Ultra Weekend Recap — March 23

The first weekend of spring saw 42 events on the UltraRunning Magazine race calendar, including featured races in Tennessee, Arizona, California, and North Carolina. Let’s blow the conch shell and see what unfolded on the trails.

Barkley Marathons

The 2025 Barkley Marathons showed no mercy earlier this week, with zero runners finishing the iconic race, and only one participant, Barkley veteran John Kelly, completing a “fun run” (three loops in under 40 hours). After a record-breaking five finishers in last year’s event, there was little doubt that Barkley’s mastermind Gary Cantrell, aka, Lazarus “Laz” Lake, would seek revenge and make the 2025 course much more difficult. Those predictions came to fruition on Tuesday, March 18 at 11:37 a.m. EST, an hour after the conch shell was blown signaling the race would soon begin. Out of the roughly 45 runners that set out to complete five 20-plus mile loops around Tennessee’s rugged Frozen Head State Park, it’s believed a mere 10 finished a single loop, and only four runners, Kelly, Maxime Gauduin, Sébastien Raichon, and Tomokazu Ihara, survived two loops. Gauduin, Raichon, and Ihara were all tapped out on loop three, with Kelly making it back to the yellow gate in 39:50:27 to complete his fun run. While there were no finishers this year, Kelly’s performance on what is being called the toughest course in Barkley Marathons history deserves recognition.

Crown King Scramble

Any time you see Courtney Dauwalter’s name on the entrant’s list, you can’t help but get excited. The queen of ultrarunning was back at again it this weekend at the 33rd running of the Crown King Scramble 50k, just outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Dauwalter, as we’ve become so accustomed to seeing, ran a blisteringly fast race (4:19:49) to take second place overall and break the previous women’s course record by nearly 7 minutes. Arden Young placed second in the female contest while running her way to a sixth-place overall finish in 4:47:52. Natalie Nicholson (5:09:41) claimed third and ninth overall. In the men’s race, Eric Blake paced the way to the win in 4:12:09. Bryce Brooks took second (4:24:09), and Joey DeFeo (4:36:36) came in third. Full results here.

Mount Mitchell Heartbreaker

Heading across the country, we travel to Old Fort, North Carolina for the third annual Mount Mitchell Heartbreaker (50-mile and 55k races). Shannon Howell broke the tape first in Saturday’s 50-miler, winning the women’s race and finishing sixth overall in 9:37:15. Howell’s time took nearly 40 minutes off the previous course best time. Grace Clark finished second female and ninth overall in 9:56:06. Tara Jordan (10:27:30) rounded out the podium in third. On the men’s side, Max Simpson earned the victory in 9:06:00. Brandon Bankieris finished second (9:15:31), and Kyle Bergemann (9:21:07) placed third.

In the 55k distance, Brian Atkinson ran an impressive 4:08:18 on a challenging course to take the win and shatter the course record by a whopping 55 minutes. Jim Mccue came in second (4:48:39), and Miller Groome (5:13:53) finished third. Tory Grieves snagged the women’s crown and finished seventh overall in 5:37:22, setting a new female course mark to beat. Erica Zaveta was the second woman to cross the finish line in 5:51:14. Sarah Hansel (6:23:39) came in third and ninth overall. Full results here.

Big Alta

Our final stop takes us to Marinwood, California for the second running of the Big Alta 50k. There were 170 runners who finished the race under the 7-hour cutoff time, paced by Eli Hemming in a blistering fast (new course record) time of 3:19:30. Edward Owens ran to second in 3:26:36, and Remi Leroux (3:28:30) finished just behind in third. Tabor Hemming won the women’s race in 4:04:48, also breaking the previous female course record. Lindsay Allison was second (4:11:02), and Erin Moyer (4:13:00) completed podium in third. Full results here.

Other results from this weekend include: 3 of 7 Project Trail Race (Summerville, GA), Redwood Trail Run (Spring) (Oakland, CA), Blackbeard’s Revenge 100 (Corolla, NC), THE MT TAMMANY 10 (Delaware Water Gap, NJ), Badger Mountain Challenge (Richland, WA), and South Hills Single Track Trail Run – Spring (San Jose, CA).

Congratulations to everyone who raced this weekend and be sure to check out our full list of results from this weekend here.