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By Davy Crockett
The Barkley Marathons course (thought to be roughly 130 miles and about 63,000 feet of elevation gain) at Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee was conquered for the first time in six years. Laz (Gary Cantrell) blew the conch shortly before 9 a.m., on March 14, 2023, signaling to the competitors that they had one hour to prepare for the start. At 9:54 a.m. Laz, sporting a new “geezer” hat in Japanese, lit the ceremonial cigarette, and about 40 daring athletes were off and running on the grueling course that “eats its young.” Previously, only fifteen people had finished the 100-mile version of this brutal trail race which was introduced in 1986.
The 2023 field, including eight women, ran or walked up the trail toward the Cumberland Mountains. They had all trained hard, but also had to figure out and endure the purposely mysterious and fun registration process. In addition to writing an essay, this year, they had to answer a series of questions including, “What will be the 119th element on the periodic table.”
This is an encore episode. The 2023 Barkley Marathons is underway. The Barkley Marathons, with its historic low finish rate (only 15 runners in 30 years), is perhaps the most difficult ultramarathon trail race in the world. It is held in and near Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee, with a distance of more than 100 miles.
The inspiration for creating the Barkley in 1986 was the 1977 prison escape by James Earl Ray from Brushy Mountain State Prison. Ray was the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. He spent more than two days trying to get away in the very rugged Cumberland Mountains where the Barkley later was established. Ray’s escape has been a subject of folklore.
In 1880, Frank Hart, age 23, was recognized as one of the top ultrarunners/pedestrians in the world. But after a life-threatening illness, many speculated that he would never return to his dominant form. He had also gone through a life-changing transition by accumulating more wealth in one year than most men acquired in a lifetime, and he was freely spending his fortune. Make sure you read/listen/watch parts 
In 1882 it was declared, “The six-day walking matches are the sickest swindles gamblers have yet invented for defrauding a virtuous public.” Well, many of both the public and the running participants were not the most virtuous people on the planet at that time, contributing to the wild strange stories that continually occurred related to the sport of ultrarunning/pedestrianism.
This book has been in the works for multiple years. The author scoured through thousands of Grand Canyon newspaper articles and documents. Included are many fun stories, the airplane that landed near Indian Garden, the man who rode his bike rim-to-rim with permission by the Park. The group of bikers who tried to ride rim-to-rim during a government shutdown. The story of Theodore Roosevelt crossing to hunt mountain lions on the North Rim (hundreds roamed the rim). The original trail that required 94 creek-crossings. The original “Devil’s Corkscrew” section that terrified early descenders, with directions so you can try it too.