Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck #48: The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

In this Short Suck, we head into the brutal hills around Tennessee’s old Brushy Mountain prison to explore the Barkley Marathons— the nearly-impossible 100-mile ultramarathon. And we’ll meet Lazarus Lake, the cigarette-lighting, Dr Pepper-drinking madman who designed a race meant to break people, complete with secret applications, sadistic course changes, and “human sacrifices” who have almost no chance of finishing. For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Have you ever heard of the Barclay Marathons? Unless you're particularly into ultra-marathons, meaning marathons longer than the typical breezy, walk-in-the-park race of 26 miles, you know, just that little tiny little race, or unless you're somebody familiar with the niche coverage of these events, I'm guessing you have not. Almost 40 years ago,

two runners founded the Barclay Marathons, a now infamous 100-mile-foot race through incredibly unforgiving terrain. And yes, it's called Marathons, plural, not marathon, because the course keeps changing, known to its many disciples as the race that eats its young. The Barclay is considered one of the most, if not the most difficult ultramarathon in the world. With 59,000, 100 feet of climbing, it is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest, not just once, but twice in a single continuous race. As a result of this terrain

and as a result of the marathon's bizarre and stressful rules, some of the best runners in the world have tried and failed to even make it halfway. Out of the 1,000 or so runners who have attempted the race over the years, about 20 have finished, and that's exactly how its founders want it. Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a dream. I'll plead not guilty right now.

Your only chance is to leave with us. Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins. And today I will be sharing the fascinating and very entertaining story of the Barclay Marathons. We don't usually cover sporting events here. But I think you're going to quickly understand why the Barclay Marathons is definitely right up our weird. Well, that's certainly something cool. I didn't know about Allie. Since 1986, people have from all over the world come for the chance to annihilate their minds and bodies.

In a 60 hours or less, you have to do it in no longer than 60 hours, 100 miles sleepless, nearly impossible trek through the merciless wilderness of Tennessee's frozen head state park. Often lost and alone, they have struggled through hallucinations, extreme cold, sometimes too much heat, thunderstorms, little minor flooding, sleet, rock bottom exhaustion. Not because somebody made them do this, but because for some reason they wanted to do this. It's a massacist dream. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to figure out how to even enter the Barclay, much less finish it, and still around 800 people apply each year. That's how many people have been applying recently, I guess. When I ask the Internet, how do I apply to run in the Barclay Marathon, I had a pretty interesting answer.

The Barclay Marathon's application is famously secretive, requiring you to find the race director Lazarus Lake's email by researching past runners, blogs, and forums. Then sending a letter explaining why you should run, an essay, a small fee, for example, $1.60, and often your license plate or another specific item, acceptance is not a lottery, but is based on Laz's whim. Love it. So who the hell would come up with this weird fucking race? In 1978, Gary Cantrell, later to become known as Lazarus Lake, the name he currently goes by, for racing at least, was an accounting student at middle Tennessee state. university. Gary's early years were marked by some instability. Maybe he has been notoriously elusive, secretive about his biography. No one seems to even know his exact age. It seems his dad had a

good career as an aerospace engineer, but new contracts required that the family uproot itself a fair amount. And Gary's father eventually got a job at, or in, rather, Tullahoma, Tennessee, where the family settled down. And that at some point in his youth, the running bug, bit him and by the late 70s, Gary was a tough marathon runner with eight finishes to his name. He even finished one marathon after shotgun pellets

struck him in the legs. That's right. He got shot with a shotgun while running a marathon. That clearly wasn't the Boston Marathon. This was some real country backwood shit. Apparently there were some hunters in nearby woods,

shoot and quail, and they seemed to feel that the runners were impeded on their hunting and therefore, if they got some pellets, well, so be it. Gary was undeterred. He loved the rush,

the challenge of trying to finish a marathon. But then soon as he, you know, finished more marathons, it wasn't exciting anymore. Wasn't enough of a challenge. He was getting bored. He wanted something, you know, new and harder to complete. And he wasn't the only person feeling this. In the mid-1970s, runners across the country, elite runners were looking for the next big thing to conquer. And they found it in an unlikely place to begin with a horse race. I love this. I love this whole story. The Western States 100, a.k.a. the Western State's endurance run now, considered the ultramarathon trail race, even today, started off as a horse race. It was created in 1955 by Wendell T. Roby, who wanted to prove that horses could still cover 100 miles in a day, even in the modern era.

In 1971, and again in 1972, a young man named Gordy Ainsley crossed the finish line on his cross-bred horse rebel. Then on his third attempt in 1973, Gordy wrote another crossbreed, Rattle Nose, who went lame and had to be pulled out at 29 miles. For the following year, the 27-year-old Gordy decided he wanted to redo. And Drusilla Barner, that is quite a name. The Western States Trail Foundation Secretary made Gordy an interesting proposition. Would he want to try and run this course on foot? Gordy was intrigued and the more he thought about it

the more excited he got and the more it made sense to him that yeah yeah I can do this horse race without a horse he figured he'd only have to run you know 4.2 miles an hour to finish an easy

14 minute 17 second mile pace plus he knew he could handle the distance since he'd already run the Castle Rock 50 yeah 50 miles in 1973 that same year the 6 foot 4 203 pound probably almost no body fat Gordy finished the Avenue of the Giants Marathon

through the Redwood Forest in Northern California in two hours and 52 minutes. Average marathon time is around four and a half hours. My God. The dude is a beast making me feel bad about my fitness level. I get winded on a flight of stairs as in like, you know, two floors and more. You know what?

I'm giving myself too much credit. One floor and I'm a little bit like, oh man, those stairs. Oh, gosh, dang. This dude could have probably carried me like a baby up now. 99 flights of stairs and then have me walk up to 100th flight, you know, alongside him, and somehow I would be more winded than he was. I looked him up, and at the age of 78, he is still running.

Doing a 10K cool, you'll jingle jog this Christmas morning, according to his website, if you're a space, as you're going to get this episode a little bit early, you'll have just enough time to join him. You can join him running down the Bear River Canal Recreation Corridor in Meadow, California, just show up and pay $45. Just look it up to get more info. Go meet Gear Bear. Back to the 1970s,

Gordy's experience participating in the ride and tie, a trail running slash horseback riding relay race, prepared him for the trail's extreme terrain and elevation changes. And so he felt like, well, why not try it and see? Try and run a hundred mile race designed for horses. What's the worst could happen? You know, his legs could break off,

bleeds out in the woods, his lungs explode. The night before the race, Gordy climbed into his friend Diane Ripley's horse trailer, parked near the start. He would be the only runner in this race. Diane was competing too, but with her horse Valentina. I love that he just sleeps a little bit in the horse trailer. That's normal. A little after 3.30 in the morning, Gordy gets up, slips on some cutoff panty hose, protection against painful chafing. To keep the ends of the panty hose from rolling up, he wraps white athletic tape around each thigh, just, just MacGyverin the shit, just figuring it out

as he goes along. He pulled on yellow shorts and a makeshift bib, the number zero. It was handwritten above WSTR with black Sharpie on a white cotton shirt and at 4.50 a.m. in the morning, it's go time. For the first few miles of the race, Gordy speedwalked uphill out of Squaw Valley, mostly on a graded service road for the ski lifts. Then around mile four, the path narrowed to a single track. There was nowhere to step aside to let the horses pass. So Gordy now ran single file along with the horses at their trotting pace. roughly seven minutes and 30 seconds per mile and he did that for over 25 or over 20 miles

25 miles into the race this pace had Gordy exhausted he's desperately looking forward to the meeting point he'd established with his friend Helen now she was going to be waiting with the fresh pair of shoes some Adidas gazelles which were more cushioned than the lightly padded Adidas SL-72s he had chosen for the first third of the race

but when he made it to Helen she told him she wasn't able to find the shoes in her camper or his camper so damn it Helen you had one job and you fucked it Gordy would have to keep going with what he'd come with which included two packets of powdered electrolyte replacement with glucose known to runners as

ERG he rationed the powder sprinkling it into his mouth with mouthfuls of water from a creek that was running nearby so that's risky drinking some creek water that's gambling sounds like a good way to end up having to tap out of the race things to explosive crippling diarrhea

guess it was a clean creek but also maybe not Gordy is clearly superhuman he's got some of that compound v in him if you know that reference soon however the land turned dry and he had to rely on the water given out at aid stations

placed sporadically on the trail probably guessing that water was mostly of the horses all he had to eat was a can of peaches he had bummed off a communications team along the course why did they have a can of peaches since the aid stations only offered

water hay and grain you know for the horses by the time he reached mile 50 he was suffering and he wasn't the only one uh a horse one of his competitors had collapsed in the middle fork of the american river and gordy had stopped to help it but the horse was unresponsive it was evident to gordy that the horse was dying its life force had been sapped by the strenuous climb the thin air and the hundred degree heat this is crazy despite the obvious danger gordy kept running anyone else flashing on forrest gump for some reason uh soon as he started

running the devil's thumb, an 1,800 foot ascent over 1.8 miles, excuse me, Gordy was worried about his own life force. By the time he got to the peak and saw his friend Diane Ripley sitting under the ponderosa pine trees, he was convinced that it was too much. There's a dead horse in the canyon, and that could be me, Gordy told her. He said he was going to quit, but Diane gave him some water and four salt tablets. Then she had him flip over onto his stomach, and she walked up and down his knotted body and massaged his legs. Who are these, people. When she was done, he figured, you know what, I can give it another shot. By the time Gordy entered the fairgrounds, ended the race at 4.32 a.m. He'd been running for 23 hours and 42

minutes, just a few minutes shy of an entire day. That is crazy. He did it. He ran 100 miles over mountainous terrain, fueled mainly by canned peaches and creek water. After he finished, he removed his shoes, saw deep blood blisters across the soles of his feet, but for him, the pain was nothing compared to the high of becoming the first man to run the Western States 100. And his journey would inspire others to follow him. Four years later, 1978,

62 runners would tow the starting line of the Western States 100, including Gary Ansley, ready for another shot at achieving the impossible. 30 of them, just under half, would actually finish the race, Gordy amongst them. But he didn't try and rely on Helen again

to hand him fresh shoots. Now, to be clear, it's not like Gordy was the first human to ever complete such a grueling foot race. There were definitely long marathons before Gordy's time, going back to races in ancient Sparta and Greece and elsewhere, I'm sure. But this was one of the first that made American media coverage and attracted the attention of runners nationwide. Runners like Gary Cantrell over in Tennessee. But Gary still wanted something even more challenging. He didn't want to run a race that someone else had laid out. He wanted to design one himself, a tougher one.

In 1979, he and his fellow Horse Mountain Runners, which was the name of a club of crazy-ass runners he'd helped found, created their own ultra to run. It was called the Strollen Gym, and the 40-mile run took place in War Trace, Tennessee. It was named after a fame horse that became one of the oldest yearly ultras in the country. And there's a plaque in town today that describes that old horse,

says, Strollin Jim, the first world's champion Tennessee walking horse, is buried in a pasture directly behind the walking horse hotel. Fold in 1936, this former workhorse was ridden to the championship by Florida Carruthers at the first walking horse celebration at Shelbyville in 1939. Jim died in 1957 in the pasture where he spent his last years. The first role in Jim race was a success. Also wasn't quite what Gary expected. What surprised Gary wasn't that people showed up, it was who showed up.

He would later say six or eight doctors were in the race. to surprise me. You'd think of all people, they'd know better. That got Gary thinking, was there a race so insane, so stupid that nobody would do it? Or by making that kind of race, was he destined to attract the craziest of the crazies, the extreme beast mode ultramarathoners like Gordy Ansley? In 1981, Gary put together a raise called The Idiots Run in Shelbyville, Tennessee, consisting of 76 miles and 37 significant hills. And once again, people showed up. A dozen runners made it to the starting line of the idiots run.

Exactly two finished. The rest beat to shit and half dead tapped out. Despite how obviously grueling this race was, it wasn't grueling enough for Gary. He wanted something harder. He wanted something that he expected literally no one to be able to finish. He didn't want to make it, he don't want to make it literally impossible, I should say, but just like not quite,

but he wanted to make it very close to impossible. I love this fucking maniac. The next year in 1982, he extended the idiot's course length to a whopping 108 miles and he eliminated literally every flat section. Nothing, but hills and mountains. Dude's a sadist.

The objective wasn't so much to see who finished. In fact, if they did, Gary would be very disappointed. He just wanted to see how far the toughest runners in the country could make it before they gave up. Gary was confident, that this was quote the grimmest race in the world but remarkably six of the 12 starters finished that year the winner making it to the end with a comfortable time of 17 hours 43 minutes

and 45 seconds how so it wasn't that hard Cantrell needed to up the ante again he wanted to make it better by better of course he meant harder more painful more sadistic so he did extending the distance to somewhere around 120 miles in 1984. Eight runners signed up that year. Not sure how many finished, but however many did,

very likely too many for Gary. Now Gary began looking further afield. He didn't want to keep making the race longer and longer. I mean, that was the easy way, of course, to make it impossible eventually. He wanted to design a course

where the terrain was much more challenging. Soon he would find the exact kind of challenging geography he was looking for, the future home of the Barclay Marathons would be Frozen Head State Park near Wartburg, Tennessee in the Cumberland Mountains. Wartburg.

It's quite a name. Not actually named after warts, unfortunately. Named after Wartburg, or I guess it would be Wartzburg Castle in Germany, where Martin Luther translated the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament into German. The Cumberland Mountains are composed mainly of Pennsylvania-aged sedimentary rocks,

sandstone, shale, siltstone, coal seams. laid down roughly 300 million years ago when the region was part of a vast coastal plain and swamp system over eons the appellation erogeni a fancy geology term for the mountain building period caused by continental collisions

uplifted this plateau with rock layers alternating between resistant sandstone caps and softer shale which erodes faster creating the dramatic cliffs ledges and drainage hollows that are brutal to walk on much less run pre-European colonization this area was the ancestral hunting grounds of the Cherokee. Settlers who arrived in the 1800s generally

did not attempt to make their homes in the unforgiving mountains. They favored the Emory River bottomlands, bottom lands, and nearby Wartburg, which was founded in the 1840s, as a German community. Although businesses occasionally purchased land in the frozen head area for its natural resources, throughout the 19th century, the area remained largely undisturbed, unpopulated, until the state of Tennessee purchased 13,000 acres of it in 1894. The state's plan was simple. With coal miners staging strikes and companies asking the state to intervene, why not cut out the middleman and get into the coal business themselves?

And why not do it with prison labor? Before we go any further, time for this week's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a space as we're on Patreon. Get the catalog ad free. Get these episodes early and more. Thanks for listening those ads, and now let's return to the 1890s to talk about the construction of a prison in an area so rugged and punishing. Gary Cantrell will just have to route a race through it. Indeed, inmates were used to build the prison itself, brushy mountain prison, a four-story wooden structure.

The natural formation of the mountain on three sides surrounding the prison meant the escape was virtually impossible. There was one way in and one way out. If they wanted to leave, inmates would have to pass to the town of, Petross, Tennessee, where lawmen would likely find them and eagerly bring them back to collect a nice bounty. Of course, the other option was to go over the mountain, but few would try. If you decided, you know, to tough your sentence out, you were awakened each day at 5.45 a.m. By a whistle and quickly given some shitty breakfast. Then you'd be marched up a steep hill into the mines, carrying your lunch pail with you so you wouldn't need to go back to the prison and waste

valuable time. You'd work until 4.45 p.m., a shift of almost 12 straight hours. These were 12 dangerous, difficult hours, and there were often injuries and fatalities. But that didn't matter to those of the top. In 1900, the mines would bring in more than $175,000 or somewhere around $7 million in today's money, and six years later, the governor at the time, Malcolm Rice Patterson reported that he was delighted with the operation. He wrote, the brush of mountain mines are in more prosperous and profitable condition than ever before in our history more coal is being mined shipments are larger and more prompt and prices are better while expenses are relatively less than ever before it costs the people just as much to keep the prisoners in idleness

as it does to keep them at work unless profitability employed they would be unless profitably employed they would be an enormous burden on the state within just a few decades though the inmates had had enough, though there wasn't much they could do from inside the prison. Once they got out, they started writing articles about how terrible the conditions were, how dangerous the work was, including the 1932 campaign that described how 900 minors would work all day, only to spend their nights in overcrowded disease-ridden cells. An investigating committee would agree, reporting that, quote, conditions at the state's brushing mountain prison at Petrosse approach conditions which prevailed in the Siberian prisons under the old Russian regime.

What's more, the 35-year-old wooden structure was, quote, a dangerous fire hazard. One commissioner called it, quite directly, one of the worst things in the state. So in 1934, construction of a new facility began. This new facility would be made a sandstone from a nearby quarry. Of course, the people who built it were inmates, right? Why waste all that free labor? After the structure, which was designed to look like a Christian cross, was finished in 1935. The prison population swelled over a thousand men.

And now practically no one attempted a classic walk off the ground's escape, which, as we've learned in previous episodes, was actually somewhat common back then in a lot of prisons. Instead, prisoners here focus their escape routes on the mines, like an incident that took place on March 27, 1938, when 38 prisoners discovered a soft seam of coal, about a mile a half into the mine, in this coal seam, the prisoners dug a 30-foot shaft, then used dynamite to blast their way. up and out onto the mountain slope that's wild when the alarm was sounded the next morning possees of guards civilians and bloodhounds began to comb the woods and eventually 17 men were returned to their cells at least some returned of their own accord after struggling with a hostile landscape by the next day twelve more men were captured two escapees made it through the back country and into kentucky but hungry tired and depleted they were soon captured too at the end of the manhunt a mere six men were still on the loose and

at the end of the month, one of the six surrendered in Denver, admitting that he was hungry, broke, and tired to dodge in the law. That was how tough this train was. It beat the will to survive out of you. And that reputation soon meant that the men who filled the prison cells were tough, violent, and cruel, men who could not risk containment anywhere else. Eventually, it wasn't the mining accidents, the violence, including in time when some prisoner tied dynamite to a fellow inmate and literally blew off his arms and legs, or the riots that finally convinced the state to shut down the coal mining operation. It was simply that by the mid-1960s, coal mining had become a lot less profitable. The prison itself wouldn't close officially until 2009, and in the meantime, an event took place that would ultimately inspire the Barclay Marathons. On April 4, 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was fatally wounded by a sniper's bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room with the Motel Lorraine in Memphis.

That evening, a Remington 30-0-6 hunting rifle was found on the sidewalk besides a roaming house, just a block from the Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle eyewitness reports and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect. Escape convict James Earl Ray. In May of 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false identity, a surprisingly easy thing to do at the time. On June 8th, Scotland Yard investigators arrested Ray to London Airport.

Ray was trying to fly to Belgium with the eventual goal he left. later admitted of reaching Rhodesia, a country that would become Zimbabwe. Extradited to the U.S., Ray stood before a Memphis judge in March of 1969 and pled guilty to King's murder, mainly to avoid the electric chair. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison, and that prison would be, of course, Brushy Mountain. James Earl Ray walked through the gates of Brushing Mountain for the first time on March 21, 1970. Though to the outside world, he insisted that he was a patsy and a larger conspiracy that

involved some handler named Raul inside the prison. He stayed pretty quiet. He'd give only one interview to new Sentinel reporter Willard Yarborough, Yarbrough, in March 1971, to quote, let people outside know that I wasn't crazy, as he put it. I do not cause trouble here, Ray told him. I work six hours a day, seven days a week. I write memos to my lawyer.

I'm in bed and asleep by eight every night. Just another prisoner, and I'm treated as one. If he was a model prisoner, as he claimed to be, there was a chance he could have qualified for parole in 34 years that is at the age of 73 but ray didn't want to wait nearly that long in may of 1970 barely three months in he used a stolen hacksaw chisel and crowbar how did he get all that stuff so quickly uh to punch a hole into his cell wall and jimmy his way into a steam tunnel that led to the outside unfortunately for him that steam tunnel was pretty hot uh he didn't actually fully make it in because it was uh 400 degrees so he didn't escape instead he got 30 days in the hole nine months later he saw another opportunity this time ray tried to bore his way out through the ceiling that attempt not successful either gets some more trouble finally would leave brushy in july of nineteen seventy two but not the way he wanted to an armed convoy carried ray to the tennessee state prison in nashville after brushy

was temporarily closed four years later in august in nineteen seventy six the prison reopened renovated to serve as a maximum security housing for Tennessee's worst offenders, and the celebrity inmate returned by his own request. Like the first time, he tried to fashion himself as a model inmate, and he soon went to work in the prison laundry, where his good attitude gained him some privileges. By the spring of 1977, the national spotlight had turned on Ray again. Investigators for the House Select Committee on Assassinations visited Petros no fewer than four times to question Ray behind closed doors about what he claimed to know. His attorney, the time. Jack Kershaw held out hope that the probe could lead to a new trial, but the committee

decided not to bring Ray to Washington to testify. Once again, his case is dead in the water. With that, normal operations at the prison resumed, and Friday, June 9th seemed like any other summer day at the prison. That evening, Floyd Hook sat at his post in the guard tower along brushing mountains north wall, looking out at the vast expanse of green wilderness, his inmates milled around the yard below. Floyd was in one of nine towers that stood along the prison's walls, but only eight held guards. The last tower was a tacked on wooden addition near the corner where the northeast wall met the bare rock of the mountain slope. Normally it stayed empty, except during riots or other emergencies. The wall beside the tower stood 12 feet high,

topped by bar of wire electrified with 2,300 volts. At the spot where the mountain and the wall met, the wire tilted upward, leaving an 18-inch gap, which is barely big enough for a skinny grown man to maybe squeeze beneath. On the opposite side, some 40 years of erosion had built up a mound of dirt that could cushion a drop of about 12 feet. At 7.30 p.m., five men broke away

from the basketball court, the softball diamond and the horseshoe stakes. Huddly near the empty tower, they pulled pieces of pipe out from under their shirts, out from under their waistbands, from behind rocks and clumps of dirt that lined the fence that have been obviously hidden there earlier, and then

somebody near the basketball court threw a punch and a fight broke out, drawing Floyd's attention. As Floyd turned, sections of pipe came together into a rudimentary 12-foot ladder that swung into the air and hooked over the outside edge of the Northeast Wall just where the electrified wire ended. This is genius.

James Earl Ray scrambled up and over first. I guess this was his plan. Then Larry Edward Hacker, a convicted bank robber from West Tennessee's Hardin County followed. After him was Earl Hill, Jr., serving two life sentences for rape and murder outside of Erwin, Tennessee and Donald Ray Kaler, a Knoxville convict, serving time for armed robbery and attempted murder.

Rounding out the back was Doug Shelton, a killer from Kingsport, with a long record of escaping from jails and prisons. Each ran the moment they hit the ground, of course. And then there was one more. David Lee Powell, a fellow killer from Shelby County, also served a 99-year sentence, looked out the window from the prison dining hall, and to his surprise, saw a bunch of dudes escaping,

and just climbing up over a makeshift ladder. He's like, I want in. So he ran downstairs, ran out the door in time to reach the ladder, just as the last man scampered up and over. On his heels, then came Jerry Ward, a bank robber from Shelby County, who had Powell's same idea. They're like, awesome.

Thanks, guys, for setting this up. The setting sun then struck Powell's white kitchen uniform as he dashed across the yard, and the glare caught the eye of Linwood Butler, another guard monitoring the opposite wall. Linwood cocked his shotgun and opened fire. Floyd hooks the nearest guard To the escape point

Though he would never get off a shot He later testified He tripped over his rifle Fell against the tower door Accidentally shut it And locked himself inside Guessing he just got a little bit of shit Over that

Probably got himself a new job pretty soon One of Butler's shots caught Jerry Ward The last man up the ladder As he crossed the wall Ward tumbled to the ground bleeding from his head and his arm Guards caught up within minutes later Ward would leave the prison grounds

In an ambulance shouting as the paramedics Hustled him out James Earl Ray got out James Earl Ray got out What a fucking dickhead Because he couldn't escape He didn't want other people escape him Indeed Ray couldn't have chosen

Better timing Stony Lay the warden had left town To visit his sister in Texas And though Ray couldn't have anticipated it His notoriety would protect him There were so many calls made Both from the prison and the nearby towns That the whole telephone system of Morgan County

crashed rendering lawmakers unable to mobilize as prison officials consulted on the best course of action tried to deny the rumors that somebody inside had helped Ray Escape the media began to arrive. Reporters, photographers, and cameramen swarmed the gates from as close as the Morgan County News to as far away as correspondents from the New York Times

and across the pond at the BBC. Sensing an impending national crisis, President Jimmy Carter ordered the FBI to step in and take over the manhunt. The local law enforcement and the governor, Ray Blanton, who would resign two years later and then head to prison himself for a couple years

for selling liquor licenses one of the most corrupt officials in history over there insisted the state could do it all in their own with so much confusion and dueling law enforcement agencies it seemed unlikely that any of the convicts

would ever be found but of course there was the unforgiving terrain around them to deal with how long could these guys last in the wilds of Tennessee not very long as it turned out David Powell

the kitchen helper who spotted his chance to run gave himself up on Saturday afternoon after police helicopters spotted him hiding in an open field off the state highway 62 near frozen head state park didn't even last 24 hours he swore he didn't know about this skate plot said he had no idea where to find Ray and the others Sunday morning would bring another capture

Larry Hacker was found kneeling inside a one-room church four miles from the prison in a town known as New River across the Anderson County line a thunderstorm on Sunday ended the search effort but around 10.30 p.m., a team caught up with Earl Hill on a hillside, not far from the New River Church. He gave himself up, asked politely for a cigarette.

But their golden goose, still out there, James Earl Ray. Luckily, a New River resident would call to report seeing these three strangers, traveling in the dark, one matched, raised description. Searcher suspected the men must have split up when they reached the highway, and soon the area was inundated with law enforcement groups, agents, officers, state troopers, and bloodhounds.

and it was the dogs who would do the real work crossed the railroad tracks through the river up the mountain into the briars and the brush the dog scampered ahead trailing ascent one hour turned into two then three they crossed an old logging road into more woods still the dogs didn't stop until they finally did round 2 a.m. A bloodhound named Sandy

came to a halt another dog named Little Red came to a halt behind her they were standing in front of a shadowy form half cover with leaves and it was James Earl Ray he crawled to his feet and he was led downhill to the road where the warden waited he had little more than a hundred dollars cash in his pockets and a piece of a map they got him just like law enforcement had suspected the convicts had split up and ray and two companions initially went almost straight to the slope of frozen head a climb a nearly two thousand feet his strategy was to travel during the night as much as he could then high during the day not a bad strategy considering police helicopters were swarm in the area with ray's recapture the media coverage died down crews camped outside the prison or they were camped out there we're packing up now some decamping moments after his return to solitary confinement a few months later however ray would be interviewed about his few hours of freedom and of the terrain he would say that's wilderness out there i must have been in places that no human being has ever been there was a heavy brush up here and things like that he continued there are a lot of cliffs with ledges on them you can sit under the ledges there are coal mines up there but it would be foolish getting into one of those things. That's usually what they shake down first. Drenching rain had slowed him down on the second day, and he added that he wasn't happy about being run down, but the hunger really kind

of dulls your emotions in some ways. This particular story would captivate Gary Cantrell. Despite having almost two full days, James Earl Ray had only made it about eight miles. Of course, this would do to numerous factors, right, the need to hide and travel by night, the ongoing search, the thunderstorm, the harsh landscape. focused on the harsh landscape. He thought this place sounded perfect for what he had in mind. And before I lay out exactly what Gary had in mind, time for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to our sponsors. Now let's return, go over how Gary began to build the race that eats its own young. In 1975, Gary and his friend

Carl Hen, soon to be known to ultramarathoners as Raw Dog. And co-founder of the Barclay went up into that same wilderness with the intention to hike in two days the 20-mile-long boundary trail that ran along some array's route. When the men showed the Rangers their map, they were told they wouldn't be able to make it and to not even try

because the Rangers didn't want to have to rescue them. But Gary and Carl managed to convince them that they could do it, and the men set off. It was a grueling, punishing trail, and the first seven and a half miles took a full ten hours. The area they covered was both stunning and

bleak the ground striated and flat limestone sandstone shale and coal the bare branches of trees and spiderwebs stark and the weak sunlight dense thickets forced them to either change their paths or plow through the underbrush and the brittle sticks and slick leaves underfoot were a constant hazard in essence it was nothing like the vistas and verdant forests that were usually the locations for ultramarathoners pushing the runners ahead with the promise of stunning views and beautiful natural scenes. Instead, it was brutal, harsh and unforgiving. The kind of place where you couldn't let your mind wander or try to zone out to dull the pain you were feeling from running so damn far. The way Gary thought of it, it was the perfect place for his kind of ultramarathon. The first

Barclay would take place there, March 1st, 1986. And now you might be asking, who the hell's Berkeley? Well, the race was named after one of Cantrell's early running partners, Barry Barclay, A man who was sadly badly injured in Vietnam, it can no longer run, but he still kept up with the ultramarathon circuit. So, you know, named in his honor, which is very cool. For the early years, the race was somewhere between 50 and 55 miles, with about 25 to 27,000 feet of climbing,

and it had a 24-hour cutoff. 13 unlucky runners would be the course's first victims, including Cantrell himself. They all had to pay an entry fee of 35 cents. Three runners arrived late. went up the wrong mountain which meant they were out before they even had the chance to experience any real pain. The others began the trek an hour before dawn began tackling the difficult north section about 12 miles in. As Gary would later describe that area, it is poorly marked,

severely eroded, overgrown, and laced with deadfalls. So, you know, sounds super fun. There was no guarantee that once you had gotten over an obstacle, there wouldn't simply be more obstacles in your path. After all, it was raw nature, not a groomed course. In that first year, Cantrell and his friend, Gary Buffington, came to a pile of tree trunk, stopped while they figured out how to get across the steep hillside without injuring themselves. And Cantrell had an idea there. He told Buffington to give him his pack. Then Cantrell just took both packs and just yeeded them over the pile of tree trunks.

Shrugging, he then told Buffington, now we have to get there. And they did. They made it across. Two runners ended up completing the first 20-mile loop in under nine hours, and then wisely they chose to quit. Three other runners got lost, hopped in the so-called quitter's Jeep for a ride back to the starting point in shame. Three remained, Buffington and Cantrell finished the first loop in 12 hours and 18 minutes, and then they called it two. Only Damon Douglas continued on, reaching around 37 miles in, just over 17 hours.

But he knew he couldn't finish the last 20 miles by the 24-hour cutoff, so he decided to just give up and stop there. So there were no finishers for that year's Barkley. and Gary Cantrell called it quote A rousing success all around There may have been another reason why nobody finished Some would say that the course was actually a lot longer Than Cantrell had claimed it was Gary was and is known to be a devious trickster

In the ultramarathon community Still Gary maintained that he had simply given the runners a tough course And they weren't up to task and they failed In an ultra running magazine report He wrote Of course it is still impossible to run 50 miles miles on a trail and a day, but if anyone wants to try, we'll be doing it again next spring. For the next year, Gary spread the word about his insane race at other marathons.

16 runners would show up for the second year, 1987. That year saw the first woman to run the Barclay Marathon, Linda Sledge. Linda, like the others, had simply called Cantrell to sign up, since there wasn't any formalized registration. They would pay a new entry fee that year, a whopping 50 cents, one for each mile. cheekily Cantrell offered a quote Full refund if you stick it out and have a cubic inch of your body not in extreme pain

Same year, his goofy newspaper advertisements managed to draw the attention of a celebrity in the ultramarathon world Tom Possert Possert, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio had started a sort of ultramarathon early in his life. As a kid he and his friends would go on 100 mile long bike rides.

In high school he switched focus, started to run track, but soon found out that he hated being laughed and he quit. He wasn't that fast, but he was tough. He couldn't outlap you, but he could run a whole lot more laps than you. In college, Possert, we discovered that the longer he ran, the more distance he covered, and the more competitive he got. He ended up running his first 50-mile ultramarathon in 1984, Chicago's AMJA Ultra, and he finished at a speed of eight hours and 34 minutes. That's fucking crazy.

He ran just over a 10-minute mile for 50 miles. following year he ran the JFK 50 finished 18th at 7 hours and 40 minutes now he's running closer to a 9 minute mile for 50 straight miles 1986 he ran 147 miles at the across the year 6 day marathon which was at the time the fifth furthest distance

for any American ultramarathoner Jesus Christ don't have a time for that one but who cares it's just cool that he ran 147 miles safe to say everyone thought that if anybody could finish the Barclay it was Possert. He would arrive a few days early before April 11th to hike the area's trails, get a feel for the course, which included a new one and a quarter mile climb to the top of

frozen head. In total, the course now consisted of three 16 and two-third mile loops with a 36-hour cutoff. And when the runners assembled for the six-minute start time, Possert and another runner immediately took the lead. Among the other runners were five Marines who had previously run the JFK-50 and were confident they could finish this rinky-dink race. There was also Fred Pylon, the Massachusetts-based co-editor of Ultra Running Magazine, who had competed in the bark of the year before, but wound up running off the trail and becoming disqualified. He now returned for more punishment, and after several miles he caught up with Possard and the other runner who was in the lead, as three of them made their way down to the brand new section of the course.

Later, Pylon would describe the scenery as the top of the valley was guarded by dense strands of briars, blown down trees, huge boulders, and numerous cliffs. At the base of Frozenhead, they found no trail that led to the summit, so they bushwhacked their way through. Along the way, they passed, quote, numerous seams of coal, old wells, wheels, and pullies of all sorts in a cave. This leg of the journey took them a whopping two hours, though it would take others four hours. In the end, none of them ever found the correct trail, if it even existed. Poster and Pylon completed the first 16.7-mile loop in seven hours. They headed out for the second loop, just as afternoon was fading into evening.

The two men briefly separated, then met up later on after Posard had stopped, rested in eight before the difficult frozen head section. When Pilon caught up, he asked Posard, do you plan to go through hell again? Both men knew that climbing the mountain twice was too much for them, and they enjoyed their two-man loser run back to the start, having ran for a total of 14 hours and 30 minutes. The Marines did make it up, frozen head, again, but then quit soon after. the Barclay won again. No one finished. But for some reason, people would continue to try. 19 brave or foolish, depending on how you look at it, runners came in 1988, including 11 newcomers. All of them had submitted an entry form titled, The Barkley Marathon, the Race That Eats, It's Young. And with the increased popularity of the race, prospective runners now had to submit essays on why they should be allowed to enter, considering, as Cantrell wrote,

There is no way you'll be finishing the race. And follow-up letters, Cantrell warned the runners that Barclay would, quote, bite them in the ass. As the runners now warmed up, Cantrell handed out custom design race shirts that year that included a picture of a wolf, or at least a wolf-like animal, feasting on a fallen runner at the bottom of the mountain, or of a mountain. One of the year's runners was Ed Furtaugh, an ultramarathoner who had been personally invited by Cantrell. Cantrell had actually invited Furtah on a very different kind of mission the previous

month. He wanted Furtah to help with the problem. How would they make sure that the runners ran the correct course and furtile came up with a unique solution there would be several checkpoints each one with their own book like just a random book runners would be signed a page number say page 39 and they would have to grab the 39th page at each checkpoint from each book you know to complete the race this now presented fertile with an obvious advantage he knew the course before anyone else did he had a preview even of the frozen head segment which was now definitively known among racers as hell

Furtah would later describe his first time somebody in the mountain. Hell is an incredibly steep ascent that goes westward straight up the side of Frozen Head Mountain. I was amazed at the steepness of the climb. We had to literally pull ourselves uphill from tree to tree in the steepest places.

Never wanted to wish for a fair race. Cantrell advised Fertah to not help newcomers to let them get lost. And then it was part in the expression after the races. Postered in a new runner, Eric Clifton, flew around the first loop. Clipped and finished in five hours and 50 minutes, with postured arriving just two minutes later. Fertov finished his first loop in a respectable six

hours and 56 minutes, and returning runner Fred Pylon clocked in eight hours. Those worth of successes. Everyone else had already failed. Seven runners became confused and missed one of the checkpoints, disqualifying them. One more runner quit after hell, aka the path up to the summit of frozen hedges beat the shit out of them. If you keep and score, that meant that 11 runners finished the first loop, but only six start of the second. Posert finished the loop two first, the second loop first, followed by Clifton 90 minutes later, who now decided he'd had quite enough and quit. Ed Furtoff finished loop two at 15 hours, nine minutes.

However, Posert had goofed on the second loop, missing a short section to go to the top of the frozen head again. He made the same mistake on his third loop, cut in the course distance by a total of about a mile. Possert continued, though, not knowing that all of his effort would result in a DNF, did not finish. At 23 hours, 47 minutes in, Postert finished his third loop as Ed Furtah scrambled to start on his since he'd taken a three-hour nap. Despite being the first-ever person to kind of finish the Barclay,

Poster was disqualified, and apparently he took it well. Cantrell later said, Possert's class in the face of bitter disappointment stands alone as the brightest moment that will ever be seen at the Barclay. By dawn, Fertile was the only one left on the course, and finally at 32 hours in, he made it to the festival. finish line. The Barkley Marathon had its first quote unquote winner, and now the dangers of

running off the course were becoming widely known, especially when Cantrell published his write-up of that year's marathon. The runner cannot afford to lapse into a semi-comatose state of pure running and suffering, Cantrell warned. Failure to stay alert for even a moment can lead to a wander off the trail and finding it again can be quite difficult. The question on everyone's mind now was, would Cantrell make the course even harder because someone had beat it. Of course he would. Cantrell announced that for 1989 he would introduce a thousand rattlesnakes, a hundred hungry wolves, 50 cycle paths with flamethrowers riding motorcycles given the green light to kill anyone on site. Okay, maybe not that. That'll be exciting. But it would be

harder. Now there would be a hundred mile option with 50,000 feet of quote, wonderful climbing with a 50 hour cutoff. To Cantrell, this made perfect sense. After all, he said, two miles per hour ain't much. I'm sure there are plenty of real runners out there who believe they can do it. We'll see. I love these taunts these guys. This race would be held appropriately on April Fool's Day. Besides having both a long one and a short one, there was also the addition of Ratjaw,

a new major climb on each loop that went up to South Face of Frozen Head, which remained in the race until 1994. Hell and Ratjaw, awesome. In 1988, only 14 runners started the race. Nora Hen Fisher became the first woman to finish the first loop. But nobody, man or woman, made it even halfway through that year's Barclay. 29 runners would run two years later, 1990, paying the increased raise fee of $1.55. One of them was David Horton, an ultra marathoner who's slowest time on a 100-mile course

up to that point was 22 hours and five minutes. Dude's another beast. Surely if anyone could finish the 100-mile Barkley, he could, right? Ed Furtah also returned along with Eric Clifton, a frozen Ed, I guess a nickname for Ed Furtah, led the past. but then quit after loop two. Horton, Clifton, and another runner were the only ones to start loop three, and they all finished together at 26 hours, 22 minutes. Then it was time for loop four,

but none of them made it all the way to the end, a whopping six loops. The 50-mile three-loop version would eventually become known as the fun run and got to be surprisingly achievable. There were 10 finishers, 91, 2 and 92, 11 and 93, and 1 in 94. In 1995, the course would be changed,

with the loops increased to 20 miles in a full run being 5.20-mile loops, or, you know, 100 miles. That year, Tom Poster, was the first to complete the 60-mile fun run and bowed out. I love how it's always just shifting, like, the distance and everything. Somebody else ran the first full 100-mile Barkley Marathon. His name was Mark Williams, and he finished it in 59 minutes, 28, or 59 hours, 59 minutes. He finished it in an hour. Oh, God damn, he was fast.

He had a jet pack, which gave him a huge advantage. no we finished it in 59 hours 20 minutes 48 seconds making it to the end about a half an hour before the cutoff by 2013 only 14 had ever

completed the full distance most of them engineers chemists and physicists people with advanced degrees high achievers who loved a challenge by this time Gary Cantrell was going

by Lazarus Lake now and how did he arrive at that name well we found it in a phone book he just looked at a phone book in the middle of an ultramarathon at some point in around this time thought it sounded cool and unique

adopted it as a now iconic nickname in the ultra running world adding it to his mysterious persona why was he looking through a phone book in the middle of a race? Who knows? Not a lot makes sense with this guy. This dude lives somewhere between eccentric and batshit.

Lazarus had stopped publicizing his marathon by this point he no longer needed to. For one thing it had become quite popular. For another it was against the spirit of the race to be helpful to those who wanted to compete. People who have business out there on the Barclay find out how to enter. Lake said in an interview. That's the whole race. Nothing is done to make it mentally easier.

The race dates are not posted. There's no website. Sweet Jesus. Why do I love this guy so much? Steve reminds me the dude who ran Action Park. In the spirit, runners now had to complete an entry form with some interesting questions. Here are some that have shown up on past forms. What is the most important vegetable group? What will be the 199th element on the periodic table? write the Gettysburg address in Savay, which is a mythological Chinese script. After this, 40 runners are selected. That's the current limit. Historically, if accepted, a runner receives a letter of condolence that warns them they have, quote, a very bad thing waiting. In other letters, Lake has said that a runner's participation in the Barclay will, quote, amount to nothing more than an extended period of unspeakable suffering.

At the end of which, you will ultimately find only failure and humiliate. they can spend the months before the race training he writes but that time would be better spent putting their affairs in order he's written update your will visit with friends and relatives and otherwise tie up any loose ends you might still escape by simply riding me and asking that your sloppy passed along to some other unfortunate fool cantero also picks at least one quote human sacrifice every year a person he believes truly has zero chance of finishing the race uh virgin or new competitors have had to bring a set of license plates from their home state or county or excuse me or country is a first time entry fee along with a dollar and 60 cents previous racers have had to bring lake something he needs for his personal use but doesn't feel like getting himself stuff like flannel shirts pairs of socks in 2016 it was quote a cool t-shirt with foreign riding on it who is this guy uh anyone who has to finish the race before also has to bring Lake a pack of camel cigarettes.

That I mentioned this ultra-marathon runner smokes. Yeah, he does. For at least around 20 years, the race has begun with Lake lighting a cigarette. Runners waiting to start. They camp out near the base of the mountain. As everyone settles into their campsites, the atmosphere turns festive,

chicken thighs, marinate and barbecue sauce, sizzle on the grill all night, industrial-sized cans of baked beans, set on stumps brought by the runners, you know, like potluck style. Sometimes somebody even brings, brings a cake. One year it said, good luck, morons, in cheerful green frosting. Then any time between midnight and noon on Saturday, some sources say anytime from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. Other sources

talk about starting on different days. It's a little complicated to give exact details because he just changes it all the time. And again, this is kind of secretive. But apparently one thing that is pretty consistent is Lake will blow a conch shell, which signals there's an hour until the race begins. For a couple of years in the 2010s, he blew it shortly after 8 a.m. But in 2013, apparently he blew it at 104 a.m. I mean, that the runners were not able to catch sleep. And he slept that night before the race began, not much. It's just madness.

It's insanity. As the runners gather near a yellow gate, once he's announced the race is starting, Lake will tell them that nobody's going to blame them. Blame them if they drop out now. After a little bit of ribbing, his tone will shift. He will say a few words about members of the Barkley community who have passed away since the previous year, if any, have. I want to read their names because they're not here with us today And they're not going to be here with us again

But a little bit of them is out there He said one year After that it's about time to begin There is no cry of go No sharp call or whistle Instead the official start time Is when Lake lights the kind of ceremonial cigarette And then the punishment begins

Over the years the course has changed To be given different nicknames An area known as testicle spectacle is the really first climb some years. It's usually pretty overgrown with sawbriars and plants that a runner has to bushwhack through. It can easily turn into a muddy river if the conditions on the mountain are at all rainy.

Oftentimes then a runner will head down to a place called Meth Lab Hill. Those who make it to loop three on some years have had the privilege of experiencing Checkmate Hill, which is 1,300 feet of climbing in a quarter mile. If that's not bad enough, Lake has somehow convinced the, rushing mountain prison warden, or he somehow convinced him in 2009, the year the penitentiary finally closed, or penitentiary, to show him a tunnel that went underneath the

old exercise yard at the prison. It's a quarter mile long with no lights and water flowing through it, and of course that has stayed in the race. During all this, the runners have to find the books. They have to tear out their given page numbers. That has stayed. At first, Lake had to go to bookstores to find the right material for the race, but then people started to send him books to be used in the race. these are some good ones his favorite in 2013 was titled what to do when you feel lost alone and helpless other titles for that year included death walks the woods heart of darkness a time to die previous titles have included what did i do wrong confessions of a virgin sacrifice you can if you think you can how to survive and grow richer in the tough times ahead oh this is so good if a runner decides they've had had enough, Lake will play taps on the bugle for the loser as they make their way down to the park, specifically so other losers can wake up from their recovery rest and see you who

else couldn't hack it, he says. For the winners, Lake's later's has said, the prize is that you get to stop running. In 2014, the documentary filmed the Barclay Marathons, the race that eats its young was released covering the 2012 edition of the race. It's now on YouTube if you want to watch it. It's almost exactly an hour and a half long. And, uh, it's a, almost exactly an hour and a half long and check out how it opens you're listening to news hour from the bbc coming up in the program we're going to be talking to the founder of an endurance race so tough hardly anyone has ever finished it how you always have to keep people a little off guard first rule of barclays don't talk about it if you talk about it then you're not going to be part of it so it's kind of secret

it kind of weeds itself out if you belong here you would find out how to get here this is about you by yourself against all that out there. This is wild. I've never heard of an event like this, like an athletic event. That year, a whopping three people finished. Brett Mon, a returning runner who had finished the year before, now beat his score of 57 hours, 13 minutes, ran at the current record of 52 hours, three minutes.

Jared Campbell also finished along with John. No idea that's his last name. Feguressi There wouldn't be three winners again until 2023 when Aureli and Sanchez returning finisher John Kelly and Carol Sabbe all finished between

58 and 59 hours in the next year would see a whopping five finishers the most the Barclays ever had including British runner Jasmine Paris who became the first woman to complete all five loops within the time limit finishing the event 99 seconds before the 60 hour cutoff

that's awesome saw a picture of her. She looked like she was about to die. Early this year back in March, nobody finished to Barclay. Today, Lazarus Lake, a bit of an unlikely hero. Among ultramarathons, particularly abroad, he has become kind of a counterculture icon. While in the U.S., he's considered, quote,

a bit of a homeless person, according to himself. Indeed, most people don't seem to know kind of what to do with this guy. He's the kind of guy who would and has pulled out his own teeth because he didn't want to go to a dentist, even though he has money to go to a dentist, the kind of guy who eagerly embraces the brutal reputation of the marathon he created,

but has also written a touching four-part book series about his rescue dog big, called Big Adventures, the Big Dog Diaries. His life goal involves being a kind of sadistic jigsaw figure, but he's also a married man who's worked as an accountant who designed built his own house, specifically with dorms to house,

runners he tortures. He's estimated to be in his late 60s, or early 70s. Nobody knows exactly. In 2018, he walked from Rhode Island to Oregon. Why? He just wanted to. Runner's World magazine interviewed him about that,

publishing an article titled The Barclay Marathons creator is walking across the country. Just don't ask him why. During his interview over the phone, he said, the most exciting day is always today. And the most interesting place is always where you are. The world is very different at walking speed.

it's been an adventure every day before he set out his doctor told him he wouldn't be able to make it of course he ignored that and he did uh he walked from roughly seven a m to seven p.m each and every day took him a little over four months at seven a m uh excuse me at seven p m when he stopped he would grab something to eat and then head to bed as quickly as possible after dinner make sure he got his mandatory a minimum of seven hours of sleep in uh he would start off he would start off each and every day with a doctor pepper of course uh Cincinnati-based ultra runner Harvey Lewis, who won his second Biggs backyard ultra in 2023 by running 450 miles. What the fuck in 108 hours said? He smokes and drinks Dr. Pepper all day and has a bit of a belly. But he can walk further than anyone I know his age. On his trek across the country, he didn't take sightseeing detours, stuck to his plan,

even if it was like an enticing opportunity, also apparently drank a lot of milkshakes. He said he prefers milkshakes from local stores, to those from chains. This guy is so unique. Talk about marching to the beat of your own drummer. This guy's truly one of a kind.

Last year, he was interviewed by run outside. Some journal in the journalist, Dan England said that his sense of humor is so dry that you wouldn't know he was joking if he didn't punctuate certain statements

with a maniacal that would scatter a herd of deer. He gave the interview while taking his daily six-mile walk that starts and ends at his house in the woods of Tennessee, unless he's traveling he does that walk every single day he said i'm not a day off kind of guy i really think getting outside every day makes you a happier person his wife sandra cantrell said

in the same article that she doesn't understand why anyone would think of her husband as a sadist he simply loves offering people a challenge in fact as hard as the barclay is now sandra believes he would relish the challenge himself if he was just a bit younger he would love it she says uh she said he's a little misunderstood but also he's too old to care A friend of his, John Kelly, a three-time finisher of the Barclay Marathon, says, I've described him as the exterior of a badger and the heart of a golden retriever. He's certainly a special individual. He's really in this just because he enjoys it.

What's greater than that? Again, what an interesting dude and such an interesting part of a fascinating community. Many recent runners say that they don't run the Barclay out of any desire to push themselves to their physical and mental limits. They do it to honor the legacy at this point of Lazarus Lake. and to keep the wonderful Barclay community going strong. So, would you join them? You want to run this race? Or is hearing about it plenty?

And that's it for this edition of Time Suck, Short Sucks. Oh, hearing about that is 100% plenty for me. Ah, I would fucking die in that thing. If you enjoyed this story, but I wouldn't want to watch maybe some other people run it. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Catalog. Beefier episodes at Time Suck every Monday at noon, Pacific Time. New episodes of the now long-running paranormal podcast, scared to death, every Tuesday at midnight, with two episodes of nightmare fuel, some fictional horror thrown in each month.

Thank you to Sophie Evans for her initial research. Thank you to Logan Keith, polishing up the sound of today's episode. Please go to bad magic productions.com for all your bad magic needs. Happy holidays, and have yourself a great weekend. Mad Magic Productions I don't know.