But what I learned this year was that I hadn’t yet played the role of the guide-the veteran who’s helping someone out. It seemed like a worthy objective to be the first person to do it three times. So I went back in 2014 and wanted to prove to myself I could do it on my own, including all of the navigation. You’re almost at the mercy of having to follow someone. For anybody’s first time out there, there’s a very pre-defined experience. I’ve actually thought about that a lot lately. But you finished the challenge in 2012, and then came back twice more. The appeal of trying an extreme challenge like Barkley makes sense, and so does going back if you don’t finish at first. He recently took some time to talk about the races he’s done, his training and upcoming goals, and whether Barkley ever gets easier. “I’ve always felt that my body is not built for flat, fast running, and I get injured when I try to focus on it.”Ĭampbell, 36, lives in the Salt Lake City area, where he is a mechanical engineer, husband and father. “I have never been a road runner and didn’t compete in college or high school,” he says. He is also one of under 15 people to have ever finished Nolan’s 14, a sub-60-hour linkup of 14 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado’s Sawatch Range that involves a good deal of off-trail running and navigation.

He is a 10-time finisher (and one-time winner) of the Hardrock 100, a Colorado race with around 34,000 feet of gain and an average elevation above 11,000 feet. It’s fitting that Campbell would be the first to accomplish that feat, as he’s known for completing some of the country’s toughest mountain-running challenges. Only 14 people have completed it since it began in 1986, and Campbell is the race’s only three-time finisher. Barkley, a 100-mile race in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, gains more than 60,000 feet (this year was close to 67,000) over five loops on an unmarked course.

This April, Jared Campbell was the only finisher at the 2016 Barkley Marathons.

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