Gary Cantrell, aka Lazarus Lake, is the man behind the Barkley Marathons, a race with a powerful air of mystery and a reputation for insane levels of toughness.  A race that strips it’s runners to the bone, pitting them against the wilderness in a fight that heavily favours the hills.

Since it’s 1986 inception, only 15 runners have ever reached the finish and yet runners all over the world muddle through the obscure application process each year in the hope that it might be their time.

In this episode, we chat to Laz about Gary Cantrell’s early ultra-running days, about how a lack of races led to him setting up his own, about his recent trans-continental trek across the US, and about how the now world-famous Barkley Marathons came to be the race that it is.

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