How is the wildest race in the World? Only 15 athletes have been able to finish it in 33 editions. The Barkley Marathon

It is the cruelest race in the world. It's about the Barkley Marathon, an extreme test that takes place every year and in which 40 athletes participate: without any help, they must go 160 kilometers in a limit of 60 hours completing 18.200 cumulative elevation meters

Only 15 people have finished it in 33 editions, and to participate you have to contact Gary Cantrell, who does not have a telephone or email.

Only has only 35-40 Slots available every year, which are chosen by lottery, due to the high demand for the test. The organizers recommend that a kind of rehearsal be done for registration, explaining 'Why should I allow myself to run the Barkley'

The race begins when the creator of this test, Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell, lights up a cigar, which already highlights the strange and "geek" of this race, the 'Barkley Marathon, cataloged as the cruelest in the world.

The participants must complete, without GPS no technological orientation, 160 kilometers in less than 60 hours with an accumulated unevenness of 18.200 meters, translated, is to climb 2 times to Everest.

The runners who participate in it, go through the escape of the murderer of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1977 , James Earl Ray from the nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.

Ray covered just 8 miles (13 km) after running 55 hours in the woods. Cantrell told himself, “I could do at least 100 miles,” mocking Ray's low mileage. Thus the Barkley Marathon was born. Disputing its first edition in 1986.

The race does not only consist of running, since you also have to go looking for books along the way, where each participant has to tear off the page with the bib number, in order to continue in each control. It is the Tennessee farmer who checks them, changes their bib number and allows them to feed.

Participants who do not finish the test, they touchThe hymn of the fallen. Karel Sabbe, a Belgian dentist, was the last to leave this edition of the 2019.

Only 15 people have completed the five stages of the race in 60 hours. The best athlete in the test has been Jared Campbell who managed to finish the test in the years 2012, 2014 and 2016.

The last one to finish the test was John Kelly in 2017 with a time of 59:30:54. You can check the finisher list on their website  http://barkleymarathons.com/

Finishers Listing