Resolution criteria

This market resolves YES if at least one female finisher completes all five loops of the 2026 Barkley Marathons within the 60-hour time limit. Resolution will be confirmed via official race reporting from Keith Dunn, the official Barkley reporter, or other credible ultrarunning sources covering the event. This market will close once the race starts.

Background

In 2024, Jasmin Paris became the first woman to complete all five loops within the time limit, finishing the event 99 seconds before the 60-hour cut-off. The 2024 race was the first time five entrants completed the course. However, the 2025 Barkley Marathons had no finishers. The 2025 roster included several strong women candidates, but no woman made it as far as loop two.

Since its debut edition, the race has only been completed 26 times by 20 different runners, and it's more common for there to be no finishers at all. The course changes every year; Cantrell modifies it to ensure it remains "at the very horizon of human potential", making it more difficult each time someone finishes.

Considerations

After a record five runners completed the 2024 Barkley Marathons, race organizers made the 2025 version even more difficult, resulting in no finishers. This pattern suggests the course difficulty will likely increase again for 2026, making any finish—let alone a female finish—increasingly unlikely.