The Racist Race

Ultrarunning has a Barkley problem, and so do I

This piece was originally published in March, 2023.

Ever heard of the Barkley Marathons? If you’re outside of the running world, probably not. And if this is the first time you’ve heard of it, I’m going to suggest this be the last time you’ve heard of it, too.

Why? Because it’s racist, that’s why.

And because if you’re interested in learning about or participating in ultra-endurance running events like me, there are multitudes of wonderful events besides Barkley that you can get involved in. And besides, Laz would never let you run it, anyways.

I’m bringing up Barkley and its infamous Race Director, Gary Cantrell, a.k.a. Lazarus Lake, a.k.a. “Laz” because the lessons I’m learning from the drama at Barkley apply everywhere white supremacy has made its imprint. In other words, everywhere.

The Barkley Marathons is an ultrarunning event held in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee every March or April. It is famous (or infamous) for how hard it is to finish. Most years nobody finishes at all. Its hallmark is its mystery. Nobody knows how you actually get picked to register for the race, but when you do, you get a letter of condolence in the mail. Laz always picks a runner who has no business being there and dubs them the “child sacrifice.” The date is top secret and changes every year. The course is secret and GPS is banned. Runners who don’t tap out on their own must complete each of five 20-ish mile loops within a tight time cutoff or be dropped from the race with a ceremonial rendition of Taps. Between the sleep deprivation, hypothermia, navigational errors, and exhaustion of 60-straight hours of running, it’s amazing nobody has died.

I’ve neither dreamt of nor desired to run Barkley, but as an ultrarunner I have been intrigued because I can put myself in the shoes of the competitors. I’ve been intrigued enough to learn all about the event and its strange rules, and on race week I’ll peek once or twice at the Twitter feed that provides the only live coverage allowed.

But there’s always been this nagging question hanging over the whole thing: is Laz racist? I knew the answer, but it wasn’t enough of a concern to me to quash my interest in the event. I’m ashamed to say that it took until this week, when BIPOC runners in the running community said they’d had enough after yet another display of the Confederate flat at the event, for me to take the negative impact of Barkley on the running world seriously. Let me break down some of the reasons why Barkley has a race problem.

To start with, Barkley has a bizarre premise. Laz says he was inspired to create Barkley when he heard the story of James Earl Ray’s failed attempt at escaping the now defunct prison that is situated in Frozen Head State Park. You know, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King. According to the story, Ray escaped, but after an all-hands-on-deck manhunt, he was found only a short distance away, disoriented and shivering, having gotten hopelessly lost in the unforgiving terrain.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I’m not a fan of cops and prisons. But I’m also not shedding tears over the fate of James Earl Ray. Laz, on the other hand, was like, “I bet I could do better.” And that is the premise and conceptual world Barkley was born of. Who gets the idea of putting themselves in the shoes of a white supremacist assassin and then makes a game out of it? I’ve always wondered what to think about this story. Is it satire? If it is, it should have been obvious that the joke isn’t funny. Mea culpa.

Then there was 2020 when the pandemic cancelled all of the in-person races and so RD’s everywhere got creative with virtual ones. So did Laz. He created the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee (GVRAT). Virtual runs work like this: you run it, you record it, you upload it with any photos, tags, and comments to the race website. An Asian runner named Ben Chan did his thing, then uploaded a photo of himself in a Black Lives Matter singlet, and in his comments shared about his experiences of racism and harassment while running in public.

Laz took it down, saying it wasn’t the place for political debates. When Chan fielded a relay team for another event and named it Black Lives Matter, Laz told him to change the name or withdraw. The team withdrew.

But you know what he doesn’t take down? Displays of the Confederate flag at the Barkley Marathons. This year included. Even after taking considerable heat in the running media over his anti-BLM actions in 2020, he has clearly learned nothing.

Laz’s behavior was typical racist non-racism: just keep it about running, and check racial politics at the door. Except Ben Chan couldn’t check his identity at the door when he went out on a run. He experienced harassment and threats, and was told that his experience as a runner was not to be discussed in an ostensibly neutral running space. He was welcome, as long as he didn’t show up as himself. But the Confederate flag is allowed because it isn’t “political.” In other words, it doesn’t make white people uncomfortable, and white comfort is the standard of neutrality. “Political” is another word for things that make white people uncomfortable.

Even after the GVRAT controversy I was still keeping an eye on coverage of this year’s event. I was still quietly cheering for this to be the year of the first woman finisher. In other words, there was still a part of me that was captivated, like a kind of guilty pleasure. Then I heard news of the flag display and saw the call-outs from BIPOC athletes, and that was my final wake-up call. The Barkley Marathons are bad for the sport, was the sum of it. And it’s true. Unless you want the sport to be an all-white space.

I can’t say I want my sport to be inclusive of BIPOC athletes and then buy into the hype around a white supremacist RD. I am a member of a majority BIPOC running team for God’s sake! Now, there was never a chance I was going to participate in Barkley, much less give it my money, but the real problem is its cultural impact on the sport, how the Barkley hype influences other events. Here in the Shenandoah Valley we love our hard-ass, grassroots ultras that promise not-for-the-faint-of-heart punishing terrain. One of them prides itself on being sort of Barkley-adjacent, a race where Barkley finishers come to run when they’re not running Barkley. There’s even a photo of Laz on the website at the event. That is an event I have participated in, and have always had on the table for another go in the future.

Perhaps this controversy warrants some home-grown soul searching. I don’t think it’s wrong to host and run epically hard running events. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether we are treating everyone with respect, treating the land with respect, and not promulgating a masochistic, masculinist, and racist conqueror mindset in the ways we engage with each other and the space. Ultramarathons are run on stolen land stained with the blood of stolen labor. What are white runners reenacting when they enter into these scarred and sacred landscapes and enact dramas of suffering and conquest? The backstory to the Barkley Marathons is horrific. It shouldn’t be twisted entertainment.

Running is beautiful. The land is beautiful. Humans are beautiful and we are born to run. These should not be in conflict with each other. They should be available to all. But they aren’t when we erect political barriers by erasing – or celebrating – the violent history of these lands and erasing the realities and experiences and identities of our fellow athletes. Running is never politically neutral. Nothing is. Building inclusive communities doesn’t happen by accident. It takes intention.

Ultramarathons shouldn’t be exclusive, abusive, or violent in spirit or fact. I have yet to hear a land acknowledgment at a running event I’ve been at. I wonder how the conversation would go if I brought it up? I wonder what would happen if I sent this blog post to our regional trail running club and requested they remove Laz’s races from their calendar? Or to the RD of the aforementioned event? Are there runners in my community who would join with me, if just to reflect on our culture and the future of running?

As I’ve gotten into ultras myself I’ve steered clear of events that promote themselves with violent narratives (ask my coach…). But my persistent interest in Barkley in spite of my misgivings is testimony to how I let the hype get to me. The hype was not deserved, and I will give it my attention no longer.