Solely 5 runners stay on the course after a wet night time on the 2022 Barkley Marathons in Tennessee. The reigning UTMB champion, Courtney Dauwalter, and 2021 Massive Canine’s Yard Extremely winner, Harvey Lewis, had been among the many 12 runners who dropped out of the race on loop two.
The remaining runners who began loop two had been greeted with regular rainfall by way of the night time, which offered powerful and slippery situations on the 20-plus mile loop.
Additionally amongst those that dropped was Guillaume Calmettes of France, who needed to drop as a result of the wind blew certainly one of his ebook pages away, in accordance with a tweet by Keith Dunn. Barkley Marathon guidelines require runners to complete every loop with all of their ebook pages.
Karel Sabbe and 2017 finisher John Kelly are main the race and presently working collectively on loop three.
Thomas Dunkerbeck of the Netherlands (a Barkley virgin), Greig Hamilton of New Zealand and 2019 Backbone Race winner Jasmin Paris are additionally among the many 5 runners left, out on their third loop.
There are roughly 40 starters yearly. They’ve 60 hours to complete 5 20-mile loops by way of steep and unforgiving terrain in Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park whereas utilizing their orienteering abilities to navigate the course, which isn’t marked. GPS watches aren’t allowed; every runner is issued a Casio watch with little or no performance past maintaining them apprised of how a lot time has handed. Runners should additionally accumulate particular pages (equivalent to their bib quantity) from books hidden on the course; lacking pages imply computerized disqualification. (Runners obtain a brand new bib at first of every loop.)
