In truth, he knew the far bigger problem was that he was three kilometres short of finishing the course and crossed a raging river that could easily have killed him. That Robbins - whose ultra-running pedigree is as extensive as his bushy red beard - was six seconds from becoming the first Canadian finisher of a race that only 15 people over three decades have ever completed is a story that went viral around the running world this month.īut it’s not the story Robbins wishes had been told. It’s undoubtedly one of the toughest trail races in the world. With no marked trail, runners navigate with map and compass, and tear out pages of books hidden along the route to prove they’ve been there. That’s six seconds in a race well over 160 kilometres long, with so much uphill terrain that it’s the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest twice. One, two, three, four, five, six seconds past the 60-hour time limit, he hit the yellow gate marking the finish of the Barkley Marathons and collapsed to the ground. He was running out of time and he knew it.

Lakewood's Wanderings and Scribbles.After running up and down mountains in the backwoods of Tennessee for three days and two nights, Gary Robbins raced as fast as his exhausted legs would carry him to the finish line.

Well thanks to Greater Rochester Track Club, Tim and John gave us a view behind the curtain. Tim has finished races like Arrowhead 135, Badwater, And Massanutten Mountain and yet was portrayed as 'the human sacrifice' in the movie.

John is one of the races only 15 finishers. Tim Hardy and John Fegyveresi both ran the race in 2012. In fact, 6 they have 6 attempts between the two of them!

What you may not know is that we have two people from the Rochester Area that have run Barkley. And if you are a silly person, you might even be thinking that you DO want to run Barkley someday. You may have heard of a little Netflix documentary called 'Barkley, the Race that eats its young' and if you are a trail or ultra runner, you may have even been asked if you ever ran or want to run Barkley.

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