No Finishers at the 2026 Barkley Marathons; Raichon Completes the Fun Run

The 2026 Barkley Marathons at Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, ended with no finishers for the second consecutive year. The race started at 6 a.m. on Saturday 14 February, the earliest it has ever been held, with 40 starters from 15 countries, including 10 women.

What the Barkley asks

The course is five loops of about 100 miles in total with roughly 67,000 feet of climbing, unmarked and deliberately vague in distance, with estimates reaching 130 miles once navigation errors are counted. A full finish must come within 60 hours. A “Fun Run” is three loops within 40 hours. Only 20 different runners have completed all five loops, for 26 total finishes since 1986.

The Fun Run

Sébastien Raichon of France completed three loops in 38:05:46. He missed the 36-hour cutoff to start loop four by more than two hours but finished within the 40-hour Fun Run limit. He was the only Fun Run finisher, the same outcome as 2025.

A harder year than usual

Race director Gary Cantrell ran the course in reverse from its usual direction, and the early February date brought cold, then rain, fog and mud, with less daylight than the usual March start. The yellow gate start line was under construction, so each loop began and ended at a different point. Of 40 starters, only 12 completed a single lap, against an average of about 26 in previous years. The first five runners took 9:47:08 for loop one.

Four runners completed two loops: Raichon, Damian Hall, Max King and Mathieu Blanchard. Raichon, Blanchard and Hall finished loop two together in 22:35:40, and Hall took the creek crossing barefoot to keep his shoes dry. Hall quit during loop three after returning to camp without all his pages. King finished loop two in 24:06:38, then dropped after finding only four books. Blanchard dropped mid-loop three because of the cold. Séverine Vandermeulen of Belgium was the only woman to start a second lap.

History

In 2024, five of 40 starters finished, including Jasmin Paris, the first woman to do so. In 2025 there were no finishers, with John Kelly completing the Fun Run. The race keeps its start list secret, so some runner details in reports are best estimates.

Why does nobody finish? Steep climbs and descents, the weather, the reversed course, the earlier timing and Cantrell’s habit of changing the course design all pile up. The Barkley is built so that finishing stays rare.

Sources

• iRunFar: 2026 Barkley Marathons results
• Marathon Handbook: No finishers at the 2026 Barkley Marathons

Updated November 14, 2026.

Photo: Kaibab National Forest (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons