I have added unofficial split times and some of the Barkley race reports
posted to the Ultra list to http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/ I took some
pictures on the course but they won't get posted until next week.

This was my 9'th DNF in 9 tries. I made 2 20-mile loops in 28:37, about 2
hours over the cutoff. I have missed the 26:40 cutoff 5 times now. In the
other 4 tries I wimped out and quit during the second loop.

We had ideal weather, sunny and dry, 30's to 50's with a full moon. I wore
shorts for the whole race except about 3 hours in the coldest part of the
night. There are about 100 cuts on my legs from sawbriers. I used a 2
bottle hip pack getting most of my water from streams (untreated) and eating
mostly chocolate covered peanuts and a little bit of meat. For the night
loop I started with 2 bottles of Mt. Dew which had enough caffeine that I
never got sleepy during the race and enough sugar that I didn't need any
solid food until sunrise. I really didn't have any stomach problems.

I wore Walsh PB trainers, the same kind of British fell running shoes that
Mark Williams wore when he was the first 100 mile finisher in 1995.
(Unfortunately I don't have his legs). The shoes work great in mud. They
do not slip at all. I could walk down 45 degree slopes like Leonard's butt
slide. I did get some blisters on the second loop, probably because I ran
without socks and because my longest run in these shoes prior to Barkley was
2 miles. My feet are also swollen now. I took ibuprofin during the second
loop to dull the blister pain but I never really hurt anywhere else,
although my legs were stiff afterwards. I guess I wasn't pushing hard
enough to make the cutoff, but I thought I was going as hard as I reasonably
could. I did the night loop with Joe Kowalski and I was struggling to keep
up with him.

It is hard to describe just how difficult this course is even under ideal
conditions. It took me 6 hours longer to run 40 miles than it took to run
the Ancient Oaks 100 last December. We were extremely fortunate with the
weather. Normally we have rain, sleet, and snow. The last time it didn't
rain during the race was in 1995.

-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@...