Laz Lake, the man who created the infamous Barkley Marathons, has already had his say on where most of this yearโs runners went wrong.
In stark contrast to the previous two years, there was not a single finisher this time โ indeed only Barkley legend John Kelly made it through three of the potential five loops.
Laz cited three main reasons in his race recap and called it โa battlefield littered with the corpses of hubris and overconfidenceโ and now thereโs a fascinating film from inside this yearโs race from Singletrack which provides plenty of different perspectives and brings the 2025 edition to life.
Inside track
Itโs well worth a watch and is embedded below. Little details โ from the watches being handed out after the conch is blown through to John Kelly โtappingโ himself out โ will delight Barkley fans and itโs already had over 300,000 views on YouTube.
And the insights from some of the runners involved are just as revealing.
For while Laz said: โMost of them should have been able to knock out one loop under the time limit!โ there was a very different perspective from Kelly Halpin.
She missed the loop one cut by just a couple of minutes and she underlined the fine margins and the toughened up course in 2025 when she said: โLast year I wouldnโt have said it was the hardest thing Iโd ever done, this year it was the hardest thing Iโve done.
โAnd I gave 100%. We found all the books almost right away. Almost perfect navigation. And I still missed the cut-off by two minutes.โ
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigmaโฆ
Another bugbear for Laz was the navigation issues many faced as he pointed out: โCheckpoints are not โhiddenโ. They they are not probably in plain sight, and they have to be placed where hogs cannot get to them. But the map markings and directions are intended to make them easy to locate.โ
Unfortunately a knee injury meant last yearโs brilliant Dragonโs Back winner Max King had limited time on the Frozen Head State Park trails but in the video he explains some of the navigational challenges.
He said: โOnce you get to a book, thatโs the hard part. Itโs kind of like an Easter Egg hunt finding the book off of the instructions.
โBecause [in] an orienteering race, itโs very specific. Thereโs a red dot on the map at the GPS location that you need to be at. Here itโs like circles and youโre in that area but is it in that area though? You know they didnโt check it with GPS โ they just figure they know where they are and then just circle it on the map and itโs close to that area.
โSo when you get to that area you use the course instructions, but the course instructions are like โitโs in a rock, within these four bouldersโ or โitโs in this beech treeโ and thereโs like 20 beech trees โ thatโs the hard part.