Barkley Part 2

The Race Itself

Jeff, Tiffany, and I got organized at our Airbnb, then headed into Frozen Head. We were there in plenty of time and had a few hours to wander and meet other runners and crew before the lineup began. I clutched my North Carolina license plate tightly. I was listed as being from Montana, but if someone asks my home state, I would say NC. Would they take this plate? Or demand a Montana plate I didn’t have?

They took the plate! Carl handed me my info packet and I slipped over to the master map to start creating my own. This took hours. With just one tiny map and 40 runners, there was a huge crowd for awhile. I read the course instructions and did my best, finally feeling like I had a solid map effort. I talked it over with a few other runners and crew people, who gave some feedback and I made small adjustments.

Getting some intel

As confident as I could be, I transferred all my notes, bearings, and course lines, onto a cleaner map and sealed it with tape. The sun had set and Tiffany warmed up calzones for the three of us. We ate as we finalized gear checks, and then I was off to bed. Knowing it was ok if I didn’t sleep well, I laid still and listened to some podcasts, trying to relax. I was honestly surprised how scared I felt. I had my map now, I was here, I was as ready as I could be. Finally, I got a few hours of sleep, then woke up around 3am when someone unlocked our van doors. I bolted up right, ready to jump into action. But nothing happened. Tiffany didn’t appear to wake me up. (She was tasked with sitting up all night waiting for the conch.)

Tiffany, top notch crew!

After a few more hours of tossing and turning, I fell asleep again around 4am. I didn’t hear anything until 5:01 when Tiffany opened the door. “It’s time.” She said.

Here. We. Go. Following my 1 Hour Breakdown, I ticked off each item. Getting my watch, I joked about being the first runner to compete in crocs, as I had worn those up to the shelter. The group laughed and I said, “I can’t control much, but I can control having a good time. Thanks everyone!” As I walked back to the car I heard one person say, “some people are just too cheerful in the morning.” Yep! With Patrick I had listed 3 values I wanted to embody in this event: tenacious, whimsical, and authentic. I was certainly being authentically whimsical that morning.

Jeff had told me that no matter what I needed to stick with the lead group through the first book. Even if you are red lining and think you are going to pass out, you HAVE to stick with the leaders. Got it.

Beginning counterclockwise for the first time ever, I raced down the road, smashed across an off trail section, and busted up Chimney Top. Despite not really being my plan, I happened to settle in right behind Jeff! I was hanging on to the lead pack! He looked over his shoulder and told me “Happy Valentines Day, this is pretty special huh?” I agreed, smiling. He asked if I was ready to be fearless and I said yes. We hit the turn off and suddenly everyone was barreling downhill, off trail, falling, sliding, and tumbling towards book 15 (aka book 1). I kept up and arrived just after Jeff. He looked up and told me, “Good job!” before taking off.

A Valentine for the ages

I snagged my page amongst a hyena like hoard, calling “Wait! That’s my page, can I grab it?” 77 was written in black sharpie at the bottom.

I almost didn’t believe it when Carl handed me that bib. 77 has been my lucky number since I was 12…I even told him so and he said lots of people had been saying that. Perhaps it’s true, but I wasn’t joking. I was thrilled!

77 tucked into my pack, I began to eat a Luna bar and start the next climb.

Advice for future runners, it will take so much effort to keep with the leaders, and so much effort in general to eat, have something very easy and accessible for the first few hours. Jeff had M&Ms in his pocket, I wish I had down something similar. I got down one gel on the climb, but I had burned way more.

The bar perked me up on the climb, the leaders were still in sight as they crested the hill. When I got to the top, I looked over to see if I could tell which way they went. Not a chance, they were long gone. So I began to hunt for the book. 20 seconds after I decided I needed to be 5 feet further right, a person popped out holding the book. “Here you go.” “Wow, thanks!” I said.

“You took that climb well, want to work together?” He asked. “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Is it your first time?”

“Yes, but I did the fall classic” CJ answered.

Good enough for me. We headed down towards prison, being joined by another runner, Cesar from Brazil. We grabbed that book easily and began the famous climb up Rat Jaw.

When the tower came into sight, I was beaming. I was having a blast! The weather was gorgeous, I hung with the leaders up top, I had 3 pages already, and now I could see the famous tower. “Is everyone having fun?” I called out to the waiting photographers and crew. Whimsical. Authentic. Tenaciously climbing hard. I was truly having so much fun!!

Smiling up Rat Jaw like, “It’s an honor to be nominated” Photo by Jacob Zocherman

We filled our water and dashed off together: CJ, Cesar, and myself. I found our next book — an amazing feeling!!— before we headed down to the river. Then, Barkley struck. We were very close to where we needed to be, but not right on it. I pulled out the instructions. Ugh, everything I was seeing matched 90% of the clues, but not 100%. We walked back and forth. I took advantage of the slow moment to eat another bar and get 300 calories in, silently applauding myself for being efficient.

“Ahoy!” CJ and I looked up, a man in an orange bucket hat stood above us. “Have you found the book?” “No.”

Then another man appeared, I recognized him from the morning. How had we gotten ahead? Then, a blonde woman popped up too. We all began to hunt for the book together.

Finally, “I got it!” The Irish accent of Emma filled the air and we sprinted toward her. Standing at the book were two other runners. We all got our pages, chose the next ridgeline to climb, and headed uphill. I stuck by CJ and Cesar, doing my best to hike hard and keep pushing strongly. I hadn’t checked my watch, but CJ informed me we’d lost 42 minutes looking for the book. I told him it wasn’t the worst I had heard (Jeff said he once spend 2.5 hours there). We kept going.

Iain (orange hat) and Stephen (blue shirt) climbed well, so did Emma, I didn’t want to get dropped by the new group, so I kept tabs on their location and matched pace as best I could. I confess to feeling competitive at this point. I wanted to keep my strong climber reputation dubbed to me by CJ. And I wanted to keep our group out front.

I also confess to correcting Stephen (I think) at one point when he began talking about some jeep roads, “No.” I said, “That’s the next book.”

“No” he replied calmly “there are jeep roads here too.” And he pulled out a map to show me. “Oh, ok, great!” I was happy to learn he had been in Barkley in 2023.

From here I learned that Stephen had also done a loop a few years ago, as had Matt and Dawn (who were at the book when Emma found it). As we continued on, despite honestly trying to keep the pace high and perhaps lose some of the other runners, they kept catching up—or climbed faster than me. By the time we got to the 8th book, at one of the furthest points on the course, we were all pretty much in one massive group. I glanced at someone’s watch as we passed the book around and saw that 7:35 had elapsed. Halfway through, and even if we even split, we would be at 15 hours. I hadn’t slowed down, I hadn’t wasted unnecessary time to search for books or confirm routes, and still, I wouldn’t make it in by 13:20.

I didn’t say anything, and kept on, going as hard as possible in the terrain. We didn’t want to lose time making wrong turns, so the time spent confirming turns and ridges made sense.

Barkley is really a game of choices: more time spent checking nav means slower overall speed, but faster nav can mean costly mistakes. More time working on climbing in training meant I may have been fast enough to get ahead of this group, but then I’d be navigating on my own, which I wouldn’t have felt as comfortable with. Carrying less water means less weight and easier climbing, but more time filling water. Everything is a trade off.

In the end, I think we were stronger as a group. Navigating down high walls is easier when you have the ability to fan out in multiple directions to find the best way down, the same with finding books. Our paces were naturally in sync, with some leading climbs or descents, and always a mix of who found the books. We were’t 7 people following a leader, but 8 people forming a team.

Only once did we split, when there was a polite disagreement on the proper way down to a book. I went with Iain, Stephen, and CJ, while Emma, Matt, Dawn and Cesar went another. Again, in the end, while our group came out right by the book, Matt (a veteran) brought his crew down stream to us within 30 seconds of us finding is. A game of choices and both could be right (or neither).

While I knew we were pretty much beyond hope of starting a second loop hours prior, I think it was around then that the rest of the group realized this fact too. We agreed to finish together, no point in dropping anyone now. We had left Iain when he took longer to fill water than we realized and Dawn had joked, “No man left behind!” Now it was real. There was just no reason to split up.

Though we did accidentally drop Cesar, who had been gamely keeping up despite having no poles! He began to pick up sturdy sticks and use them as best he could on the climbs. A real challenge and a testament to his fitness!

As darkness fell and some rain drops began to fall, I stopped on a “candy ass” trail section to put on my raincoat. I didn’t want a repeat of Cocodona hypothermia on my hands and I knew we still had a few hours before we would get back to camp. I raced down the descent as fast as I could and regained the group as everyone was tearing pages. CJ was number 79, so he and I had been trading off pulling pages for the other to save time. We split again slightly on the next climb, in the same groups as before. And again, both of us were pretty much on point to hit the ridge where we wanted.

Headlamps came on and we searched for the right ridge to descend. I had become the go to person for course instructions/descriptions, and was just reading them again to point out a book should be nearby, when Iain appeared holding it. We all cheered our luck and continued down.

The next book was where we lost time again, searching for signs, and then missing it completely until I re-read the instructions and we adjusted where we were looking. A final climb, a final drop, a final book.

Emma found the last one and we all sat for a moment as we collected our final pages. We thanked each other for sharing the day, successfully finding all the books, and completing the loop as best we could. I had begun to think of Iain and Stephen as the dads of the group, whether intentional or not, becoming sweeps and keeping tabs on all members. Matt had taken up the rear after leading several sections. I found out later that, like Jeff, he had fallen and injured a rib.

We were all falling all the time.

Another note on Barkley: It feels like a battle just to stay upright! Climbing, the pitch is so steep your feel as though you might fall backward and tumble downhill. Going downhill, the briars, sticks, and down trees trip you so you might faceplant, or the leaves slip out from under you sending you sliding down on your butt. (A few times I did this on purpose for the fun of it!) Grabbing onto trees to arrest your descent or help your climb was risky, many times they simply snapped in half, dead.

In any case, final page in hand, we ran down, turned right, and hit the OG yellow gate, not in use this year due to construction. We counted to 3 and slapped on our hands on it, celebrating. We continued to run down, crossed the stream, and climbed up to the current yellow gate. Iain or Stephen called out to wait for the others, which was a kind reminder I was letting my completive side out. We were a team. I waited until we had everyone, then we counted to 3 and slapped the finish gate.

I believe we are the largest group to finish together, and the fact that we were together for nearly 12 hours is also incredible. We were, I think, stronger and faster together than we would have been in smaller teams. We supported each other, taking the lead at different points, or confirming bearings, bouncing ideas of each other and confirming before we committed to big climbs or descents.

Taps played 8 times in a row as we each got a moment to say goodbye to the loop and race for that year.

Taps for me

Competing in the Barkley was a dream come true and I am so proud of how we did. The climbs feel endless, but they do end. The descents feel bottomless, but they bottom out. I can confirm this event is the hardest course you will ever experience. There is almost nothing flat or runnable. You are fighting uphill, I often was crawling on hands and knees towards the end, the leaves and ground too slick to hold my footing. You are risking everything going downhill, the leaves hiding tripwires of barbs and rocks.

This event is not for the faint of heart. It requires an all consuming focus and dedication to feel one quarter prepared on race day. You have to divide your time between training and learning and research and there is only so much time to prepare. Whatever you don’t devote time too will haunt you. Could I have climbed faster? Could I have practiced eating better or used a different nutrition plan? But then would I have been lost in the woods, alone between two groups? I’ll never know.

What I do know is I how lucky I am—77!—to have had a gorgeous day, with the rain really only starting about 30 min from the end, a great start time, and amazing group to be running with.

After I was tapped out, and saw Jeff hadn’t made it either, I ate a little, and went to sleep. The rest of the weekend was an incredible blur of meeting new friends, debriefing the race with the “Over time eight” (or Elite Eight) and trying my best to eat enough to make up for what I had lost.

The 8

I am really proud of the way I prepared, the way I handled the climbs, my (almost) fearless descents (there is one section that is basically a rappel from a vine, I kept having visions of the vine ripping out of the cliff with me still clinging to it, not great). To be able to share it with Jeff, and Tiffany, and now so many more friends was awesome.

The Barkley is special for many reasons, but perhaps the people and community it creates is the most important reason of all. I am honored to now be listed among the names of Barkley failures.

PS thank you to:

Coach Chris, Mental Coach Patrick, Nav Coach Wyatt, Nav Companion Benjamin, Crew Queen Tiffany, RD Carl, New Friends and Hot Shower providers Meredith, Paul, and Britt, The 8: Iain, Stephen, Dawn, Matt, Cesar, Emma, and CJ

And especially Jeff, without whom this would not have been possible <3