(Originally written for hobby blog 1 June, 2018)
Somehow, you’ve managed to enter the infamous Barkley Marathons (no, the “s” is not a typo) and received your letter of condolences in the mail. You make your way out to Wartburg, Tennessee. You’ve paid you $1.60 plus an article of clothing to enter as well as brought a license plate to represent the country you hail from. Lazarus Lake, one of the race’s co-founders, has them hanging at the beginning/end of the race. You’ll be running against a group of 40 rag-tag but accomplished people such as veterans, engineers, and college students. You’ve copied down the route on your map, as you’re not allowed a GPS or an altimeter while tramping through the rough Tennessee back-country. Mr. Lake lights a cigarette, signaling the race has begun. What are you in for?
The odds aren’t in your favour and you’ll be played off with taps on the bugle when you arrive, defeated back at camp. In the first 25 years of Barkley’s existence, only 10 people have finished. You must complete 5 loops in order to be considered a finisher. Each loop is the nearly the length of a marathon (around 42 km) and you must face landmarks lovingly titled with names like: Pillars of Doom, Son of a Bitch Ditch, Testicle Spectacle, Rat Jaw, The Bad Thing. Big Hell, and more. Each loop has a 3657.6 km elevation change, the equivalent of climbing and descending Mt. Everest…twice. You have 60 hours to complete this monster, which means running during the night and day, and alternately running the route clockwise and counter-clockwise. The way they track you while racing is upon returning to the starting point, you must hand Lazarus ripped out book pages that correspond to your running number. If you do decide to give up on the run, there’s no way to communicate with camp, making it a long walk back to help.
The documentary doesn’t have to over-dramatize the brutality of this ultra-marathon as we watch runners attempt to pull themselves through. We see the lacerations in their legs from tackling the Testicle Spectacle, a killer of a hill covered in briars; and how they run on very little sleep, stopping in camp only long enough to lick their wounds and take in enough calories. The doc feels intimate, reflecting the small crew of seven locals along with the directors. Motion activated cameras where also used to create the film, and the project was funded by Kickstarter and Indiegogo. As much as the documentary tells the trials and tribulations of the 2012 runners, the real star of the show is the Barkley Marathons itself, even with an unprecedented 3 people managing to finish the marathons in 2012 (Brett Manue, Jared Campbell, and John Fegyversei). Brett Manue managed to break the previous record finish from 2008. At 52 hours, 3 minutes, and 8 seconds, a record he still holds as of this writing. Within the film, it’s interesting to watch the runners, all accomplished in other fields, deal with struggling and often failing, but as Lake points out, for some people, just completing one loop of the marathons is considered the achievement of a lifetime, really placing the perception of how one views success into perspective.
The spectacle of the marathons and the quirky character of Lazarus Lake carries the documentary. The longest race I’ve ever done is a half-marathon, and the idea of doing that 9 more times in a row through rough terrain with only rudimentary aid boggles my mind. The documentary doesn’t take itself too seriously, but that’s probably because the doc’s main “character” Mr. Lake has a good sense of humour. You get to learn some of the history of the land around the marathons, but the documentary keeps a sharp focus on the runners’ progress and Lake. This is not a film that lingers too much over the landscape, focusing more on human perseverance over the terrain. There’s really not too much to say about the documentary outside of that. Unless you have a curiosity about running, extreme sports, or Tennessee in general, it probably won’t interest you too much.
I personally enjoyed this film and rooted for the runners to finish. The documentary doesn’t over-emphasize or hide the brutality, keeps a sharp focus on the actual run, but doesn’t forget to have a sense of humour. The audience may click to watch this documentary out of curiosity, but will likely stick around for Lazarus Lake’s endearing character and to root for those runners pushing themselves to the limit.
Some Quick Stats:
Directed by: Annika Iltis and Timothy James Kane
Distributed by: Netlflix
Released: originally released at the Austin Film Festival on October 26th, 2014, and was released for the first time on the internet in The Netherlands on October 1st, 2016.