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The Barkley Marathons course (thought to be roughly 130 miles and about 63,000 feet of elevation gain) at Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee was conquered for the first time in six years. Laz (Gary Cantrell) blew the conch shortly before 9 a.m., on March 14, 2023, signaling to the competitors that they had one hour to prepare for the start. At 9:54 a.m. Laz, sporting a new "geezer" hat in Japanese, lit the ceremonial cigarette, and about 40 daring athletes were off and running on the grueling course that “eats its young.”  Previously, only fifteen people had finished the 100-mile version of this brutal trail race which was introduced in 1986.

The 2023 start of the Barkley Marathons

The 2023 field, including eight women, ran or walked up the trail toward the Cumberland Mountains. They had all trained hard, but also had to figure out and endure the purposely mysterious and fun registration process. In addition to writing an essay, this year, they had to answer a series of questions including, "What will be the 119th element on the periodic table."

Frozen Ed at Frozen Head State Park

75-year-old “Frozen” Ed Furtaw was the oldest starter. He was the first person ever to finish the Barkley Marathons back in 1988 when the course was about 55 miles. He finished that year in 32:14. This Barkley legend also came up with the idea for the book checkpoints, so runners could prove they made it around the course. This year, Furtaw was the first Barkley casualty, returning to camp early during loop one.

Several runners finished loop one in a blazing 8:18. The cutoff for loop one was 13:20. To get an official finish, runners needed to finish five loops within 60 hours. There were no course markings, just general directions to the book checkpoints, and they could take a map. No GPS contraptions are permitted, but they could take a compass and a primitive watch.

Seven runners did not finish loop one in time to start loop two, but 31 started loop two. Loop one was in the clockwise direction, two and three would be counter-clockwise, four in the preferred clockwise direction. For loop five (if any runners reached that far), the first runner could choose their direction, and the next runner would have to go in the opposite direction. The weather was pretty incredible this year, although the water jugs provided at the tower on Frozen Head still froze during the night.

Keith Dunn

As usual, Keith Dunn was the main resource in the camp for Barkley updates, staying up late at night to tweet updates to his 65,000 followers. For a time, he was trending #3 on Twitter. He used three phones with different network carriers to make sure he could stay connected. During Loop one, instead of naming runners, he gave them nicknames describing them such as, "Guy with Mohawk," "Guy with Glasses," and "Another Bearded Guy." Three-time Barkley finisher, Jared Campbell, was called "nondescript guy" for the duration of his run.

Nickademus de la Rosa and Laz

Barkley veteran Nickademus de la Rosa, of Bellingham, Washington, a previous finisher, returned to camp before finishing loop two. He said, “I am done at 1.75 loops and couldn’t be happier with the decision. I got what I wanted (which was to see if the course was still possible for me.) After some irrecoverable navigational errors, too slow of a pace and a dying headlamp I lost precious time needed in order to finish.”

As runners finished loops, they presented their collection of thirteen book pages to Laz, proving that they reached each book on the course. Their pages needed to match the bib number they were assigned for the loop. About a day before the race, a master map of the locations of the books was provided by Laz. Traditionally book titles are amusingly appropriate for the task, such as "Death Walks the Woods," and "Don't Count Me Out.