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The Barkley Marathons · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: should know. And we are giving up right out of
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: the gate on our episode about the Barkley Marathon.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: That's right, our friend Chad. We want to shout out
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: our friend Chad Crowley, who we talked about before, who
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: was the producer and director and showrunner of our TV
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: show back in the day. I got this idea from
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Chad because we had coffee over the holidays and he
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is running ultra marathons now, wow, which is a very
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Chad thing to do. Like he starts running a handful
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of years ago and then now is running ultras. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I was like, Chad, how long is that? And he
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: said sixty miles generally, And I said, could you run
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to Athens? He said how far is Athens? And said
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I can't remember how far? I said, like eighty miles.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: He said I could run one hundred miles.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Wow, But he'd need a ride back.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Are you kiddy? He said it might take a while,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: but I could probably run one hundred miles. And I'm
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: just like floored by this idea that people can do this,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and he said, he said, man, you should do a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: guys should do an episode on the Barkley Marathons, which
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I had heard of before. Oh really, which is this, Yeah,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: which is this ultra marathon plus a trail run plus
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: in the mountains of northeastern Tennessee that is known for
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: just being a crazy race, a crazy hard race, and
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: having a really unusual origin story and unusual founder and
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: just how it's all done. It's just this remarkable story.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And I agree.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a really great documentary from twenty seventeen called
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the Barkley Marathon colon the Race that Eats It's Young,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: which is a nickname for that race. And there's a
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: few people in there who are seasoned trail runners, ultrathonors,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: like people who know their stuff and have done crazy
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: things as far as running goes, who are like, this
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: is far and away the hardest race on the planet, Like,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: there's nobody who's doing anything like this, And if you
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: think you know what you're doing, you're going to be
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: completely amazed at how far off you are in what
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you thought this is going to be, Like, it's that hard.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got a chance to watch it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good. And there was a guy who
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: was a Special Operations like I guess a former a
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Special Ops soldier who was like, I've done crazy stuff
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: with my body and this like that did nothing to
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: prepare me for this.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really well done. It's on YouTube, and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I recommend watching it because it really there's a lot
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: of drama that takes place. The year that they did
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the documentary. I think they did it on twenty twelve
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: or twenty thirteen maybe, oh was it and it came
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: out in seventeen, you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Said, okay, so yeah, I was confused at what year
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I think it was twenty twelve or twenty thirteen, and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: it was. There's a lot of good drama. So we
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: don't want to spoil some of the stories that happened,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: but uh, I recommend watching. And here we go with
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Barkley Marathons.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Oh okay. So the whole thing about Barkley marathons is
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that you can trace them back. I mean you could
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: start at the very beginning. We talked about in our
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: what was the one crazy marathon episode we did not
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: too long ago.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: It's on marathons.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: No, it was on a specific marathon, and I think
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. We did want of marathons years ago.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: No, remember the guy who was running the Human Zoos
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: at the World's Fair came up with like a he
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: called it the Special Olympics Marathon. This was months ago.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Man, Hey, you can't remember it either, buddy, all right,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: why can't you remember it existed? At least?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yes? Anyway, Oh, get this. Apparently we did an entire
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: short stuff on Sad's rings and didn't mention it because
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I have no recollection of doing a short stuff on
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Saturn's rings. Do you?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: You do remember we did a saddern episode that came
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: out like a few days back.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I'm so mad at you right now, don't you. We're
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: still getting emails on that one. So yes, I do. Okay,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: all right, cool, What LA marathon are you talking about?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: It might not be La, but it was. It was
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: like just you remember like that one Italian guy I
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: think he was running in like oh oh oh, he'd
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: stop and eat people's fruit and yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: And there were the two guys from Africa who.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Are remember that now?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah? It was I can't remember where it was or
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: what the name was, what it was?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh boy, people are just screaming at their pod player.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: The sad thing is the whole reason I brought that up, Chuck,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: was to say that we went over a lot of
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: the origins of marathons in that episode, so we don't
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: need to do that in this episode. That we just
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: did all that and.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Our Marathons episode. Yeah, anyway, let's not even do that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: The marathon has been a long a long time. Ultra
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Marathon started in the nineteen seventies, and that's what we're
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: really talking about. And this guy Gary Kintrell, aka Lazarus
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Lake or laz he's in his seventies now is he
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: is the creator, along with his friend, of the Barkley Marathon,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: whom he named after his friend, a farmer named Barry Barkley.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: In the documentary, very sweetly, over the end credits, they
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: ask him with Barry why he named it after Barry,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and he said, well, he's to help me with a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: lot of races, and I don't know it just spit.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Barkley, he's a farmer, he's never run anything like that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And he said, I have no idea why he named
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: it after me.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's no real reason, but they're called the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Barkley Marathons. And Cantrell has an interesting story in that
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: he is a former athlete. He's run supposedly over about
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand miles in his life, but
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: he smokes camel cigarettes. He just floods his body with
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: doctor pepper. He's you know, older gentleman now and has
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: kind of wrecked his legs from all that running, so
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: he hasn't run for a while. But he got interested
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: in this as a boy scout in Tennessee as a
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: teenager or preteen, I guess when he was started doing
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: backpacking trips that he hated until he found out there
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is a great joy in overcoming a hardship and doing
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: something tough physically and completing a goal and got kind
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of hooked on that feeling.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He also apparently really liked the idea that if
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: he continued to work at something, he would continue to improve. Yeah,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: that's a big part of he's running. That's a big
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: part of running. That's a big part of hiking. It's
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: a big part of everything that's hard while yeah exactly, So, yeah,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: he got the bug pretty early on he started running marathons.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I think in nineteen sixty six. He started running. By
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: high school, he was running marathon and then he started
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: running ultra marathons. And he was there like right at
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the ultra marathon craze, which I think
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: kicked off in nineteen seventy four with California's Western States
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: one hundred. A guy named Gordy Ainsley set that up.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And so by this time, you know, the ultra marathons
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: were starting to catch on, and Gary Kintrell was enough
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: of a runner that he knew of these things. But
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: he was also married, he was starting to have kids,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: he had a job as an accountant, and he just
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: couldn't travel the country to go participate in ultrathons. So
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: he started setting his own up around Tennessee.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. They first took the form of what he
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: called journey runs, which is this all sounds fun. If
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I was into running, I would do something like this.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: But he and his friends would get together and be like,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: all right, let's run from Knoxville to Nashville, or let's
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: run I love the three run. Their idea of a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: through run was either from Alabama or Kentucky running to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the other just straight through Tennessee. Let's run through the
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: state of Tennessee. Right, pretty fun idea they were doing these.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: They led to some other kind of legit races. I
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: think one of the two is still around. He called it,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: and he's always had a sense of humor. You can
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: tell by the way names these things. The last annual
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Ball State obviously Volunteer State Road Race, which is a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: three hundred and eleven mile run from Missouri to Georgia,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Georgie exactly ten day cut off time, no comfort stations
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: along the way, you have to source all your own
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: food and water and shelter along the way. And then
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: another one called the Idiots Run, which I don't think
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: is around one hundred and twenty three mile gravel, all
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: gravel road run.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so bad, that's just such a bad idea. Well,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: he called it the Idiots Run for a really good reason. Yeah,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: And that's the whole his whole jam is, like he
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: loves coming up with a kind of race that just
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: is at the border between the possibility and the impossibility
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: of human endurance of what the human body can actually do,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Like he wants it just inside of that limit so
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: that you could, if you push yourself enough, complete this race,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: but most people are just not going to be able
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: to because it's so close to impossible.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, many many years the Barkley Marathon has
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: no finisher at all. Many years no one makes it
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: to the fifth loop. There are four loops that will
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: get into all this in a second. It's happening more
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and more now, I think just there are more veterans
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: that come back that once you kind of know the deal,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I say, it gets a little easier, but you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: a little easier in that it's possible to finish. It's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: never easy, but I think the veterans have an advantage
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think I think the astonishment at how
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: difficult it is, Yeah, probably takes up a lot of
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: your mental energy and focus while you're while you're doing
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: it for the first time, and that Yeah, once you've
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: even tried it before and even dropped out, you probably
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: are past that and it's got to be a huge
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: leg up totally. So we should talk a little bit
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: about the whole basis of all this, right or do
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: you want to take a break?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's talk about where this thing's held right.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, the whole thing is held at Frozen Heads
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: State Park. It's named after Yeah, it's named after the
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: tallest peak in this state park. It's in Northeastern Tennessee,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: which is kind of guess where Northeastern Tennessee is where
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Virginia and North Carolina come together with Tennessee. It's beautiful
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: area and this will be in the Cumberland Mountains. And
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: this particular state park is not like the kind you
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: just you know, go to everybody goes to on the
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: weekends for picnic. It's pretty remote. It's three hundred and
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: thirty acres, but this three hundred and thirty acre state
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: park surrounded by twenty four thousand acres of forest land.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And the whole thing, I guess started with convict leasing.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: So this area is like really dark.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, no totally and if you look at
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you know, they do these aerial shots in the documentary
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of this prison that we're about to talk about, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's in the middle of nowhere,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: like at the bottom of you know, sort of a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: ravine and very inhospitable. I mean, you'd like to think
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: about places like Alaska being like you know, some of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the most inhospitable places in the United States. But I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: mean the mountains of northeastern Tennessee are no joke.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: No, And this area is in hospitable because of its
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: terrain and in part because of the weather and the elevation.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: The whole reason there's a prison there is because back
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, Tennessee started making money by leasing
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: its prisoners convicts to mining company. These coal mining companies
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: just make a little extra on the side from forcing
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: your prisoners to engage in hard labor. Right. Well, I
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: think in our man, I need to keep a list
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of all of our episodes, like handy because I can't
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: remember the name of it. But do you remember that
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: one war, the strike war in the nineteenth century, and
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I think coal mines in uh Madawan Mattawan, Yes, thank you.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: In that episode we talked a lot about what happened
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: also in Tennessee's coal mines where the labor was taking
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: on management and it was resulting in wars. Well, one
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: of the things that resulted out of this in Tennessee
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: was that the laborers, the free laborers who worked for
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: the coal mining companies, would frequently help the convicts whose
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: labor was being leased out by the state escape and
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: so Tennessee was like, well, fine, we're not doing that anymore.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: But undeterred, they just started setting up their own coal
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: mines and using the prisoners directly instead of leasing them
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: out exactly.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And they needed somewhere to put those prisoners, so are workers,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I guess slash prisoners. So they built a new prison.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It is called Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. And in the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties a lot of that land eventually became that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: great conservation area that we were talking about, those twenty
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: four thousand acres, and the New Deal era Civilian Conservation
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Corps built a lot of trails. It became a natural area,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: you know, officially in the nineteen seventies. But there are
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: these trails there now, not like again, like you said,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: not like a lot of state park trails that you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: go to. A lot of these trails are still pretty rough.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: The prison stayed open. But why we're telling you all
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: this is for a couple of reasons. One is, at
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: one point in the race, they navigate through a tunnel,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: like a little water channel that goes under the prison,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and that's part of the race route where you're definitely
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: going to get your feet wet. I don't think we
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: mentioned you're running through rivers and things, so like wet feet,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and it's just a part of the challenge of this race.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: But the prison remained open and James Earl Ray, the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: assassin of Martin Luther King Junior, was sent there with
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: six other men. He escaped in nineteen seventy seven from
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Brushing Mountain and spent fifty four hours in that rugged terrain,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: eventually being recaptured about eight miles from the prison and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Lazarus Lake. Old laz Cantrell heard this story. Heard they
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: made it only eight miles in that fifty four hours,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: and he said, man, I could travel one hundred miles
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: through that terrain in fifty four hours. So he invents
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: this race sort of inspired by this. He said that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: he still gets hate mail every year and angry letters
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: for people that think it's some sort of tribute to
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: James Earl Ray, and he's like, no, it's the opposite.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: It was started because I'm making fun of the fact
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that this guy only made it eight miles. We're doing
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: one hundred, one hundred and thirty.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Really, you want to take a break.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a break. We know the name of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the marathon, we know where it takes place, we know
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: who started it and where it came from. And we'll
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: be back with more of the bark of the marathons
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: right after this.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, So, like you said, I think in nineteen seventy seven,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: James Lay escapes and Cantrell lived in the area. Said
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: it was big news at the time, so he was
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: aware of this, and a few years later he and
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: his friend Carl Hen known as raw Dog for reasons
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: that I don't want to ask about, they decided.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: It was in nineteen eighty five months you don't know,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: all right, your good point.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: So they decided to hike into the state park. This
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: is this is a place where he's like, okay, like,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: we could totally do so many more than eight miles
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: and fifty four hours. Let's go check this out and
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: have fun. And like you said, most of this area
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: are not nature trails where like there's signs posted there's
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: a path you can look down and follow, like these
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: are hard to find trails that you need to know
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: how to use a compass, a contour map, like all
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you have to you have to be good at orienteering
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: is what it's called, in addition to hiking and putting
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: up with all sorts of terrible just uncomfortable stuff and
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: pushing your your limits. So these guys were like, let's
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: just go for a fun hike for a day.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they showed up there. There was a park
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: ranger that was like, you guys should leave, Like you
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be out there. It's like, it's not like you
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: think you're gonna get lost, You're gonna get hurt, You're
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: gonna need rescue. They ignored him. They did make it through.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: They did an eight mile They.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Didn't even like, yeah, no his existence.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he just walked right by. They made this eight
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: mile hike, this loop. But it took him a full day,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: which is you know, you should be able to hike
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: much more than eight miles in a day. And it
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: required a lot of orienteering, like you said, and paying
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: attention to that kind of thing. And he said, all right,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I think I have an idea here for a race.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Let's make a nearly impossible to finish race. I think
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to tell because there's not a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: website for this. You can't get like historical I mean
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: people have written about it since then, but you can't
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: get like the official website documentation on this race in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: history because it doesn't exist, to keep it very much
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: under wraps. So the way he tells it on the documentary,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it was always supposed to be one hundred miles, but
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: no one ever did more than the first three loops
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: out of the five. Yeah, I think though maybe this
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: first version was shorter. It was about a fifty to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: fifty five mile course. It was held over April Fool's
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Day weekend nineteen eighty six, and the initial cutoff was
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours with thirteen participants in zero people finishing.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is just a fifty to fifty five
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: mile version, like you said, Officially the current Barkley Marathon
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: is one hundred mile, and in reality it's also like
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty miles
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: based on reports from people who've actually run it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean he changes the route every year
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: a little bit, that's why it varies. But the year
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: they did the documentary, it was documented at one hundred
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and thirty and everybody is like, it's not one hundred
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Just stop saying that.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So the first version, like you said, is three loops,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: and it wasn't until two years after the first one
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: that the somebody completed it. And I mean we're talking
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: like dozens of people attempting this, and it took three
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: times before one person finished. And there was something about
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: this that I don't know if we've mentioned yet. Just
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: this first version, there was an elevation gain of twenty
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: four thousand feet. So all of the times you went
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: up and down, if you count all the ups, it
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: would equal twenty four thousand feet in elevation that you've
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: climbed over these three loops. And that is a lot.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And in fact, the guy who finished frozen D fertile. Yeah,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: he was just edfertaw until he won, and from then
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: on he was frozen D fertile. He thought that there
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: was a misprint in Ultra Running magazine that the elevation
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: was actually twenty four hundred feet, not twenty four thousand.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess we can go ahead and tell
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: everybody the current iteration, like we said, is supposedly one
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: hundred but it's really more like one hundred and thirty miles.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It's got a sixty hour time limit and the elevation
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: is the total elevation climb over that race if you
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: finish it is sixty thousand feet, which is equivalent to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: hawking to walking up and back down Mount Everest twice.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, so yeah, the total elevations one hundred and
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: twenty thousand, because, yeah, if you go up sixty thousand
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: feet and you're coming back down, you got to come
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: down sixty thousand feet. Yes, it's harder to climb up,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: but it's not that easy to go down too, especially
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: if you're on an incline. And that's a big part
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: of it too, is now diving into things like brianart
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: and saplings and yeah, it's rough. Like just watching like
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the effects on some of the runner's bodies and like
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: what they were coming back to camp looking.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Like was oh my god, god, I bet some guy
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: had like a.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Head wound and they show him like slipping on rocks
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: and hitting his forehead. It was really it's nuts what
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: these people are doing to themselves.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean their legs are all just because these
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: briers they have to go through one part which is
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: a really heavy brier area, but every single person's legs
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: are just thrashed.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Like it looks like ground meat.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like disgusting bleeding. Their feet are disgusting and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: blistered and and just riddled with I think the one
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: guy that we'll get to the stops, but the one guy,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: they were like, it would take you eight hours to
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: fully dry your feet out, so you know you can't.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: You're not gonna get dry feet, which is a big problem.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And they're basically not sleeping when you when you complete
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: a loop, you have what's called an interlooper period where
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: you can do whatever you want. You can take however
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: much time you want to get. You can get first aid,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: you can eat, you can drink, you can rest, you
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: can change your clothes and socks, you can take a
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: nap if you want. But that clock is still running,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: so how long you wait is up to you. I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: think the winner that you said he slept about an
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: hour total. So just try staying up and awake for
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: sixty hours in a.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Chair and without drugs.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. These people are doing this and you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: we say it's a run, like a lot of this
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: is hiking and bouldering and walking and crawling, so it's
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: not like they're running the whole time. But it's just brutal.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. One of the other things that
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: really kind of gets this across too, is in what
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: you said, So you've got sixty hours to finish, and
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: from the start that clock's always ticking, right, Yeah, but
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: you're going one hundred and thirty miles. So if you
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: do the math. Olivia helps us with this, and she
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: pointed out that goodness, Yeah, you could sleep for two
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: eight hour nights and still finish this course at a
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: twenty minute mile pace, which you can basically do on
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: your hands and knees, and still complete it within the
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: sixty hour cutoff. So the fact that some people can't
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: even finish the first loop, yeah, go to show you
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: how difficult this is. That if we were flat, it
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: would be beyond easy. But those same those same limits,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the time limit and the length put on this particular
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: terrain or in this topography is just it changes absolutely everything.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, at this twelve hour time limit per loop
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: must have come in after the documentary, right.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that confused me too, because they were finishing in
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: like thirteen hours and something like that. I didn't get that.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it must have been a new one.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. So finishing the three loops. If
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: you finish three loops, that is considered a fun run,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and that is a designation and that is a huge accomplishment. Yeah,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: just to finish the fun run. We should add he
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: also has a baby Barkley in the Fall, the Berkeley
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Barkeley Fall Classic, which is a fifty k so thirty
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: one miles, and that has about four hundred runners, but
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: only about thirty five to forty participants are allowed per
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: year to compete in this thing because of you know,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: it's out in nature, so that the state won't let
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: them have like hundreds of people. Like not a ton
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of people can go watch. It's just like family and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I think some you know, former winners can be there
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's pretty small operation because they
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: just can't you know, run rough shot over the area.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: But they have the sixty hours to complete, now twelve
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: hours per loop. The first loop is run clockwise. The
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: second loop, which is at night, will go counterclockwise, and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: then again day night clockwise counterclockwise. And then this is
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: pretty devious, the final fifth loop. If you get there,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the first person to finish the fourth gets a choice
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: which way they want to run, and then they start
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: splitting people up, because almost everybody runs with a buddy
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: or two. It really really helps to have someone out
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: there and they're really helping each other. But at the end,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: he's like, you're gonna lose your buddy, which way do
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you want to run? And the first person will say,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I'll go clockwise, the next person has to go counterclockwise,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and then they alternate. So at some point, if they
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: finish that fifth loop, they're going to pass their former
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: buddy going in the opposite direction.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And in the documentary, Cantrell points out like
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: these by this time, these people who had like formed
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: serious bonds by running together oh total loops, are now
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: direct competitors. Like, now it's a race because they're in
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: the fifth loop, and whoever's going to finish in what
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: time they finish a yeah, yeah, is going to determine
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: the actual winner, Like now there's a possible winner, yeah,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: And everything changes. So I don't they probably don't like
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: class pans, and then you know they're they're pulled apart,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: you know, sadly when they have to go in different
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: directions at that point.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's probably it makes it a lot tougher,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: but I get the idea that if you make it,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: if you're one of the maybe two, maybe three, maximum
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: four people that are even on the fifth loop, then
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that's when things get serious. That's when it turns into
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: an actual race.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I took it as too. One thing
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: that I didn't get I got from context. I didn't
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: see it anywhere because I guess it's so obvious. No
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: one thought it needed to be spelled out except me.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: But it's the same loop, right, Yeah, Okay, so they're
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: doing the same loop five times, which is why they
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: do it clockwise and counterclockwise and different ones at day
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: and night, so that you can't just be like, yep,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I remember this, this is nothing now, I remember exactly
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: what the trail is. You're super disoriented the first time,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: but it's not like you have it down pat after
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: that first loop necessarily.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it definitely doesn't seem like it gets easier
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: because that they were finishing when they were fresh legged
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: at loop one, they were finishing in about eight or
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: nine hours for the fastest times, and then those fastest
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: people were doing like twelve and thirteen hours on the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: next loop through the darkness. Yeah, and we should mention
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the weather. You know, it's with these huge elevation changes.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: You're going to go from temperatures sometimes in April in
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the eighties where it's low to like ten degrees at night.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: They have about one hundred gallons of water they put
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: out randomly on the course, like there are no technical
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: water stations, but you'll just happen upon a jug of water.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And Laz said that. You know, one year they were
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: one hundred eight pound blocks of ice because it was
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: ten degrees at elevation. Yeah, it's just crazy.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I say, we take a break and talk about how
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: you would get into this race and then what it's
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: actually like running it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: All right, so we're back. The race is about to begin.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: We should point out to the other thing to keep
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in mind is if you quit, quit near the start
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: finish line, right, because like a lot of people finish
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: like a loop and they're like, I'm out, or maybe
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the two or a lot of people get to that
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: third fun run and they say that's good enough for me.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: The one guy in the documentary quit and it took
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: him ten hours to navigate back because it's not like
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: they send somebody out you don't tap out on radio
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and they come and get you. Yeah, you just decide
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore, and then you very slowly
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: walk back to the finish line.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And at some point you might as well be like, well,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: at least I guess I'm gonna have to finish the
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: first loop. I might as well keep going that direction.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, totally, or if there, I mean, it depends
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: on where you are. If you're below the halfway point,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of people come back the way they came right.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So going even back before the start of the race,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: you said that the Barkley Marathon has no website, and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: that is intentional. The whole thing is meant to be
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: kept largely a secret. There's not a website. There's not
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: like some information on this is how you apply. You
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: have to use basically your investigative skills just to figure
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: out Gary Cantrell's email to email to ask to apply.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: And they make it really really hard to apply for
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: this because in part they're just weeding out people who
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: don't have even the beginning of the motivation and dedication
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: to complete this race. Like if you can't even go
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: to this trouble to like, really do your research to
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: figure out how to apply. Then don't even bother trying
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: to apply. There's no website, no thanks exactly, and if
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: you do want to imply, you have to cough up
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: a dollar sixty.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a non refundable application fee. I think most
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: people send in two single dollar bills because he says
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: they don't give change. And he every year chooses, you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: he chooses a range of people. Some of them are
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: very experienced, some of them are random. Every year he
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: chooses one human sacrifice that he said the runners even appreciate,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: even at the expense of not getting in themselves. He
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: chooses one person that has no business being there. In
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the year of the documentary, that poor guy made it
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: six hours, yeah before And I knew as soon as
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that guy headed out in his camouflage cargo pants, I
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: was like, this guy, what is he doing? What's he wearing?
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: So he didn't make it very far?
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: No, he didn't. And he was like, this is six
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: hours man, Like he didn't make it very far at all. Now,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: and this guy was way more qualified to do it
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: than like the average person. Like it wasn't like he
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: was just some like he went and plopped the guy
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: out of mc donald's like mid bite of a big
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: mac and right through him on the trail. Like this
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: guy was in pretty decent shape, and he thought that
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: he had a chance. It's not like he's like, yeah,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go be the sacrificial human, right right. He
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: thought like he was going to try to complete it.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: He didn't even I don't even think he made it
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: halfway through the first loop, did he?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: No? I don't think so.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: No.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: It was pretty funny and sad. He took it on
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the chin like a like a like a big boy though.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, imagine if he'd started like yelling, you just.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Brought me out here to make fun of me a
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: little bit. More about the application process, everyone knows it
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: takes place generally around April Pool's day. They send in
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: an essay to get in with a weird prompts, like
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: one year it was what's the most important vegetable group?
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: One of the women, I think she was in the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: documentary that you're Beverly Abs who by the way, that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you're completed the fun run so quite an achievement. She
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: said she was told to send the application in exactly
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: at midnight on Christmas Day in the time zone where
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Lazarus Lake was, so she had to figure out where
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: he was at the time. And then she wrote a
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: poem as her essay and she got in right. And
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: then once you get in, you get a letter that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: says I'm sorry to inform you that you have been accepted. Basically,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: misery awaits you.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the whole, the whole jam. The way that
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: it's treated is like you're like, you're not going to finish,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: You're a dummy for even trying. There's this weird kind
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: of push pull going on that Gary Cantrell established basically
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: out of the gate that's based on his kind of
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: impish sense of humor. Yeah, and so that means that like,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: you're just as likely to be abused or mocked when
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: you like quit as you are to be told like, hey,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: you completed one loop. That's pretty good just in and
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: of itself. It just, I guess depends on what his
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: mood is right then, and a lot of people like,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: aren't don't really like this guy that much? They like,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: if you don't, if you're not tuned into his sense
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: of humor, you're probably not gonna like him. You might
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: find him obnoxious or you know, I might find him
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: just mean, but if you are tuned into it, I
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: think he's he's pretty funny. Like reading about him on
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: paper and reading interviews with him, I was like, I
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: don't really like this guy. Yeah, and then I saw
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: him in the documentary. I'm like, oh, okay, saying he's
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: just hard to translate into a description, and when you
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: see him talk yourself, you're like, yeah, he's fine.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's He's one of the great eccentrics of the world.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And sometimes those people are hard to pin down, you know,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: because they'll fit into a box.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: But he has to write some other fun things. If
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: you're a first time runner, you bring a license plate
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: from your home state or home country and he makes
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: these cool signs out of them and hangs them up.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: If you have to bring a gift as well, if
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: you are part of the race. If you are a
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: first time runner, you have to bring an article of clothing.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: And the documentary was very funny. He said it kind
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of depends what he needs. One year it was a
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: bunch of white ox for shirts. Another year it was socks,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: another year was flannel shirts, and then if you have
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: finished the race and you come back to race again,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: you have to bring him a pack of camel cigarettes.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the camel cigarettes play a big role because
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: the start of the race is marked officially by him
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: lighting a cigarette. So everybody's standing there at this gate
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: that's the official starting line for the race, and just
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: standing there waiting for him to light the cigarette. And
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: he finally does and it's like a random time. I
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: think it was like eight to eleven am when the
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: whole thing started, and he lights a cigarette and soon
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: everybody takes off.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you get accepted, you know what day it's
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: going to be on. You go, you camp out in
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the campground and you're just sort of waiting for him
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: to blow the conck. He blows a conk sometime between
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: midnight and noon on the Saturday of that weekend. You
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: don't know when it's coming. So if he blows it
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: at you know, seven am or sometime in the more,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you're up all night. You're not getting sleep because you're
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: so amped up and ready for this and apprehensive because
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you don't know when it starts again. He's just sort
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: of messing with people. Yeah, and so when he decides
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: to blow the conk. He blows the conk. That means
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you have one hour and everybody you know starts getting
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: ready to go. At that point there is no prize.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: We should also mention the prize is just finishing this thing.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's bragging rights for sure. Like you
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: if you told any ultra marathon runner, you know, trail
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: runner that you completed the Darkly Marathon, like they would
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: drop to their knees and start kissing your rings.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets a big.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Deal to have finished this. And yet there's also like
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: from Gary Cantrell's perspective, from everything that I've read, the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: way that he describes it as like he's giving people
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to push themselves to their maximum possible limits.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Because remember this race is intended to be just inside
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: the possible human the possibility of the human body. Right, Yeah,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: so if you can complete it, like you're doing all
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: sorts of things that you never thought you were capable
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: of it, Like your mental endurance is among the greatest
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: of people walking around. And so yeah, it's way more
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: than just bragging rights, Like you're if you're into bragging rights,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: you're probably not even going to finish the first loop,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Like if that's why you're doing it and you somehow
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: got accepted, it's not going to translate. So these people
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: don't care about bragging rights, even though they would have
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: bragging rights for life.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Totally. I like that one dude, the long hair guy
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: from Arizona in the documentary that that was his first one.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: He just had a cool vibe. Like everyone had a
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: pretty cool vibe. Like it's a really as a great
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: spirit of helping one another out. And during the interloper
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: periods where they're which is by the way, the only
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: time they're allowed to have their sort of aid crew
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: with them, like they don't you know, they can't get
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: helped along the way. So this is when they see
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: other people and there's other former winners there, and when
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: people drop out, they stick around and they're really helping
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: people get their feet together and they're giving them dry
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: socks and feeding them and it's just a real great
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: spirit of sort of camaraderie and helping one and out
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: another out. It feels like, yeah, it's pretty cool.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because as people get pared down, the people around
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: them are like they want to see somebody succeed then.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, pretty cool, real quick. What else as
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: far as housekeeping, No GPS, that's a big one. They
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: can wear a little cheap or they're given a little
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: cheap watch. And I think they banned altimeters in twenty
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: fourteen or twelve or something.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Something like that. Either way, you're stripped down to the
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: bear essentials. Yeah, and you have a map, but you
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: don't have a copy of their map. They give you
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: the master map to use to trace the route onto
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: your own map. He traced it incorrectly. Well, that's ts
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: for you. And people do get lost like a lot.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: There was one guy who oh, man, don't remember what
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: year it was, Oh, in two thousand and six. Yeah,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: this guy wandered off the course and spent thirty two
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: hours trying to get back. Man, And in the end
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: he only did like two miles of the actual course.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: He wandered so far off course. So the way he
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: put it, he did sixteen hour miles in this race.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: God, I felt so bad for that guy.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, And then what else.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Chuck, this isn't And to me, this is kind of
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: one of the coolest things because the whole time, until
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: we had gotten to this part, I was like, well,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: how do they know that people are running that route
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: because they're not staked out along the way. In the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: documentary they had some people staked out a little bit
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: just to get some footage, but it's not like they
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: have people at checkpoints that are making sure they're on
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the route and all that. He did something pretty lo
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: fi and genius, which was he puts ten books out
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: ten to twelve depending on the year, at different points
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: along the way, and you have to rip the page
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: out corresponding to your BIB number, and that is the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: proof that you ran the real route. You have to
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: show up with depending on how many books, ten or
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: eleven pages when you touch that start finish line, and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: you have to turn them over to Cantrell and he
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: has to look them over and verify it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm guessing that they they are the books
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: in the same place every time.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Ah, that I'm not sure about.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: But I do know that they hide them. They're not
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: just always out in plain sight. Like the one of
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: the things you're having to stay oriented, you're having to
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: push your body and endure, and then you're also at
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: the same time having to make sure you don't trop
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: past one of the books. So you have to backtrack
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: and get the page out.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean the one guy the year of the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: documentary that won and set the record. I think he
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: said he spent a couple of hours looking for the book.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I would lose my mind. Man.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: And also if you're like, well, how do you get
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the same page eleven times? Do you get a different
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: BIB number? Free loop? So you would be tearing out
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: a different page each time.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there was a story just last year.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: In fact, there was a French runner who got to
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the final loop to find that a book was gone.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: There was a day hiker that thought the race was
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: over and took the book as a memento, so he's like,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: what do I do? He completed the race and when
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: he got back to the gate, they had turned the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: book in, so they counted that.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah. I've read about one runner too, who
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I think this. I don't remember what year was, maybe
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen or seventeen. He made it. He showed up
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: six seconds after time. Oh my god. But he had
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: all his pages and they said like he was just
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: collapsed on the ground and he said, I have all
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: my pages. But he didn't make it by six seconds.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I bet that he feels a great sense
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: of accomplishment, though I would think, so sure finished that
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: thing six seconds, be damned. You know, you'd have.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: To be one hell of a perfectionist to be like,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: well I failed technically, Yeah, for sure.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I think there was one more piece of housekeeping here.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Oh that's right. When a runner gives up, a guy
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: named Dave Hen, who is a race volunteer, plays taps
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: on a bugle.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's Carl raw Dog Hen's son.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Oh is it it is raw Dog Junior?
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Little raw Dog.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Or the third Yeah, he said.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: He said that he thinks the reason why is because
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: it's just one final punishment for you from Gary Cantrell
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: to basically be humiliated with taps. And on the on
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: the other side, some runners when they finish, especially when
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: they actually complete the race, he has one of those staples,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: easy buttons, Yeah, that they press and when you press it,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: a voice goes that was easy.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was really fun to watch. It was someone
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: just like on their last leg literally, like you're bleeding
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: at the legs and he's like hit the button right
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: because that was easy.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The guy who was on the documentary was I
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: think his name was John Kelly. He finished second of
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: two I think that year, maybe three, and he they
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: show him and he's just totally out of it, like
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: he's sitting on a chair with people surrounded surrounding him
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: talking and yeah, yeah, he's just in another world, like
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: totally out of his skull because he hadn't slept at
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: all like that whole time.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sixty hours.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Man. The one guy that couldn't in the documentary that
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: tapped out and was just like crying.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Oh I don't remember him, which one?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Uh boy, that was tough. He had kind of dark,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: curly hair and he was pretty pumped up going into
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: it about his chances and yeah, I mean, what can
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you say about a race where like whatever, probably ninety
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: eight percent of the people had never been right, maybe
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: more maybe ninety nine.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: That was a well. Yeah, so I think officially twenty
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: out of one thousand plus people have finished. So I'm
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: sure we have some sixth graders who can calculate that
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: for us and send it in.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Let me see last I'm sorry. This year there were
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: a record five people completed it, and that is I
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: think the maximum before that may have been three, maybe four,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: but usually it's one, maybe two or zero last. I'm sorry.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: This year a woman was a finisher for the first time. Yes,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: me and Paris or Perry. I don't know how she
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: pronounces it. She came in two minutes short of the
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: deadline to finish that race.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so she finished with two minutes last.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Right, that's incredible.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is. And one of the reasons it's
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: incredible is because Gary Cantrell. This is another reason a
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: lot of people don't like him. For years and years
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: and years, he would say publicly, there's no woman out
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: there who could possibly finish this race. Yes, And you know,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: he was criticized for saying that kind of thing because
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: there's plenty of amazing women marathonors and ultrath honors and
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: trail runners. And he defended it by basically saying, if
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: a woman could defeat this, it would be exactly the
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: kind of woman who would need to hear somebody say
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: something like a woman would never be able to complete this.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, got yeah, And I don't know if
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I'm being an apologist, but I got the idea that
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of that was sort of goating. Yes, someone
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to finish, Like that's how I took it too. Yeah,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Like deep down he's like, there's going to be a
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: woman that's going to do this, and maybe I need
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: to stoke the fire a little bit, right.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: So finally, yes, I think Jasmine Paris's She's a brit
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: who teaches at the University of Scotland. Did you say
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: that part?
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: No, I also said Jasmin Peris.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I know that was just correcting you. Oh, I'm sure
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: it was Jasmine per Jesmond Pieri.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Who else? In twenty twenty four, a mechanic engineer named
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Jared Campbell became the first four time finisher. He's in
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: the documentary and an interesting just sort of side note
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: in this and Lyvia pointed out, but then when you
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: watch the documentary it really hits home is that it
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: seems like this race and ultra marathoning and this sort
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: of endurancing attracts people of very, very high intelligence. I
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: felt like every person they interviewed were like, I'm an engineer,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a scientist. And they talked to almost
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: called him Barkley to Lazarus about this to Cantrell in
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the documentary and he said, yeah, he said those are
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the achievers in life. Those are the people that go
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: to graduate school and go to get their doctoral thesis,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: and people who set hard goals and accomplish them. It
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: just sort of fits. And I never really thought about
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: that that tie. But I don't think there's a lot
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: of dumb dumbs that do stuff like this.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: No, although even though dumb dumb to do.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: It, it's a weird dichotomy.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Yep, I say. We finished on the story of John
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Fega Veresi.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: All right, let's hear it.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: He was a runner in oh, I don't know what
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: year he ran, but he was an experienced ultra marathon runner.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: He participated in the Bad Water ultra marathon, which runs
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: through Death Valley one hundred and thirty five miles. Yeah,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and he was like, this is that's nothing I'm paraphrasing. Yeah,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he wouldn't say this, but he was basically
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: like that, you can't even really compare the two. And
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: he completed it, and he was so incoherent from sleep
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: deprivation that he apparently didn't remember like downing a pint
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, like at the finish line.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: He had no idea that he'd done that, and he
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: spent the next day and a half just laying around
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: the campground recovering. So after that time he's like, all right,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll drive home, and he started falling asleep
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: on the way home, so he had to stop and
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: check himself into a hotel, where he slept for an
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: another sixteen hours.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Man, that's called human exhaustion.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I say we quietly close the door and
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: leave John to his slumber and go on to a listener. Mayl.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I do want to shout out the record though, Brett Mahn,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: who is one or a few times now, I think
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: he's a physicist. The record, current record right now is
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: lies with Brett at fifty two hours, three minutes and
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: eight seconds. Very nice, just incredible.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: You woke John up. That's right.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Sorry, John, come back and sleep. Here's your chubby hobby.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: That's the best.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I can't find it anymore.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I can't either.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: It's people say it exists. I get pictures occasionally emails,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't exist in Atlanta.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: That's said. What did Alena do to be so punished?
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't need ice cream anymore anyway,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Which is the saddest part of this story. All right,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this a lake versus pond. We got
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: quite a few emails, by the way, I want to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: mention one differentiator we saw said that the difference they
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: heard between lake versus pond is if sunlight can reach
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the bottom. If it can, then it's a pond. If
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: it can't, then it's a lake. But this comes from Mark. Hey, guys,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the answer, I think depends on who you asked. But
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: as an ambassador from the land of ten thousand Lakes, Minnesota,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: which is technically and forty two lakes, perhaps I have
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a bit of clout. Most folks would assume the difference
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: has something to do with size and depth. It's not
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: quite that simple, though. According to a twenty twelve CBS
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: News article, retired DNR water supervisor Glenn Yackle suggests that
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: a lake needs to be large enough and deep enough
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: to allow for wave action to be considered a lake
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: that can clear vegetation from its shoreline. Pond, on the
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: other hand, lacks this wave action, meaning its shoreline is
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: typically surrounded by vegetation without clear boundaries. But guys, it
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: gets even more complicated. Government agencies often have regulatory thresholds
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: that lead to discrepancies per state. For example, here in Minnesota,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: with our eight and forty two lakes has fewer lakes
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: than Wisconsin. And any Wisconsin I will gleefully point out
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: that they have fifteen thousand. But here's where the differences
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: come into play. While they do have fifteen thousand lakes,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: their definition includes a body of water with an area
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: of at least two point five acres. In Minnesota, our
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: standards are higher, and to qualify as a lake here
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: we must cover at least ten acres. If we lowered
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: our threshold to match Wisconsin's, we wouldn't dare dream of it,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: though we'd have over twenty thousand lakes.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Wow, took. I feel more lake informed than I ever
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: have been in my entire life for real.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: That is from Mark Mark's had always pleasure to listen
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: to you guys with my boys who are six and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: seven and big fans, and Mark had replied with their names,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and I'm very frustrated because I cannot find that reply.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: So let me just say Mark and sons of Mark,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: thank you for the sport.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I can vouch for Chuck Mark. We just
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: edited out many minutes of him searching for that email,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: so he really did give it a try.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Sorry, guys, but they're six and seven, so maybe that's
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: for the best.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Right. If you want to be like Mark and his
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: unnamed sons, you can write to us as well. Send
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.