Runners

EDITOR’S NOTE:This year marked the 32nd annual Barkley Marathons, theUSA’s most notoriously brutal running race; and the 2018 ultramarathon was quintessential – rain, sleet, and snow poundedparticipants as temperatures hovered in the low single figuresCelcius, a dense fog permeated the peaks and valleys of theunmarked course, and 40km/h winds whipped through theshelter-less Tennessee back country. No runner finished therace – or even came close.To understand how anyone could possibly conquer this160km-plus gauntlet, it’s best to f lash back one year to thee a runner completed the prescribedis body, bruised and beaten, back to.``````and are crazy enough to return need only bring a packof Camel cigarettes.The race can begin any time between midnight andnoon on the closest Saturday to April Fools’ Day, alwaysexactly one hour after a conch is blown. Runners are notgiven a map of the course, which is unmarked, until theafternoon before. Then they must rely on compasses andthe race’s obscure official directions. GPS is forbidden.Runners must locate 13 books – largely chosen withan eye for dark comedy, e.g. Unravelled, Lost and Found,and There Is Nothing Wrong With You: Going BeyondSelf-Hate – in each course loop, and tear out a pagecorresponding to their race number. After each loop,runners’ pages are counted, and each is given a newnumber. There are no aid stations, just two unmannedwater drops that are often frozen solid. Those unableto finish are serenaded by the Barkley’s official buglerplaying a discordant rendition of ‘Taps’.All runners must sign a disclaimer that reads: ‘If Iam stupid enough to attempt the Barkley, I deserve tobe held responsible for any result of that attempt, be itfinancial, physical, mental, or anything else.’“The runners come for something they could failat,” says the man behind it all, Lazarus Lake, or Laz forshort. “And the less likely it is that they can do it, themore attracted they are to it.”The event was indirectly inspired by James Earl Ray,Martin Luther King’s assassin, who escaped from nearbyBrushy Mountain State Penitentiary in 1977. When hewas recaptured 56 hours later, Ray had gone barely 13km.At the time, Laz thought he could have made it at least160. (Wrongly, it turns out, as he’s never managed morethan two loops of the course himself.) Named after Laz’sfriend Barry Barkley, the first event was held in 1986.Thirteen people participated. No-one finished. Thenext year Laz made the course harder. No-one finished.And so on until 1995, when Mark Williams of the UK,fuelled by tea and cheese sandwiches, completed thefive loops in 59:28.It’s now check-in time at the Frozen Head campsite.“Tomorrow I’ll be calling you an evil man,” says one runner.“If that’s all I’m called,” says Laz, “it’ll all have beena failure.”The master map is revealed, taped to a picnic table.Runners crowd around, copying sections of the course- Rat Jaw, Gnarly Mouth, Leonard’s Butt Slide, FoolishStu, Bad Thing, Hillpocalypse – onto their maps. Theycan also consult Laz’s printed directions: ‘Look for aweird rock at a conf luence of two streams, cross overthat, turn left, and go down a hillside. If it looks toosteep, that’s the right one.’ Completing three of the five loops is known as a ‘FunRun’. For some runners, especially those in the last twoloops of the race, exhaustion can detach them fromreality. In 2005, a runner on loop five became convincedthat there were houses on top of one of the mountains,and that he had been sent to collect the garbage. Laz likes to say that to finish the Barkley, you justhave to average 3.2km/h for 60 hours. How hard canthat be? A few minutes walking the course gives you→If a racerdoes notfinish eachof the five32km loopsin under12 hours,they’re ruleda DNF, anda buglersounds out‘Taps’.``````A man is begging on the side of a Tennessee mountain.He’s crumpled on the ground, soaking wet andbreathing hard. His wife weeps as she huddles over him,her hands resting softly on his arm. Above them standsa bearded figure in a wide-brimmed hat.“I got all my pages!” pleads the man on the ground.His voice is shrill, hysterical. “I dropped down the wrongside of the mountain in the fog. I had to swim a river.”He gasps for air. “I got all my pages!” A small group ofonlookers looks from the broken man on the ground tothe inscrutable face of the bearded figure looming overhim. “He got all his pages,” repeats a voice in the crowd.“He got all his pages.”There are marathons, there are ultra marathons;and then there is the Barkley Marathons. Officially, itconsists of five loops through Frozen Head State Parkin Tennessee, totalling 160km, though most participantsbelieve it’s closer to 210. Runners must ascend anddescend more than 36 000m of elevation – almost theequivalent of climbing up and down Mount Everest.Twice. And all within 60 hours. Of the more than 1 000entrants up to 2016, only 14 finished.It costs $1.60 (currently, just over R20) to enter. Anapplication must be sent to a closely guarded email addressat precisely the right minute on precisely the right day, andmust include an essay titled ‘Why I Should Be Allowedto Run in the Barkley’.You must then complete a written exam that asks,for instance, ‘Explain the excess positrons in the f luxof cosmic rays’, and ‘How much butter should you useto cook half a kilo of liver (with onions)?’ New runnersmust bring a licence plate from their state or country.Returnees who did not finish must bring a specified itemof clothing – one year it was a f lannel shirt; another, itwas white socks. The few who have finished the course56 RUNNER’S WORLD JULY 2018