Les Finisseurs

by Alexis Berg, Aurélien Delfosse

At the Barkleys, success is about overreaching our abilities, and living to tell about it. Sometimes success is getting your ass out alive.

Lazarus Lake, founder of the Barkley Marathons

Genres: Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Raelene · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this wasn’t a full 5/5 for me, I think it’s a stunning book that fans of the Barkley Marathons should pick up and read over time. It’s a beautiful coffee table book and I think would be a good book to read in sections.

Where it lost me a bit is that I didn’t care for the order. I believe the interviews with finishers were organized based on when the authors conducted the interviews, which seemed very random. It didn’t follow the order of when they each won, which probably would have been my preference. There also were other topics and photos sprinkled in. Sometimes there would be multiple interviews in a row, other times the more would be the extra inclusions.

Some things I thought were interesting: while many work in similar fields and had similar thoughts about why, there were quite a variety of opinions about women and the Barkley. Also multiple said that the 4th loop was the hardest, which surprised me.

The photographs in this book are stunning, and while I do understand why photos not taken by Alexis Berg weren’t included, there were multiple mentions of photographs of the finishers touching the yellow gate and those would have been really nice to see.

I love the 2012 documentary and while I have watched other documentaries about the Barkley, that one and the finishers from that race stood out the most to me.

[Chris van Dijk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for trail/ultra. Fun deep dive into the small group of Barkley finishers. Hoping for a second edition to include last year’s amazing finish by Jasmin Paris and others.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book, a fascinating race history well recorded.

[Fangxing Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book that interviewed most finishers of Barkley marathon, a quirky ultramarathon in Tennesse with less than 20 finishers out of ~40 years of running. I learned about the Barkley marathon through the documentary "Barkley Marathon | a race that eats its young," probably one of the best documentaries I've watched. I like the weirdness of the race and felt in awe at the extreme of human endurance and resilience. I was really curious about what kind of human beings could run/hike 60 hours not on a trail, gain 50,000 ft of elevation and collect book pages along the way. This book fulfilled my curiosity by showcasing each finisher's unique story with their own words. The questions were really thoughtful and unsurprisingly, each finisher had some good stories and perspectives to tell. This book combines two of my favorite genres, endurance sports and memoirs. If anyone in SF wants to read it, let me know!

[SarahC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Bought this after crewing a runner in 2022. The runners that are selected to attempt this feat are amazing individuals; the ones that finish seem almost superhuman. This book shows their humanity. The presentation is unique and the photographs help give the reader a tiny hint of what it might be like to be Out There at FHSP.

[Shelli Lundgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the most riveting book I read this year, the internal workings of the people who have achieved this feat fascinate me to no end. Highly thought provoking with beautiful style and photography.

[Johnny De Berggeit · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a timing; read this while the Barkley was taken place. Really enjoyed ¨to have a look inside the brains¨ of these kind of man. What it takes to succeed.
Beautiful pictures as well

[Michiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stories from an extraordinary race ❤️

[Arda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heel mooi boek met inspirerende verhalen.