There was a rare in-race look behind the scenes on day one of this year’s Barkley Marathons as local news channel ‘WATE 6 On Your Side’ was given access to the campsite at the start.
It underlined just how good the weather was, making it even more surprising that just 10 of the 40 runners would later make it through the first of five loops inside the required time.
That strongly suggested that race creator Laz Lake and the man who looks to have fully stepped into the race director role now, Carl Laniak, have toughened things up considerably this year – and both were interviewed.
‘A rugged reputation’
The video, embedded below, also gave plenty of clues to the participants via the flags and number plates on show. Laz explained: “The licence plates all represent a person who left a piece of themselves out here on these trails.
“The race has a pretty rugged reputation – in 40 years there have been just 20 finishers.
“We get applications from all over the world and if you look through the licence plates you can see lots of foreigners. We split the field – we can take 40 so we take 20 from North America, which is the US, Canada and Mexico. And then 20 from overseas, which is anywhere else.”
Digging deep
It was Laniak who blew the conch this year to get the 100-mile event underway and he said: “When something is at the edge of human potential, even if you can only make it 20% of the way, if you got everything out of yourself and really felt like you dug deeper than you have before then you’re getting most of the same feeling that those world-class athletes at the front are.”
Laniak himself clocked 9:29 for the first loop at the Barkley back in 2012, faster than anyone in this year’s renewal.
And no fewer than 30 of the 40 starters weren’t able to complete it in the allotted time as Laniak, Laz and the course itself struck back after an unprecedented eight finishers over the previous couple of years.
