This race has come to mean so much to me.
It’s my favorite race — by far.
It is the most difficult race I do — by far.
Why do I do hard things? My thinking on this has evolved over time, but being a student of the Big Barkley (and BFC is what I call little Barkley), I have better insight now. Big Barkley is arguably one of the most difficult athletic events in the world – out of more than 1000 starters over the race’s 30+ years in existence, there have been just 21 finishes by 17 different runners. I highly recommend the book “The Finishers: The Barkley Marathons,” for any one who wants to dig into the psyche of those who have tackled this course (which gets harder every time there is a finisher) and beaten it….
So back to why do I do hard things? Everyone reading this leads a life of relative comfort. How often do you either voluntarily or forcefully get taken outside of your comfort zone — to somewhere really dark and difficult? Probably quite rarely. On the one hand it’s a little silly to leave comfort, but then, rather than a life of quiet desperation, aren’t we all leading lives of banal/mundane complacency? And is that better — or worse? For me, getting out the door and doing really hard things is a big part of the joy I find in life. (And yes, I find joy in the little mundane things of life just as much!)
Beyond that, I have yet to sign up for a race that truly scares me, or one that I truly have a slim chance of finiishing. Ok, the elevation at Leadville scared me, as I had never run that high for that long before — but I finished. The weather at Pinhote was brutal — over half the field dropped due to hypothermia — but I finished.
Now, (spoiler) I’m 5 for 5 for the 50k finish at BFC, but this race still challenges me like no other. Every year it’s something different that makes it hard — though last year I really crushed it (and after this year I am more certain that was fluke!). Year 1, I cramped in my toes two hours in and the cramps slowly worked their way up my body hitting muscles I didn’t even know I had. Year 2, I was vastly undertrained as I had not run a single step for nearly 6 months at the start of the year. Year 3 was the Covid year, so there were all kinds of restrictions placed on the race — incredible Laz was able to make it happen. Year 4 – I crushed it. What would year 5 hold?
What challenged me this year? Man, this one is hard. My dad passed away 12 days before the race. I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to the start line. I did, but being so close to his passing, and my 1st big event after his passing, it was tough. For those that don’t know, my dad was an accomplished endurance athlete himself, as outlined in this article written in 2012 after he competed in Kona, in the Ironman World Championship:
Local executive Paul Butler completes Kona Ironman at age 70
And Dad was one of my biggest fans. Always cheering me on, commenting on the blog, etc.
The grieving process is weird. You go through an emotional roller coaster, and sometimes the dark valleys hit at the strangest times. For me, the 1st five hours of BFC was like that. I’m out there running my race, and grief hit. I’m thinking about my dad, and his life, and his athletic career, and my relationship with him, and my relationship with my family, and on and on. My mind was not on the race, and that is a really difficult place to be in such a difficult event — an event that truly takes mental engagement the whole time.
This year’s course entailed 5 loops, and at 1st glance it appeared easier (shorter and less climb) than last year. But each loop escalated in difficulty, and last year’s hardest section/loop, was moved later in the race, making it that much more difficult.
Mentally and emotionally I was ok (not good, just ok) on loop one and part of loop two:
Some shots from loop two:
But somewhere on loop two, things went sideways. First, my right ankle was on fire — I thought ants somehow got on me and were biting me but the stinging would not go away no matter how many times I swatted at it or rubbed it. I finally stopped to check on it, and there was a bee stuck in the sock that had kept sting me. Ugh. But later, on one of the last climbs, the emotion of Dad’s passing really hit. And on Quitter’s Road, a three to four mile section I should have been running, I was crying and walking — walking a lot more than is good for a shot at a finish.
I want to thank the runners that became my therapists on the trail — not just on Quitter’s Road, but at several stages on the course as well as the finish line. Just having someone to talk to at my low moments was a huge gift, and all of you provided kind words and an emotional lift when I really needed it..
Loop three was Chimney, which is typically my mental half way point, no matter where on the course it is. The false summits can be really demoralizing, and the climb just takes a lot out of you. Whatever happened to switchbacks? Parts of the trail literally go straight up the mountain. Somehow, as I climbed Chimney, I climbed out of my mental funk. My dad was an endurance athlete, he was a big fan of what I do, he would have wanted me “out there” on this day. And while I climbed out of my funk, I climbed into the fog. But at the summit and the long ridge that leads to the loop four, I finally started to feel better – like I could give this race the physical exertion it needs.
And then loop four came — and loop four is what the race is famous for. It’s a little insane, and I won’t describe it here again – you can read my previous race reports. Just know that the names Rat Jaw, Meth Lab, and Testicle Spectacle strike fear into the heart of many a runner. This out and back section is just a few miles, but it’s a few miles of insane off-trail climbs and descents, often bushwhacking through saw briers, sliding down scree, or scrambling up insane pitches.
Last year, descending Rat I got stuck behind a slow moving group, but this year I was farther back in the field and it was a lot more open (still a fair bit of bushwhacking, though enough runners had been through to make a little bit of a path) . I made good time but did get passed a couple times (which was a little disappointing – I had set a goal to not let anyone get by!).
Down Rat, through the tunnel, over the Prison wall, and run to Meth. Meth is hard to describe but at one place you look at where you are supposed to go, and it looks like wall. And the wall is when the rain hit — hard. I knew this was going to make the next few miles extremely difficult. There are literally 70% pitches that would be mud slides down, and brutal up.
Coming up Testicle I grabbed a stick to use to stab the ground and try to pull myself up, and on the downs, it became a self arresting “axe” — if you start sliding down, stab it in the ground and hope it stops you. I didn’t work out that well, but I held on to it as you can see below.
Rat was insane, up and down. I grabbed this shot from FB, not sure whose it was or I’d give credit. But I have to include it here as it captures the absurdity of it all.
The climb up Rat probably took me at least 90 minutes and really took a lot out of me physically. There were times I’d climb 5-10 feet, and slide back down. You’d have to catch the fall, reassess, and try a new route. It was best to stay out of the mud and in the briers, but that meant you were semi-bushwhacking all the way up. For comparison, I typically climb Rat in an hour or just over. (Though in the covid year, in the cool temps with low humidity, I climbed in ~45 minutes.)
From Rat it was a 4 mile run down a typical Frozen Head trail — meaning rocky and rooty. At this point I knew I had a 50k finish in the bag, and I still wasn’t feeling it. So I set a goal to only get passed five times — and that’s what happened. Down the trail, on the road for a minute, through the woods, across a stream (which due to the rain was now nearly up to my waist, which did wash a lot of the mud off), and to the finish.
I crossed in 12:14:48 for 78th place — last year was 12:02:57 for 28th place (a fluke!)… Out of ~400 starters, there were 135 50k finishers (~35% finish rate which is inline with historical rates). Ultra-signup is not showing the marathon finishers now, but I think it was about 80 more. So roughly 45-50% of the field did not get a marathon or 50k.
I am very happy to have achieved another 50k finish.
Thanks to Jenny and Misty the photographers — they do a great job, and conditions were awful this year. Misty was just above the wall on Meth in a tent, stepping out in the pouring rain to take photos whenever a runner came by.
And of course thank you to all the volunteers that make this race and so many others possible. As well as Laz, Durb, Bad Mike, who put it all together.
And Dad, here’s to a life well-lived.
Day 7:
2sparrows 