2017 Barkley Marathon features one finisher, heartbreak for Gary Robbins
runningmagazine.ca
runningmagazine.ca
Obviously this race is pretty hardcore and the people that participate are freaking awesome! The race should be sensational based on that alone, but alas journalists need to add a little more spice...
A message from the RD of The Barkley Marathons #bm100:
i wish i had never said 6 seconds...
gary had just come in after having run off course
and missing the last 2 miles of the barkley.
that is, of course, not a finish.
i do, however, always record when runners come in,
whether they are finishing a loop, or not.
so, i had looked at the watch,
even tho there was no possibility that he would be counted as a finisher.
so, when someone asked if he had gotten in before the limit;
i foolishly answered.
i never expected the story to somehow become that he had missed the time limit by 6 seconds.
he failed to complete the course by 2 miles.
the time, in that situation, is meaningless.
i hate it, because this tale perpetuates the myth that the barkley does not have a course.
the barkley is a footrace.
it is not an orienteering contest,
nor a scavenger hunt.
the books are nothing more than unmanned checkpoints.
the boston marathon has checkpoints.
and you have to show up at all of them or you can be disqualified...
that does not mean you are allowed to follow any route you choose between checkpoints.
now, the class with which gary handled this terrible disappoinment
at the end of a truly magnificent performance...
that was exceptional,
and is, in and of itself, a remarkable achievement.
but he did not miss the time limit by 6 seconds.
he failed to complete the barkley by 2 miles.
laz
http://garyrobbinsrun.com/blog/2017/4/close-but-no-cigarette
Amazing.
It really seems like just a matter of time until someone dies on the course.
I can't even imagine the sufferfest that is the Barkley.
I don't know why we push ourselves this way. Maybe I'll figure it out one of these races.
Respect to Gary. If you didn't watch the video, he thanks Laz (the R.D.) and gives him a hug. What a fine and proud showing for the ultra community.
I've only run north of 50K three times now, and only twice in races. The first time was 42 mi to celebrate my birthday a few years back. Getting to 26.2 mi, 50K and 50 mi require training and preparation. But getting beyond 50 mi, and especially beyond 100K require resolve. It certainly helps to be well trained of course, but I think mostly you just need to not quit.
The race I did is eight 12.5 mi laps. I finished lap 5 and thought: only 9 more hours or so of running. But, you just break it down into manageable chunks and keep going. Or you quit.
It's more like running 100 miles...on a section of the Appalachian Trail...that hasn't been maintained in 20 years.
I've done a bunch of a ultras and know quite a few better runners than myself and seeing them tap out on this race just tells you how gnarly it really is.
Contestants get access to rationed water and a tent. All food has to be carried by the runners. Along the way, they get to deal with dehydration, blistering heat, sand storms, and the very real risk of getting lost. One stage is typically about two marathons in length, and has a time limit.
It's one of very few events that require insurance for corpse repatriation.
Up to 2008, two deaths occurred, one of whom died of a heart attack in his sleep after completing the long stage in 45th place (out of about 750). To gain entry, you have to have a medical certificate anda resting ECG report from at most 30 days before the start of the race, so that's quite extraordinary.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-fastest-time-anyone-has-ru... (these might have been broken by now)
Knowing that humans push themselves to these limits for the sheer fact of having done it is something that gives me a lot of motivation. I have been following the Barkley Marathons for a while and I dream that someday I may subject myself.
In this case, John picked CW, so Gary had to go CCW. Although per twitter, they had discussed it during the 4th lap and decided it mutually.
Data point/fact: Garry Robbins finished in 60:00:06.
Coming to the finish from the wrong direction is a problem; maybe they could figure it out somehow and translate that to a penalty of some number of seconds.
That being said, this race has its allure and mythical status specifically because it has a variety of rules/challenges that must be precisely followed. Not meeting any of them means you are not a finisher of the Barkley Marathon. If we start bending the rules because someone was close or from the emotions of things we start to devalue the accomplishment itself.
Ok, so if we say 6 seconds, that's really close enough. What about 6 minutes? What about 60?
What if he ran the right distance but took a wrong turn? Should we give him time credit for the extra couple miles?
What if he had the wrong page from a book? He still made the checkpoint... What if he had 3 wrong pages?
Eventually, being a finisher becomes a very confused and confusing accomplishment to even understand. I think it's far better to be very clear as to the rules, and then follow them, even if heartbreak ensues.
Article is scant about anything other than the >60hr time. It doesn't say he would not have qualified had he come in under 60. (So the fellow who finished under 60 hours met all those other requirements to the letter? Not a single wrong turn, etc?)
> Ok, so if we say 6 seconds, that's really close enough.
Close enough to what? Nobody is saying change 60:06 to 60:00.
> What about 6 minutes? What about 60?
It's very simple. Any time should count as a time, if anyone official is there at all to witness and record it. At the cutoff time they prepare to go home, and then leave. Nobody owes you a recorded time after the cutoff.
When the last timer packs up leaves, any subsequent finishers can simply be left not recorded. The status is something like "they are not officially noted as having finished". That's a big difference from saying "did not finish". If one person claims "did not finish" and another "finished", one of them is lying or mistaken. But there is no contradiction between "finished" and "not recorded".
They were there; that's why they (and thus all of us) know he was 6 seconds over. It's effectively recorded.
If Gary is not going to be on record as a finisher, then shut the fuck up about the six seconds. Just say "Not recorded! I saw someone that might or might not have been Gary at some time after the 60th hour; I had reset my stopwatch by then in any case ..."
The six second precision with which we know that Gary supposedly didn't finish is the laughable contradiction here.
Also, no offence, but you clearly don't know enough about the race to really be talking about how it should be operated.
This race is full of obscure rules and insanely harsh conditions, it's just how it goes.
You can defend the race without telling someone else that he has no right to his own opinion.
Laz made it even more clear in a post on facebook per [0]:
“[…] gary had just come in after having run off course and missing the last 2 miles of the barkley. that is, of course, not a finish. […]
i never expected the story to somehow become that he had missed the time limit by 6 seconds. he failed to complete the course by 2 miles. the time, in that situation, is meaningless. […]
now, the class with which gary handled this terrible disappoinment at the end of a truly magnificent performance… that was exceptional, and is, in and of itself, a remarkable achievement.
but he did not miss the time limit by 6 seconds. he failed to complete the barkley by 2 miles.”
As far as a hypothetical counting times of someone who correctly completed the course but came in over 60h as someone who finished, we'll have to agree to disagree. Finishers must touch the yellow gate in under 60 hours. Arriving after that point means you didn't finish the race in the allotted time. If you would prefer that Laz refuse to check his watch after time elapsed hits 60:00:00 so we wouldn't know how late anyone arrived, I don't have a specific problem with that, but that would seem to be up to Laz and the runner involved.
[0] - http://trailrunnermag.com/people/news/2017-barkley-marathons...
That's very different; in that case, the finish line crossing time has no meaning (and perhaps shouldn't even be quoted around).
Going for another two miles to cover the missing distance could take an hour or more in that body condition (even on an ideal, flat surface, never mind the actual one). Especially given that he calculated his remaining physical resources with regard to where he thought the finish lied.
I accept responsibility for getting carried away with an article that is lacking in crucial details and helping to perpetrate the wrong story.
> Arriving after that point means you didn't finish the race in the allotted time.
In the eyes of the world, you finished. If we drop the "in the alloted time" part, the remaining statement's face value interpretation in the world at large is false. (The unqualified statement may still be understood properly in the narrow context shared by a group of people, in which the condition is implicit, but carrying that statement over to the world at large without context is equivocation.)
So perhaps this is the root of our disagreement. People who complete the Barkley marathon (including within time) are not called winners, they're called finishers (e.g. see the wikipedia page). Therefore the term 'Barkley marathons finisher' implies 'within the allotted time' in this context. Admittedly, when a domain-specific publication like this gets posted to a more general audience, that sort of terminology difference from standard English can be lost.