale on Amazon? AFAIK it's not free or included in subscription anywhere currently

From a @nick_ph7 on twitter

"Of the finishers: John Basham 2010 had the slowest 2-loop split with 20:29:01. He finished with 41 minutes and 16 seconds to spare. We can't rule out Paloncy, Paris or Sanchez yet, but they are on the thinnest of margins."

The lead group left for loop 3 ahead of JK 2017, so they're in a good position for now.

No worries! Glad people found it useful.

Basically wrote half the UKC article for you, @ Rob G

Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, Apple TV

There's trailers on YouTube. I thought I'd watched it on Netflix but maybe it was Prime Video

Also, there's "Where Dreams go to Die", which appears to be available on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=NDZdsqbcGTU&

This is about runner Gary Robbins' attempt at the event.

Reading it I did think to myself "bloody hell, he's doing me out of a job" 😂

Jokes aside, if you do ever fancy writing for us - please get in touch!!

An intriguing idea, I'll have a think - might have to adapt my style though, can't imagine I could get away with writing a whole article in this bullet point statistic format!

https://mobile.twitter.com/keithdunn/status/1635833904480366592?cxt=HHwWgMC...
 

According to the spreadsheet, the corpse that sprang back to like was Nicky Spinks 😂

Im surprised there isn’t a British version of this ‘race’ yet.. it seems like the perfect fit for British understatedness. 

Not the same, but understated all the same.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/64139029.amp

Although the entry price surprised me a bit! £250 was more than I expected 

I watched it via iTunes. Worth every penny.

We don't really have the terrain to make it quite as remote + physically hard + navigationally hard. All our mountain areas lack woodland to make it hard to navigate, and the woodland areas are not particularly remote, and normally a bit flat. The weather angle is also potentially too simple in the UK - we don't have the dense fog that Frozen Head gets, along with the chance of snow, hail, rain, sun, etc all in one loop, let alone five. It's really hard to overstate how BM is a complete perfect storm of difficulty. To put some numbers to it, John Kelly ran his second (dark) loop at 28 minute mile pace - is there anywhere in the UK that could make him that slow???

All that being said, doesn't mean we can't have some weird challenges - as Stuart Williams points out, that Tunnel Ultra sounds hilariously awful.

Nicky has timed out on lap 2

I think Cheviot hills could be the spot. If you position the controls either in the middle of a peat hagg or in one of the sections of forestry land it could be almost there... 

Fair enough you are never going to get warm sunshine but all the other conditions are possible. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/keithdunn/status/1636125853741400064?cxt=HHwWgIC...

Albert Herrero Casas, John Kelly, and Damian Hall finished loop three...

Still on schedule for a finish.

Oxford Street.

This is a great visualisation: https://twitter.com/JohnSug/status/1636128631381536768?t=eCGvejLflre4nCRblB...

Damo and John didn't hang around - 25 mins in camp! A no sleep strategy? Didn't wait for Albert either. I know little about him, other than he's World Rogaining Champ, but I wonder if being an expert at 24hr races puts him in a slightly weaker position for the long duration, compared to the long ultra runners? Pure speculation, of course.

Karel's back in, and Aurelian too. Solid fun run roster.

I've seen it on one of the links that you only technically complete the fun run if you don't start circuit #4.

Ah I hadn't noticed. 

Maybe not many fun runners then, if they all come in soon and get tempted a fourth. Certainly good conditions, as good a year as can be hoped for it seems.

Edit: nondescript guy (aka Jared) seems to be injured but had made it back in time for a fun run. Maybe he'll be one of the ones calling it there?

http://chartreuse-terminorum.fr/english

They've done something 'inspired by Barkley' in France but again the Chartreuse is hardly Tenessee Boondocks level remote, but the terrain is pretty wild and steep in places, although I don't really know the parcours here despite it being just a few miles away. 

The issue, like the UK, is that if they're going to be responsible then marked trails are the way to go because of potential damage to the ecosystem. 

I watched "Where dreams go to die" (Youtube) whilst vegetating after a busy day yesterday, and it was excellent.

Jasmin Paris is out on loop 4.  No woman has completed four laps before.

Rooting for Jasmin! She's such an inspiration. 

Some of the recent events: 

• John/Damian/Albert/Aurelian appear to be leading, on loop 4.
• Karel, Jasmin and Tomo are somewhere behind
  • Tomo came into camp at 35:55:24 and managed to leave in time to not get tapped out - a 4 minute 15 second turnaround! 
• Jared, Christian, Joe and Pavel all managed fun runs
  • Pavel finished his loop in the dark, without a working headtorch. He's said to have exceptional nav skills, he's really proving that right! Mindblowing.

So if the leaders arrive back at camp before around 1230 UK time then it could be on? That would put them on c46:36 with daylight for the final loop.

Definitely! That would certainly be towards the top end of time, Jonathan Basham 2010 managed 46:55 followed by a finish in 59:18 but that's the slowest loop 4 split by a finisher that I can see. But it would still certainly be possible. Any later than that, and you'd have to worry they'd not left themselves long enough for the fifth.

You're right about the daylight, that's a huge benefit. Just hope they have a torch for the final hour or so! 

Isn't this year's route is likely to be harder than the 2010 route?

Looks like JK and Aurelien are now out on lap 5...

Most likely, but also the runners, gear, and course knowledge have improved. Let's say they completed four loops in a similar time to 2010, even on a harder course, then I think we can reasonably assume that they can complete a fifth in a similar time too.

Seems so! Opposite directions as per the rules, JK seems to have taken the "easier" clockwise direction but I can't imagine either way is straightforward after barely minutes of sleep in the last 48 hours.

About 90 minutes left for Damian, Karel or Jasmin to come in and head back out, since Albert and Tomo have tapped. Would be incredible to see them finish now, but if they've managed to pace it perfectly, it's still possible.

I like how the Google doc has changed terminology from "running" to "out there..." for those still going 😂 

Damian was in from Loop 4 at 47:39 and back out again at 47:49

Damo is on loop 5, come on Jasmin (if cut off hasn't already been missed? It must be very close now)

Edit: just seen that's she missed cut off. I'm gutted though she might be glad just to stop! 

Yeah, such a pity about Jasmin, but wow, what an incredible achievement regardless!

Gutted that she's missed the cut off, though no surprise given how close she was to being tapped out at the end of loop 3. Still an amazing effort though and the best female performance so far.

Shame that the 60 hour cut off is going to be after bedtime so I'll have to wait until I check #bm100 in bed tomorrow morning to find out how many (if any) finishers there are this year.

These transition times are seriously impressive. He's in a very tricky position with no leeway, but you can only finish if you're out on the course, so he's given himself at least a chance.

At least he's got a lot of daylight to get round, might just help stave off some of the sleepiness. In the Spine this year, he had around 20 mins sleep by the 48 hour mark, before continuing on for the third day, so not actually too different from what he's doing now - hopefully that experience can help him.

Karel absolutely cruising to the end of loop 4. People at camp saying he's looking amazing. Considering JK "limped" out onto loop 5, Karel seems as well placed as anyone now, even with the 30/40 minute deficit.

https://mobile.twitter.com/FrankDecorte/status/1636364179266502656

Jasmin and Damien are back at camp. Jasmin made it to book 9 before timing out on loop 4. Damien got lost apparently on chimney top. Solid effort from both of them!

We have a finisher! 

Could possibly be the first of three...

Two now, John Kelly's just come in !

3!!! 😁

Was it "easier" this year?  Maybe because...

1. 3 of the 5 loops mainly in daylight
2. Relatively benign weather
3. Lead group running together on initial loops (edit: not sure about this, of the obvious group at the end of each loop, only JK finished, but it looks like all 3 finishers were "accompanied" for at least the first 2 loops)

I think it's going to be tough next year, I suspect Laz will start it so there'll be 3 loops at night unless the weather forecast is looking particularly "good" (i.e. awful) for the 60 hours.

I do agree that those factors made a finish more possible than it could have otherwise been - although they all still came close to the time limit at the end. It wouldn't be surprising to see Laz barely change the course and just blow the conch at 1am next year. 

Nickademus de la Rosa said on twitter:

"For anyone thinking that the fact that Barkley 2023 has finishers means that it was “easy” this year: as a 2013 finisher and a participant in this year’s race, I can vouch that this course was much much harder. Respect to Aurelien, John and go Karel!!"

In a comment he reckoned it's 1.5hrs harder per loop. So we almost certainly aren't going to see the times Brette and Jared threw down previously - sub 30 for 3 loops! - for at least a very long time.

I do pity the runners next year, something about it will surely make it even tougher than this time round!

Rumour has  it that Damo wasn't lost but the book had been taken back already..

That rumour is incorrect

I heard a rumour that due to their well know rivalry John Kelly gave Damo such a brutal wedgie that he was forced to drop out.  Or maybe I just made that up.

https://twitter.com/Ultra_Damo/status/1636771228588310529

Just to confirm, this was a different lost book to Aurelian's lost book. His had genuinely been topographically relocated (by some kindly hikers). My "lost book" was found easily by @JasminKParis  (who also found me asleep across the path lower down the mountain). #BookBothering

There is in-fact a British equivalent..

https://race-nation.co.uk/register/gert-lush-events/the-berkeley-marathons-...

Some words about Damo and the book loss on the Inov-8 site: https://www.inov-8.com/damian-hall-and-nicky-spinks-reflect-on-barkley-mara...

BBC News - Bath tunnel ultra marathon a 'mind-bending' test
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-65164318

This happened last weekend...short video above.

"Idiots!"

The tunnel ultra sounds completely horrible. Surely the whole point - or at least a large part of the point - of running these distances is being outside!