The Barkley Marathons are notorious amongst ultra runners due to its ongoing mythical reputation and its challenging route, which only 17 people have completed. The race occurs in America, specifically in rural Tennessee in the Frozen Head State Park near Wartburg.
But do you know about the race in the UK, which has drawn inspiration from the gruelling race?
Paul Breen met the founder of the Barkley Marathon, Gary Cantrell (AKA Lazarus Lake), at the National Running Show in 2020. Once he pointed out that he was from Berkeley in Gloucestershire, the idea for a new race was conceived.
“Everyone at the show wanted to see Cantrell,” Breen said. “As we were leaving, however, I saw him with one of the ambassadors with nobody around him, so I just went and spoke to him.
“He was such a nice guy, and I was talking to him about different runs, and I made a throwaway comment about Berkeley, and he just stopped the conversation.
“I explained it was spelt slightly differently but is pronounced the same, and he just said you have got to set up a race there.”
Laz set Breen two rules for if he did set up the race.
- make it accessible to all runners and;
- make it virtually impossible.
Over the next couple of years, Breen, with the help of his partner, began to formulate a plan to make the Berkeley Marathons UK a reality.
“The route came about when I was tagged in a post with John Kelly, one of the runners to have completed to Barkley Marathons,” he said. “I messaged him the route, and he said he knew the area well as he lived ten minutes down the road, and he thought it was a great idea.”
Due to the location of the Berkeley Marathons UK being in the Cotswold’s, it doesn’t have the same level of elevation as the race in Tennessee. Therefore Breen and his team had to try and combat this: reducing the cut-off time of the 130-mile race to 24 hours.
The route consists of five laps of a marathon-length loop. to complete it, you need to run a four-hour, 48-minute marathon each time.
“We are still very accessible, however,” Breen said. “A lot of marathons will cut the time off at six hours, but we had this one guy Jerry, who had a dream of running a marathon again but could not do it in the usual cut-off time due to an accident a few years prior.
“But since we have a 24-hour cut-off, he came and just did one loop and so had achieved his goal.”
Breen still stands by that it is not his race and that he only facilitates it as it was all Cantrell’s idea. “It’s the runner’s race,” he continued.
“I want as much feedback as possible, so if there are bad things, I want to know and the same for the good things, then we can adapt and make it the best race possible.”
One of the features of the race is that they take Polaroids of each runner at the start, hang them up, and when they drop out of the race, they cross them out.
Breen also has a Berkeley Marathons UK bell for the race, so runners ring it when they elect to leave the race, and anybody who completes the race, gets their name engraved on the bell…”No names on the bell yet,” Breen chuckled.
Another positive of the race is that it is 100% for charity; not a single person makes a single pound from it, and Breen has said that people have signed up due to this reason.
Breen has also said he expects some negative backlash from the race but takes it in his stride: “I totally expected it as well,” he said.
“The whole aim of the race is to raise money for charity and make people smile,” Breen explained.
“I got into the sport after leaving the Army and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from adjusting back into real life.
“I got to 19 stone; I was very depressed. I went on to a top of a hill and thought I could end it or move forward, and that was a poignant moment for me. I wanted to make people smile by doing the simplest things, and that made me feel better.”
Breen then got back into his fitness and started running, and the benefits it had on his mental health were phenomenal. The race is absolutely gruelling, so to make people smile, he adds different things to the race.
For part of the entry fee last year, Breen made runners bring a boiled sweet and a birthday card for his mother because he had accidentally organised the race for the day of his mother’s birthday.
“It’s a sweet memory” he exclaimed.
Charities like the British Heart Foundation have received the money raised in the past; however for future editions, the Berkeley Marathons UK will support small charities like Jades Bag, who help those escape domestic abuse.
They are also partnering with JogOn which aims to save trainers from landfill and give those less fortunate access to running trainers. The on the day entry fee this year will be a pair of trainers and a foodbank item
“If we can fill the race this year, we will hopefully raise £3000 .” This year’s race takes place the weekend of the 1st of September, and it promises to be a fantastic occasion that will raise loads of money for a lovely charity.