The Barkley Marathons, the famed adventure race in the Cumberland Range of Tennessee that’s more a test of will than standard ultramarathon, did what it does best last weekend: crush participants’ bodies over 60,000 feet of elevation gain and push runners to their limit.

Forty participants, all selected in notoriously secret fashion, started the race Saturday morning for the 30th running of the event. Only one person finished all five loops and its 100-plus miles—Jared Campbell, an endurance athlete based near Salt Lake City, Utah. Campbell, 36, also is the only person to complete the Barkley three times.

Campbell finished the five loops in about 59 hours and 30 minutes Monday night, just under the 60-hour cutoff. He bested Barkley first-timer Gary Robbins, himself an accomplished ultrarunner from North Vancouver, British Columbia. Robbins, 39, started the fifth loop but had difficulty navigating on little sleep in the dense backcountry of Frozen Head State Park.

RELATED: See photos from the Barkley Marathons

“I really couldn’t go downhill the last 20 hours,” Campbell said at a yellow gate that acts as the finish line at the park’s Big Cove Campground. “It’s really interesting how you can adapt and figure out creative ways with [walking poles] to sort of augment faulty legs.”

Eight women were selected for this year’s field, and four completed one loop. Jennilyn Eaton, a mountain runner from Salt Lake City, covered the most ground by finishing two loops. She started a third loop, but returned to the yellow gate after deciding that the nighttime loop would have taken longer than the time limit.

Eaton, 29, was the only woman among seven runners—male or female—who could even attempt a third loop. “I have a lot of pride in the fact that one woman out of seven people finished two loops,” Eaton said. She was attempting to be the first woman ever to finish the Barkley.

Very few runners have completed the race—just 14 since the race started in 1986. In 2015, nobody finished.

The Barkley has been run largely under the radar. There's no official web site with information. Would-be runners have to figure out how to get in touch with Race Director Gary Cantrell to submit an application. But reports over the years—including this article in Runner’s World and a 2014 documentary—have brought attention to the event.

Runners must complete five loops around Frozen Head State Park, full of punishing ascents and descents that go on and off the trails. A loop is at least 20 miles, though competitors say it's several more miles than that.

Each loop must be done in 12 hours, unless you’re attempting the “Fun Run”—that’s three loops with a time limit of 13 hours, 20 minutes for each loop (40 hours total). Eaton, for example, only had 10 minutes to restock and swap gear after loop two before continuing on for an attempt at the Fun Run.

There are no aid stations or markers; racers must follow a map provided the night before the race to reach books placed on the course, tearing out pages that correspond to their bib number to prove they followed some kind of accurate route.

All of this madness was conceived by Cantrell, or Lazarus Lake, as he is known. Cantrell verbally jabs competitors for trying to do the race. He also takes pleasure in changing the wickedly difficult course almost yearly—and challenging competitors as they navigate the park.

“My favorite part is seeing people accomplish great things,” Cantrell said Monday morning. “The allowance for mistakes is almost nothing. You can make a tiny mistake and make up for it. But mostly if you screw up something, you’re dead out there on the course.”

Another quirk is nobody but Cantrell knows when the race will start. Anytime between 11 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday, Cantrell can decide to blow a conch shell to the racers staying at the Frozen Head campground. Runners then have an hour to get ready for the start. The first two loops—if completed—are run in one direction and reversed on loops three and four. Whoever is first heading out for loop five can choose which direction he or she will go.

Cantrell sounded the alarm at 9:43 a.m. on Saturday when it was a cool 50 degrees with a slight breeze. Such conditions often lead to PRs in road races, but that wasn’t the case at Barkley.

“It definitely lived up to expectations—and then some,” said first-time competitor Starchy Grant, from Oakland, California. Grant managed to find each book on loop one, but missed the 12-hour cutoff after going off course. “I would come back in a heartbeat to try again.”

Of the 40 runners who started, 25 went out for a second loop. But only three runners—Campbell, Robbins, and second-timer John Kelly—made it through four loops. A group of three runners missed the cutoff for a Fun Run disctinction by about two hours.

As is tradition, each person who drops out is given a ceremonial playing of “Taps.” The only person not to receive the honor was Campbell, who said this was likely his last competitive Barkley. He completed the race in 2012 as a newbie following veteran Brett Maune (the only other person to finish more than once), then in 2014 by going solo, and finally as a teacher to Robbins in his first attempt by running with Robbins for the first four loops, before the race really started.

“I’m excited to come back here and help folks in the future,” Campbell said. “It was fun to flip the switch and give back.”

Brian Dalek Director of Content Operations, Runner’s World & Bicycling Brian has spent the last 10 years focused on creating compelling news, health, and fitness content—with a particular interest on enthusiast activities like running and cycling.

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