The Barkley Marathons
Given that I am currently training for a marathon myself (in a worryingly short space of time), the Netflix documentary The Barkley Marathons popped up and I thought, why not, this could be a bit of inspiration. What followed was madness.
The Barkley marathons is an ultramarathon race held annually in Tennessee for which only 40-50 competitors are handpicked every year by its organiser and founder Lazarus. The race consists of 5 loops of the course, sounds simple enough?
Well, there are no track markings so every runner has to take a compass and a map (no GPS allowed). The terrain is ridiculously hilly; if you complete the 5 loops, you will have scaled the altitude of going up and down Everest... twice. Oh, and each loop is a marathon. So the total distance is around 130 miles. In its 30-year lifetime, only 14 runners have completed it. I won't go into more detail, you need to watch this documentary to believe it.
Entry costs €1.60 (yep €1.60) and a license plate from your hometown. What are you waiting for?
The Barkley marathons is an ultramarathon race held annually in Tennessee for which only 40-50 competitors are handpicked every year by its organiser and founder Lazarus. The race consists of 5 loops of the course, sounds simple enough?
Well, there are no track markings so every runner has to take a compass and a map (no GPS allowed). The terrain is ridiculously hilly; if you complete the 5 loops, you will have scaled the altitude of going up and down Everest... twice. Oh, and each loop is a marathon. So the total distance is around 130 miles. In its 30-year lifetime, only 14 runners have completed it. I won't go into more detail, you need to watch this documentary to believe it.
Entry costs €1.60 (yep €1.60) and a license plate from your hometown. What are you waiting for?
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