It started with a choice of words. I was telling my husband about The Barkley Marathons, and he said it couldn’t be marathons, it had to be marathon. So we looked it up and it is marathons. Five of them, run consecutively, with a cutoff time of 60 hours. Finishing three loops is considered a fun run. This not just any marathon: it’s a true bush run, with a host of idiosyncrasies invented by the race director, Lazarus Lake.
The course has no groomed trail, and involves running through bush and streams and brambles. You’re not allowed to use a GPS or other digital device, just your watch. Racers pore over printed topo maps the night before with their compasses, trying to find the best route to take and where to find the books. Yes, there are books to be found along the race, and each racer must rip out the page that matches their bib number. If you return without all of your pages, it means you haven’t reached all your stations, and you have to quit.
How do people enter the race? By first of all finding the Barkley Marathons website, then sending a $1.60 entry fee by mail to Lazarus, along with an essay of why you should be allowed to run the race. If you’re selected, another idiosyncrasy is that you have to bring a license plate from your country.
Once you get there and get set up, Lazarus will blow a conch shell anytime in a 12-hr window, which means you have one hour until the race starts. Everyone gathers around the start line, and the race begins when Lazarus lights his cigarette. The run starts out with everyone running in the same direction, but as people return for the second section, they go clockwise or counterclockwise, the opposite direction the previous runner took.
The Marathons were originally a scrappy event in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, but as more people came to know about it, it’s steadily become a race for elite athletes. But in some years, no one finishes the race. In 2024, the first woman finished with one minute left to spare. Lazarus had said that no woman could finish the course because they just don’t have the stamina and strength that men do. Jasmin Paradis proved him wrong.
I bring up the Barkley Marathons because we watched a few documentaries about it and what struck me was how far people were willing to go, how much they will beat up their bodies (one man had blisters—huge ones–all over his feet; Jasmin couldn’t keep food in for the last loop of the course), and how they will conquer their mental blocks to finish the race. Lazarus said that he gets a lot of people with advanced degrees, and he thinks it’s because they know what it’s like to push forward and focus and get hard things done. That could be true, but I’m a former academic and I don’t think I could push myself to the edge like people do for the Barkley.
It made me think about how far I’m willing to push myself, to get out of my comfort zone and battle my mental and physical demons. It doesn’t take much to push me out of my comfort zone—sometimes going to Cobble Hill Mountain is enough of a challenge for me.
But I’m coming up to my 50th birthday next year, and I wanted to do something physical to commemorate it. I’ve been thinking about routes like Jasper’s Skyline Trail, or Mt Robson’s Berg Lake trail, or Lake O’Hara in Yoho Provincial Park or Mount Assiniboine Park. But these are all based on a lottery system—spaces for the Mount Assiniboine trail sold out in 1.5 hours. This also means that there are a lot more people on the trail than I’d like—I’d prefer to go somewhere quieter.
I thought about doing a trail run, like the Mt Robson marathon. But I’m not a runner, and I don’t know if I could develop the necessary running skills and fitness to do such a trail by next fall. Plus do I really want to be part of a mob of people running up a mountain trail? Maybe I just want to do something for myself, to prove that I can do it and do it well.
I’ve been oscillating between doing day hikes or backpacking somewhere. Like a day hike to Idaho Peak in the Kootenays to see the wildflowers. I was going to say Meadows in the Sky in Mt Revelstoke National Park, also to see wildflowers, because now that we’re dogless, we’re allowed up there. Then I realized it’s just a drive up—no hiking involved.
Or a backpacking trip on a Rockies trail that isn’t as popular as the Skyline, Mt. Assiniboine, or Berg Lake trails. Maybe the Iceline Trail in Yoho National Park? I want to be challenged, but not brought to my knees. Speaking of which—I also have to make sure my legs are really strong to support my janky knees.
Anyway. That’s the plan for my 50th birthday year—something challenging on a trail, perhaps multi-day or a series of day hikes I’ve always wanted to do.
If you have suggestions, let me know in the comments!
