Pioneers of Possibility
He Built the World's Hardest Race. Only 20 People Have Ever Finished It. | Lazarus Lake | PoP Ep. 24
Description
He goes by Lazarus Lake. His real name is Gary Cantrell. He built a race in the Tennessee wilderness that has broken some of the toughest endurance athletes on earth — 100-plus miles, no GPS, no aid stations, no marked trail, and in nearly forty years of running, only twenty people have crossed the finish line. He also invented a completely different kind of race — one that’s since spread to 98 countries and produced thousands of finishers who never thought they could run 100 miles in their lives. And at 71 years old, he’s about to walk 1,100 miles from the Colorado-Utah border to San Francisco, because he hasn’t finished yet. Gary grew up in a sports-obsessed family in Tennessee, too small at five feet tall and seventy pounds to play the football he dreamed of. Cross country became his sport — not because he was fast, but because he could tolerate more than almost anyone else. He never stopped. He ran his first ultramarathon when there were almost none to find, started directing races when he realized he was better at building them than running them, and spent a lifetime in the woods with a topo map and a willingness to go further than made sense. He founded the Barkley Marathons in 1986 — named after a politician whose escape from a nearby prison inspired the course — and has been refining its particular brand of beautiful cruelty ever since. The Barkley is not like other races. There are no mile markers, no crew support, no GPS allowed. Runners navigate by paper map through some of the most punishing terrain in the Eastern United States, collecting pages from books hidden on the course to prove they’ve been there. Each of five loops covers roughly twenty miles — though the actual distance, with thousands of feet of climbing and descending, is something else entirely. The time limit is sixty hours. In nearly forty years, only twenty individuals have finished. Most years, no one does. The race has no official website. Entry requires a letter of intent, a small fee, and an essay — the criteria for which Gary declines to share. He also invented something else entirely: the Backyard Ultra. The concept is disarmingly simple. Run a 4.167-mile loop every hour on the hour, until you can’t. The last person still running wins. No distances, no age groups, no gender categories. Just a bell at the start line that any runner can ring when they’ve gone further than they’ve ever gone before — and a crowd that stops what it’s doing and cheers, every time. What started as a small fundraiser on his farm now has over 700 affiliated races, runners from 98 countries, and a world record of 119 hours — nearly five continuous days of running. This season alone, more people completed 100-mile efforts through Backyard events than through every other race format in the world combined. In this episode, Kareem and Gary discuss: * Why the Barkley Marathons has only ever had twenty finishers — and what separates them from everyone else * The three categories of finisher: the magical day, the pipeline, and the superhuman * How the Backyard Ultra was born from a high school interval workout and a 150-acre farm * Why GPS atrophy may now be the biggest obstacle facing Barkley applicants * Walking 3,700 miles across America at 65 — and why he’s about to do another 1,100 at 71 * The little boy on the steps with two baseball gloves — and the decision he never regretted * Why running is, in his words, “good training for getting old” * The real story behind the name Lazarus Lake Gary Cantrell has spent a lifetime building things that push people past what they think they can do — not by making it easier, but by making it matter. The bell at the Backyard start line rings for anyone. That’s the whole point. Listen to Pioneers of Possibility on Apple Podcasts: Listen on Spotify: Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pioneersofpossibilitypod [https://www.youtube.com/@pioneersofpossibilitypod] #LazarusLake #GaryCantrell #BarkleyMarathons #BackyardUltra #Ultramarathon #TrailRunning #Endurance #RunningCommunity #UltraRunning #RaceDirector #PioneersOfPossibility #PioneersPodcast #Running #AdventureRunning #FrozenHead This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit pioneerspod.substack.com [https://pioneerspod.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]
1 month for 9 kr.
Then 99 kr. / month · Cancel anytime.
- Podcasts kun på Podimo
- 20 lydbogstimer pr. måned
- Gratis podcasts
All episodes
29 episodes
Comments
0Be the first to comment
Sign up now and become a member of the Pioneers of Possibility community!