The ultra-select, elite running event is examined in this documentary. Featuring five 20-mile loops through mountainous, treacherous Tennessee back country, 120,000-foot elevation all told if the runner manages to finish, through briars, streams, and through a tunnel beneath a penitentiary, the course is impossibly difficult. Some years, no one finishes this comically grueling trail run. To prove they've reached certain spots, runners must pull pages corresponding to their bib number from hidden books in areas known as the Pillars Of Doom and The Testicle Spectacle. Limited to 35 runners who must write an essay to be considered, the competitors drag themselves up and down mountains, often completely lacerated from thorns and covered in blisters. The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young is a fascinating, humorous look at the limits of human endurance.
I know several people who have participated there (no finishers, of course). They're otherwise seemingly normal.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm going to need documentation as opposed to anecdotal evidence.
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