Brian Ralph / Courtesy Photo
While Chris Fisher de Breckenridge arrived at the starting line with his entrance fees in the race – a license plate – he could not help cracking a large smile.
After the top of the mountains around the world and adjustment The fastest known speed of time speed, Fisher had arrived at the epicenter of the endurance race – the Barkley marathons.
“During recording, it’s really RAD,” said Fisher. “For newcomers, whom they call Barkley Vierns, you bring a license plate to your state or country of origin. Being able to give them my license plate was really rad. It was cool to make this initiation. “
Barkley marathons are not your typical race. To start, the race is not the distance of 26.2 miles from a usual marathon. Rather, it extends over about 100 miles over some of the most difficult and exhausting terrains near Wartburg, Tennessee.
Taking up in Frozen Head State Park, Barkley marathons are notoriously covered with secrets to protect the surrounding ecosystem and prevent spectators.
The longtime race director, Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell – With the help of the new race director, Carl Laniak – The hand selects the field of each year before giving details on the moment when the annual race is taking place. Usually, the race takes place at the end of March or early April.
Unlike other races, the course changes every year and is designed so as not to be well marked. Participants must embark on the forest landscape for books which mean a checkpoint for each competitor. The runners locate and then tear the pages of the books, which they present to the leaders of the race as a way to prove that they have correctly finished each round of 20 miles.
Each athlete has 60 hours to perform five laps in the course.
After presenting its Texas license plate in Cantrell, Fisher welcomed the surrounding atmosphere of the ultramarathon race. With a waiting list for the race, Fisher patiently waited for his time until he was lucky to tear the dense forest that makes up the state park.
“I have been on the waiting list for more than three years in fact,” said Fisher. “The way of penetrating is a kind of secret, but if you ask the right people you will discover. There is a candidacy process that you follow, and they let you enter immediately, you put on the waiting list, or you don’t enter it.”
With an early start hour between midnight and noon on March 20, Fisher waited anxiously her competitive colleagues for Laniak to blow the shell of Conque. When the CONCH shell has repercussions throughout the race camp, the competitors then have 60 minutes until the start of the race.
“You register and try to go to bed to sleep for as long as you can,” said Fisher. “All night before departure is in a way what is anxious that rolls in bed, wondering when the conch will start.”
After a night of restless but complete sleep, the tone of the conque shell sounded throughout the race camp around 11 a.m., sending competitors to a frenzy to make their last preparations before the longtime effort.
Only 20 people Still finishing the Barkley marathons, Fisher knew he had bread on the plan for him. While Cantrell lit a cigarette, marking the official start of the race, Fisher allowed himself to feel the whirlwind of emotions crash on him.
“First, I was just super delighted and humiliated to be there among the people who have tried to arrive here or have been here for years,” said Fisher. “… It took years to get to this point and is one of the most emblematic breeds in the world. The feelings were out of this world. It was very intense. “
While Fisher began to look for books, he relied on his vast endurance training and the knowledge he acquired while extending the state park in the days preceding the race.
“Once I discovered that I was in the race, I returned a little earlier than expected from Patagonia and I spent a few weeks in the park,” said Fisher, “learn the land, try to familiarize myself with things.”
Combining with return to the race like Tomokazu Ihara, Fisher worked to decipher the descriptions given to find the 16 books spread over each tour of the route.
“There was no real problem to find the books when we were all together in a group,” said Fisher. “I think I clung to the front pack for the first six books. It has always been useful to be with people. ”
However, while Fisher continued to make his way through the course and make his way in the many steep ascents, the difficulty of the Barkley marathons of this year struck him.
“The course is mainly off -piste,” said Fisher. “This goes directly and directly on mega-diaphulis terrain. It is a really brutal course. It is not your average race race. It’s very difficult. “
While the humidity of the sun and Tennessee slowly sucks the life of Fisher, he tried to reconstruct his lost liquids but did not have enough electrolytes to maintain the amount of perspiration. In an electrolytic imbalance, Fisher began to experience cramps towards the end of her first round of the course.
“I probably drank a gallon of water from streams and random streams spread throughout the route,” said Fisher. “I did not bring enough electrolytes. I was roughly finished and out of electrolytes within four hours of the start of the race, where I was loop 1 for almost 11 hours. ”
Despite the cramps and the discomfort to fight, Fisher finished the first round, allowing him to sit down, to consume much necessary calories, to drink more water and to recondition his bag full of essentials.
While rushing into a delicious Sonic shock, Fisher watched Ihara do a quick work of the rescue position. The rapid pace of Ihara has sent a flood of concern by the means of Fisher, making him wonder if he was going to be able to put his body in a place to return to the route.
“Tomo was very fast, so see how fast he went stressed me,” said Fisher. “I don’t think I could take care of my body good enough to go for the turn 2.”
Fisher exceeded what her mind told him, attached to his bag and returned to the route for the second round. As one of the nine people to start the second round, Fisher set foot in front of the other and tried to push himself further along the route.
Finally, Fisher’s mind and body gave way, making him throw in the towel during the second round. Barkley 2025 marathons were so difficult that No competitor completed The race before the 60 -hour cut.
Although disappointed that he has failed his goal of joining royalty and becoming a Barkley marathon finisher, Fisher feels reassured that he is not the only one to have fought on the course.
“Everyone knew in a way that it would be a really difficult year, especially with the course changes and that there are so many finishers the previous year,” said Fisher. “It reassured me, but even now in my mind, I know that I could have gone further, I could have gone stronger. Entering with this bad mentality led to this fall sooner than more. ”
Fisher hopes to be reinpired to the Barkley marathons in the coming years in order to tackle unfinished affairs in the woods of Frozen Head State Park.
“It’s not mine if I go back or not,” said Fisher. “I’m going to put my request, and if they will accept me, I will go to the starting line. There are unfinished affairs there. This is one of the only objectives that I have achieved in recent years that made me think. ”