Barney Klecker’s ultra career spanned the decade of the 1980’s. It’s tempting to tell his ultra story in reverse chronological order, because his greatest ultra performance was his first one. Never before or since has an American come out of the proverbial nowhere to rock the global ultra scene as Barney Klecker did in his inaugural ultra. So spectacular was it that it probably would have gained him induction into this Hall of Fame if he had never run another ultra after it.
It happened in the U.S. National 50 Mile Championship at the Chicago Lakefront Ultra in October 1980, where the Minnesotan took off at an unprecedented race pace right from the starting gun. Until that day, no man had ever broken 5 hours (6 min/mile pace) for a road 50-miler, although American Allan Kirik (2009 AUA Hall of fame inductee) had come within half a minute of the previous year. Only Brits Cavin Woodward and Don Ritchie had done it on the track, and Ritchie’s track World Record from 1978 stood at 4:53:28. Klecker set out all by himself not just to challenge that mark, but to obliterate it. He averaged under 5:40 per mile for the first 30 miles (including a marathon split of 2:27:30), faded slightly approaching 40 miles (which he still clocked in a mind-numbing time of 3:46), then crashed and burned through his last agonizing 10 miles. But the early pace had given him enough cushion to bring him safely home as the new owner of the absolute 50-mile World Record. His final time was 4:51:25.
Klecker had twice broken 2:17 for the marathon, and for the next three years he focused his attention on breaking the American Record for the shorter 50km distance. In 1981 he set the still-standing American Track 50km record of 2:52:48 in Tucson, which he ran barely a month after defending his 50 mile title at Chicago in 5:05:04. The following year he moved up to try his first 100km, the longest distance he would ever attempt. In October he won The Edmund Fitzgerald 100km in 6:50:43, putting himself in the #2 spot on the all-time U.S. 100km list. Two months later he broke the U.S. 50km road record with a sterling 2:51:53 to win the Tallahassee Ultra 50km. In 1983 he returned to the Tallahassee race and won the 50km in 2:53:45, as his wife Janis ran 3:13:51 to break the women’s world record by almost 8 minutes in the same race.
In October 1984, South African Bruce Fordyce broke Klecker’s 50 mile World Record on the very same Chicago lakefront course on which Barney had set it. The American made a valiant attempt to regain the record in January 1986 in Dallas, but fell short, fading in the last half to a 5:10:47.
In October 1988, Klecker tried something different: back-to-back 50km races on successive weekends. He won the Mid-America 50km in Muncie, IN, with 3:01:48, then despite running 30 seconds faster the following weekend, he lost the Edmund Fitzgerald 50km by less than 2 minutes to Bruce Mortenson. It was the only time he ever lost an ultra that he finished.
Two years later Klecker returned to the Mid-America 50km, which this time hosted the USA Championship. There he closed out his decade-long ultra career by winning his second national ultra title with 3:07:40.
During those 10 years Barney Klecker had run almost a dozen 50km races with an average time under 3 hours, and three 50 mile races with an average time barely over 5 hours. From that perspective, Barney Klecker holds a place in American ultra history that no other man has ever come close to Matching.