#17 - To finish the Barkley Marathons

[Music] what [Music] help [Music] as usual Sunshine everywhere clouds on Frozen head you can't mhm always it's something special to arrive at Frozen head that all it's like this really calm Road leading into the forest and into the peaceful campsite but there's always this extreme pressure in the air of of the fact that Barkley is is right around the corner and and the race is about to happen Frozen head State Park Step One is done just be here in time without an injury and no missed flights or Co testing stand it [Music] up my Approach was one with confidence this time I knew what I had put into it but also having participated twice and having failed twice I had to Sweet Spot between respect for the race how hard it is but then also just with the idea of yeah yeah bring it on I'm I'm [Music] Ready the famous yellow gate she was smaller than last year and let yellow it's my third time now I think if I fail again I don't think I will come come back because the training load and and how you your winter is just gone for Barkley um I can't I can't yeah he thinks I will come back anyway but I really don't believe he doesn't finish that he won't come back it's going to hunt him for the rest of his life especially cuz he didn't hit his wall what drew me back to Barkley uh for three times is that it's a race that's going to force you to reach and possibly surpass your limits you're going to hit a wall at a certain moment and then it's up to you do you quit or do you push on through the wall not knowing what your mind will do what your body will do when you dig that deep hey how are you look a lot better than last time I saw you another police car in the neighborhood this time we'll get there yeah hey Ben good good good I didn't race for an entire year just because I was disappointed for 6 months and then I started looking forward why why are you disappointed why you got into you were in you were in rarified air no not that rare fight yeah pretty rare fight not many uh oh no but the outcome was yeah I know the outcome I mean if you look at Loop one time Loop two time loop three time it's within finishing times and then when you mess up 22 was a special Barkley to me because everything was going great but then things went wrong during Loop 4 I made a navigational mistake and I started hallucinating I was totally lost and then suddenly I saw a woman and I approached her and I said yeah please can you help me and then that's the moment when the woman changed shape into a trash can I was actually talking to a trash can a police officer picked me up after a worried citizen had called the police saying there was a female dressed like an Indian roaming the streets of Petro Tennessee at 2 a.m. in the morning it's a great story though I mean I I'm not trying to minimize the disappointment but it's a great St it's uh well they'll be even greater If eventually I I'll finish then I can fully love with [Music] it what the Barkley marathons are it's a neutr marathon Race but at the same time it's a social experiment because the race is designed that it's at the outer reach of the capabilities of the human mind and bodyit says the to run and to finish the Barkley you need to complete five Loops within 60 hours and these Loops consist of extremely difficult terrain you have to navigate yourself you're not allowed any Electronics the Barkley course is mostly off Trail it's super steep you do over 4,000 M of elevation change each Loop uh which is over 20,000 M of elevation change to complete the Barkley and to finish it is so hard that over the course of 35 years of Barkley marathons only 15 people have succeeded at actually finishing the race within 60 hours [Music] yeah Joe hey guys good to see you again good to see you again not in the police car yeah better than us here I feel in my bones we got finishers this year at least one I like seeing Great Performances uh when people really extend themselves Beyond and find something in themselves everybody doesn't win but there is more to be learned through failing than there is succeeding hang the top of the Rope over that little p sticking out yeah then you can anchor it down to this so it doesn't slide down that tree okay our mindset was to leave no Stones unturned to be fixated on every detail I noticed the same on Carl already months before the race every now and then he will throw something at me that I will have to remember so after a while I started to write it down in a book so I wouldn't forget anything I think we were really confident but because of the previous experiences we were humbled and do we could only control what we can control not here though no you saw some one of the main draws of the Barkley is is the people who are there that wall and there's just such a big comraderie amongst the runners and like this year it was the first time I saw Joe mccon it will are you man don't expect that energy whom I broke two records from the Pacific Rest Trail and the Appalachian Trail we're like so happy to see each other you stayed in the yeah Motel I was laugh Katie and I were laughing so hard cuz we were like man you go to like UTMB and you're like chamani like fondue cows like these big epic and then you come here and it's like Jesus signs everywhere yellow gate that's not even yellow yeah you're like you're all crammed into a campsite like you don't really get any views it's like going to be freezing your butt off yeah he was talking to us about the race and he was like it's going to be really cold and I was like yeah like I think so I saw the weather forast she's like no like people every year people come in they don't take my advice they come out after 2 hours of hypothermic get really cold and I'm like yeah like think I know it's like I don't think you do know you're probably to respond I really know oh man that there we go is definitely not a competition between Runners it's a competition between the race and the runner and on the contrary Runners will work together to try to beat the race and and to beat L and and to make a finish happen you all right have the packet oh he did the French for you actually the first man to go above the 60h hour limit first the okay it means this sleeps through the Conch and and decide to spend the day on the the playgrounds down here instead of starting late it's not a bad plan no it's a plan yeah sounds good right there this is WR when you go to light it the Barkley course isn't marked uh it's mostly off Trail the way that you can find your way around the course is by looking at a master map that you can see just the day before the race last also gives a paper of instructions how to find 13 books you need to tear out the page corresponding to your bib number uh from every book where is it then further down yeah further down the the bench then you have to go back for sure those instructions are are difficult to read to another different place for the butt slide book I know still an old stone foundation but it's a different description now but it's the same spot can say you go down that hill and as you hit the stream you look up and you see two trees 5 m apart you will dig and you will find uh the book and then during the race and you hit the stream you look up and you just realize you're in the middle of a forest and every tree is just 5 m apart if you need to look at the map during the race it's over yeah I think so I mean maybe at just one time where you are unsure but you don't have the time to take out a map and and to check I won't be reading Maps uh during the race physically I decided this year to go all the [Music] way I knew it was going to be my last attempt at Barkley so I did even more elevation change more Hill repetitions more physical preparation he went to the Canary Islands to train he went to to France to Train control everything that he can control not allowing to have any excuses to not do something it's really impressive mentally I was prepared a lot better a big part of that was the publication of a book called The finishers by Alexis Burke and Orelia Del fos it's just a story of the 15 finishers of the Barkley marathons all of those were obsessed by the race they went into it thinking yeah I've done everything I can whatever is going to happen I don't care I don't mind I will finish and and I will do this for this year I was obsessed as well I was studying more maps reading more about the race reading more race reports I imagine I'm laying down and just seeing the whole area in 3D around them I think he almost dreamed about it it was my obsession to finish the Barkley I was going to go for it all the way this [Music] time I'm still on the European time zone so in 2 hours I will go to bed at 4:30 in the afternoon no because she has to go back to work when he runs yeah because of the jet lag I didn't change to Local time zone because now at 4:30 I'm able to fall asleep if he starts at 1:00 a.m. I already slept uh few hours more than users if I [Applause] sleep on the plane I became really sick I suddenly had to uh start to throw up he would sit in the the plane he would read some race reports would go back puke go back in his into his seat read some more race reports and that would go on for the hours that we had on the plane I was like okay this isn't the best timing for this to happen he took it upon himself to just okay I know what is going on I'm getting dehydrated so it's just another thing on my to-do list I got to drink water and I'll be fine you excited for the race and everything like that for sure too yeah man 10 years right yeah it's been 10 years man so yeah fit for it and stuff like that ready for hallucinations and what made you come back just 10 years was I want to see how hard it is now yeah I wanted to see vaguely not that like I'm so confident like I'm I'm I'm the Jesus that can finish it but um just wanted to see if it's finishable yeah I think it's just the mindset right I mean it's finishable for sure do it just get it right stuff like that still have number one no no you gave it already pretty damn daring to give you number one there's a certain kind of hunger that comes with your kind of experience prob not l is there 23 now everyone can pronounce it yeah Jo is my crew who needs to wear his badge all the time thank you and you only have to wear yours after you come back in a police car okay really if you come back in a police car again you should have them handcuffed I got a shirt for you so it says um in Flemish it says um it's a like a fair in Hell a County Fair in hell and we use that when it's uh all kinds of weather at the same time so rain and H yeah rain hail Sun at the same time you were here earlier today where we had we had rain we had ha hail and Sun at the same time there's two theories here one is it was getting it out of its system today and the other was that it was just warming up cracking its Knuckles last see five times hope so I was getting some hints at the fact that things might be lining up for a possible finish last gives me the the biip number and it's number 23 and I'm like okay yeah suddenly Joe gets like super excited that crazy I think to myself oh my God it's Michael Jordan's number I'm kind of a fan and I just remember this game of Michael Jordan where he had his flu game a Legendary game where he also had actually some food poisoning but then he had one of his best games ever I saw it lining up again and I said like oh my God this is going to be your flu [Music] game okay the starting time of The Barley is not known it starts anywhere between midnight and noon on a certain day the actual start is only shown by l 1 hour before the start and he does that by blowing a conch and then you know you have 1 hour until the start of the race it looks more or less the same as last year so maybe two more yeah the books are changed in a few SP plot uh spaces but um yeah it looks manageable like last year so is that a good thing yeah it's a good thing I think my job the first night was to uh stay awake so Carl can go to sleep be sure that someone wakes him up when the Conch gets blown CU every year it happens that someone misses the Conch and just misses the race say yeah oh night have a good night yes thank [Music] [Applause] you [Music] the start is in 1 hour and according to my calculations I should if I finish finish right before Sunset why did you get a a watch because we're not allowed any electronics and Barkley um last set watches to Barkley time which is the big comes 0 0 0 0 at the start of the race so you don't know the time but you know how long you've been running you have 12 hours for each Loop so my current watch says I slept pretty good 13 hours and 11 minutes so I shouldn't need any sleep uh during the race but you're just accelerated you know it's going to start you saw the the strong field every every Runner you're not only rooting for car but for so many others and you just want to see how they look uh standing at the yellow gate you feel the atmosphere building [Music] up Fe were already b c hit it up a bit Speedy Compass first year I put it somewhere mhm when you take it out 100 times it's 100 seconds it can count if you mess up the things you have in control then uh it's difficult to cope [Music] with listen up for a second last two days we've been up here telling lots of funny stories and I thought about it after the blew the Conch uh the next 60 hours there's going to be a lot of new funny stories we don't know what they're going to be or we don't know who are going to do them but we'll talk about it for years but every story needs to end up with you coming back to Camp alive so be smart out there [Music] [Music] w w It's Time what your program now I go to bed really no I just first do the dishes and then I'll probably get some sleep cuz I want to be fresh for L that come the moment L lights the cigarettes I'm I'm off I made the mistake the first time I wasn't the first to start off and I was stuck in a bottleneck on the single track of the first climb so I really wanted to avoid [Music] that one of the unique things in the Barkley marathons is uh none of the runners have a Tracker or anything so you can know where they are at a race there is one point during the whole course where you can see them and that's at the fire tower [Music] [Applause] [Music] I dropped the pace a little bit and settled down in the second group together with Jared Campbell and Joe mccon and Jared Campbell is extremely experienced Runner super nice guy and a super good friend uh and he's finished Barkley three times the three of us connected really well well but before the start uh some local people warned me that it was going to be extremely cold and so I decided to dress up properly but I overshot it and basically I overheated like 2 minutes into the first loop I was sweating so hard I was dehydrating uh so much and I was still dehydrated from my illness and from my food poisoning so that was already starting to look pretty bad okay so John Carl tall guy with mohawk is Hair We don't know who that is Jared and another guy pav Aaron Jasmine Nick tall guy black beard definitely foreign so that's all I can tell you right now that's all I got it's kind of what we expect it's like a group of six and then some other stuff not so far some other guys not so far behind I think he would love to spend some loops with John Kelly and Jared so in that regard he's on uh he's on [Applause] [Music] Pace a minute and Christof Christoff n [Music] exactly as a crew member during inter loopless it's like the part of a goalkeeper you can only mess up you cannot do something good you can only make sure it goes as fast as possible and you just have to make sure you don't uh you don't mess it [Music] [Applause] up [Music] uh uh zipl for the pages you got a hot dog s yeah damn that come on [Music] [Applause] yeah slow ENT uh they have 15 minutes now 15 yeah oh cuz they were trying to do eight minutes or something oh hey thanks this is a really cool night yes and it's hard to gear up cuz you sweat as you go up and then you're on the top and there's and it's cold yeah and the weather forecast is it's going to pick up on the mountain MH the the wind this was going to be the first counterclockwise Loop for this year on the first climb the fact that I was sweating so incredibly much during the first Loop it was taking at stall I started slowing down getting difficulties to stay in the group with with Jared and with Joe and then my body went into a full body cramp I could barely walk I could barely move it was something I had never ever experienced before I never thought about quitting but I was panicking a little bit I I realized yeah this is not good at all I tried to keep everything together I tried to focus on rehydrating I got stop with the group and by the time we went downhill I was able to drink a bit the worst of the cramps were over and we were able to spend the night together and every time you go into a nighttime Loop uh it's something special at Barkley you know it's at least 12 hours of Darkness it's just you your your tiny uh head bulbs and and only a few meters of of trail that you see or Forest that you see in front of you to just hear some wild animals and and some Forest noises but it's such a unique experience [Music] gr these are three live [Music] ones good job well done right here man we're all set up in the bathroom be nice three of you right okay your lights right in my face sorry five 6 7 8 9 10 11 that would make 12 h one two [Music] four 11 12 and 13 sometimes they stick together and I can't tell they're there [Music] okay [Music] [Music] yeah yeah [Music] [Music] for blacka [Music] for [Music] [Music] speci me grinder is mean last climbing up it yeah are you fixing I'm about to go out yeah who have i at Carl we need to do the candas trail in dark right otherwise it's a waste of daylight that's right can I CH for the whole camp or not sure make them up Jared Joe are you guys coming [Music] he had some cramps in Loop too he told me so we made sure he had some extra ORS some electrolytes but for next to that he actually looked strong he was uh clear in his mind he could say what he wanted I think he was good he was eager to move on to put it inup within the time limit and he even shouted to Jared and Joe I think it's good where they like remind each other of what they what their job is no he's in good [Music] company but then again loop three didn't start out the way I was hoping for 5 minutes into a counterclockwise Loop you have to do a river crossing but halfway into the river crossing I'm walking on the log and I trip over and I fall on the log I was fully submerged in freezing water uh at- 12° C then again I I realized okay this this Barkley if I'm going to finish it it's it's not at all coming for free it was like I had a thousand stings of needles uh in in my feet at that time was actually the first time that I thought okay it's not going to be the year but then Jared joins me he helps me with the first page because my hands were still so cold that I wasn't able to to tear out my page on the way down suddenly I I got warm again trying to get me out of a miserable situation I just say okay no I ignore uh those messages and I push on and and I feel strong and and I go on to make a finish [Music] happen gave us a gas uhhuh we have to start here and then we will we will turn left and that's it y so for loop three I do decide to go to the fire tower and it was nice to see everyone come up it's always a special moment to look down right jaw and see all these amazing athletes going up the briers like really pulling themselves [Music] up and then it's the best to see your friend Carl coming up and easily talking away with Jared like they're on a coffee break somewhere for me it is just an absolute honor to spend so much time with a Legends like Jared out on the trail and the Dream Team good two more steps we get along so well we feel so much at ease with each other that we were such a a team and it was like it was our 10 adventure together uh being out there on on luk threee together wo let's go I've seen him stronger you see that Jared is waiting for him and not the other way around I think they they get along really well I think it's a perfect match then Jared started struggling with his knee Jared being Jared for the first couple of hours he doesn't mention it at all until it's like an unbearable pain and then he's like Carl I would prefer that you push on uh alone and leave me behind because I'm going to start to slow you down one part of me was really sad that I had to leave Jared behind but the other part of me was actually really excited that okay now the actual Barkley is [Music] starting I already overcame a few difficulties and yet I was feeling stronger and stronger and more and more ready to make it happen so that was an awesome experience well we basically know what he likes that's a lot of stuff so we got him some burgers we got him burrito and a soft taco so at least one of those three things you would like to eat that's everything I should think of like these are things I still have to do like maybe the bearings I had to copy again like the hour before I think he's going to be there so the steps for myself and then just the interloop what Carol and I discussed like what has to be present and um I like to double check [Music] it sweet potato very healthy so nothing candy no no it's very healthy everything yeah just the the three forward Js yeah that's it what do you have the burger yeah you must have did you made [Applause] it yeah and loop three is where things get really exciting this is the time for us to grind because he never finished a loop four so it was really interesting to see how he came into the camp we knew we would have some more hours of daylight left so we had to take it advantage of that we wanted to take an in loal as quickly as possible 32 46 31 32 now it's easy right I thought it was [Music] 34o for BL [Music] GI [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] no no I remember when it was in 2019 he came in and we had to take off his clothes even convince him to go back into Loop four that everything was still possible but this was a whole other scenario I saw Carl Raja earlier this today I kind of had the feeling he didn't look as strong but the way he came up now in the interloop pole he looked super strong I mean he was clear in his mind he was saying like direct directions no this was another car good feeling about this one it looks strong he had a he had his eye for the priz yeah I liked it oh wow wow look at his shoes that's the Barkley That's the Barkley for you Loop four was going to be clockwise again and you immediately go off Trail probably because of sleep deprivation and and just becoming really tired I already made a really big navigational [Music] mistake and by the time I reached the first book or lean who started Loop 4 quite a bit behind me already catched up with [Music] me even though we really like each other as as persons after a few minutes we already realized yeah we don't feel like working together both of us had been obsessed by the Barkley and to experience Barkley you have to be your own man we just decided to to split up and we were feeling so comfortable about it because we felt like it was the right thing to [Music] do so there're now 8 and 1/2 hours into Loop uh four a little bit more for the leading group good job the fort Loop and seeing all the different Runners it's like a beautiful example of all the stages of fatigue you can have during the the barkers you see John Kelly who is almost looking like a dead man walking and then Damian who is obviously really tired but still in like a great physique and then you see Albert who is struggling to to even drink almost go oh don't worry all right I'll start on and then you see who's also really strong I was with car at stadion I think he's 30 minutes behind [Music] okay I'm um just going over all possible scenarios that might happen during the interlop wo the for Loop of course was was very special to me because during every Barkley participation I messed up during the forth Loop so I was really eager to at least finish Loop four or make it farther than I ever had made it everything went pretty well until halfway into Loop 4 we at almost exactly the same spot as the year before nothing made sense [Music] anymore [Music] in 2022 my main mistake was that I didn't take the time to sit down and really try to think what was going wrong let's go you got this so in 2023 I actually sat down against the tree I took a burrito that Joe had prepared for me I take a big bite of the burrito I look up and suddenly I see the book that I was looking for that was the moment where I realized okay this is still possible and honestly I'm not going to let it go anymore that's going to be really tight but maybe 13 hours is possible to do the fifth Loop he's capable of of great things I do start to face some real difficulties I started getting short of breath and I started coughing pretty badly by that stage I went underneath the prison again uh I started the next climb and then I see a head torch coming towards me it's Albert he made the decision to quit because he's also short of breath and he's also cuffing pieces of lung and my first reaction was like Hey I have exactly the same Let's ignore and and push on together and and we can do this thing [Music] awesome I was so deep into that mindset of of becoming a finisher I didn't care about anything anymore I just wanted to push on Stay Focus Stay Focus good job well looking really good no cops l no cops I must be finally getting hang you want these Pages yeah sir cuz I counted them Qui what was the time 46 3657 obvious for the fourth and last inter loople uh there's just one thing going through your mind like we had three good ones don't screwed up now oh my [Laughter] God oh sorry okay yeah yeah okay yeah Focus I finished m i could even still ask him stuff that was it was such a big difference of previous years where we've seen him well not finishing the loop four and being another disaster he looked so strong Alto come on hey if there is a loop five and there are multiple Runners they supposed to go into Loop five in opposite uh directions everyone kind of agrees that the clockwise direction is the the easier direction of the two yeah I'm sorry but you'll have to go clockwise no more meat grinders yay yeah job [Applause] [Music] good at this point he still has 13 hours and 10 minutes left which is less than he needed for the forth Loop so now at this point it's really important that nothing bad happens and he can just continue and push the way he wants I saw fire in his eyes man it was unbelievable he's ready to take the bull by the horns and go go all [Music] out H already has been running for 47 hours and then still that fire that Focus this an amazing dude I was so happy we're doing clockwise [Music] I hadn't slept for a minute or a second at that stage you feel that you are losing it more and more and that you are almost ready to fall asleep on the walk or on the Run my solution that I learned from John Cali in the past is just to start shouting the moment I was getting really really tired I just started shouting really loud which was really strange just shouting out loud in an empty Forest but it was helping me honestly during the last loop I was I was shouting a lot you are nobody pass yet at that stage you're not thinking about Loop five about possibly finishing you're just thinking about the moment you're in and about the fact that you need to hurry hurry hurry push on and push as hard as you [Music] [Applause] [Music] can you forget what it's all about and you forget what you are doing why you are doing [Music] it I remember reaching the summit of of the fire tower and I saw a guy who seemed very familiar to me it was Joe but I didn't know his name I I didn't know his relationship to me and then I thought he was giving me like a a little Notch of you know I got this don't worry about it I didn't give any kind of look I just looked confused I [Music] guess the reason those couple of brain cells are still capable of keeping you on the course is just the fact that I had been obsessed about the race the weeks and months leading up to it the course was so deeply embedded in my mind I think I was just programmed to find the next [Music] book he has like 4 hours and 20 minutes left of which 2 hours in daylight Carl always said if he finishes he's going to do it John feggy style and John has the record of being on course the longest so he did like 59 hours 41 minutes I remember not even halfway into Loop 5 I suddenly saw this crazy tour bus in the middle of the forest and I remember thinking oh they probably have Coke and coffee that would be awesome to have a Coke or a coffee [Music] now I remember going underneath to prison and then I was hearing televisions and I thought yeah why are there people on top of me in the prison the prison is has been empty for for so many years we all expect John to to come in at first but then suddenly someone yells and sees this headlight coming and it'san who's coming from the other side coming back from the fire tower somebody told me that a hiker brought back the second to last book John and Carl already passed the book but oan who was doing counterclockwise still had to take a page from the book so we were all immediately really worried about how odan would react on that [Applause] situation he touched the gate but then everything kind of went silent and you hear asking yeah sorry I don't have the last book there is a book at Philips Creek which is missing so I don't know what to do about that it's it was such a beautiful moment to see such a humble amazing athlete to First almost apologize to say that he doesn't have all his Pages yeah and then John finally arrived and again it's such an exhilarating moment it's a strong work you've done do you know where Carl is he was at the top going down on bu slide as I was on the top coming that out we met right there so that put me 30 40 minutes ahead of him he was 45 minutes behind on the tower and they started an hour difference interesting at that time it's really crazy how you feel is a stressful environment cuz it's getting really close for Carl but I feel like among the three of us Mindy Giant and me that we just super calm like see every minute like a just a minute good Emma is stressing out it's crazy his wife oh yeah yeah what time is it there was like like half 1 yeah and they're all grouped together in a in a cafe so it's it's with the big screen and you have the Twitter feed you have the you have the WhatsApp and then the the sports page oh my gosh it's really cute [Music] come as I was climbing up uh the the last climb I really started losing it I forgot about the fact that I was in a race I forgot what I needed to do I just found a book every now and then I do find the last book and then I hit the proper Trail and the last Descent of of the Barkley marathons because of the adrenaline I guess things were starting to come back to [Music] me I looked at my watch and for the first time in many hours it made sense and I saw I had 40 minutes left to reach something and I also realized from that point it took me about 40 minutes to reach that something at that moment I thought oh this is bad and this is going to be way too close then I was getting into full panicking mode [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] w [Applause] somebody finally shouts [Music] Runner and it's it's the best everything explodes in the best joy that you can feel we got out best [Applause] need Sal to drink for sure in the past I had imagined myself reaching camp and and running up to the yellow gate maybe even high-fiving people and smiling and and uh taking it all in but it wasn't like that at all oh sorry these are my pages all right a little formality here oh I'm sorry for the drama do not be sorry good Carl my brain was out man formality that was [Music] [Applause] easy 59 5333 you are now the slowest Barker EMP [Music] [Applause] nothing holy [Music] had my first ever with hallucination for me it was the whole day like so many people in a forest I I didn't me too yeah you saw them too people and uh noise people people calling yeah me too there only a couple of minutes later I was sitting in a chair and I was recovering a little bit from from what I had just done you know this book in Belgium yeah yeah the list is not complete no number 17 they made me sign as the 17th finisher of the Barkley marathons and that was honestly the first time I really realized I did it and that I became a part of that heroic Club of 15 and now 17 people that had finished the unfinishable race [Music] yeah now it's all said and done do you think you finally hit your [Music] wall

Channel: Karel Sabbe

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Id: R-oEFaqUQEQ

Length: 63min 36sec (3816 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 12 2024