North Vancouver’s Gary Robbins told a harrowing tale Tuesday about his agonizing finish in The Barkley Marathons, a competition regarded by many as the toughest foot race in the world.
Robbins missed the cut-off for the 60-hour extreme endurance race by six seconds Monday and arrived at the finish line from the wrong direction following a navigation error.
John Kelly from Washington, D.C., became the 15th finisher in the race’s history, completing the course in 59 hours and 30 minutes.
The diabolical ultra-marathon involves completing five loops of a course set through thick brush in Frozen Head State Park in eastern Tennessee, a distance that equals at least 100 miles. The full course contains an elevation gain that is approximately equivalent to climbing Mount Everest twice. Most racers are happy to finish one loop, while a handful each year complete three loops which, at 60-plus miles, is known as the “fun run.” Many years there are no racers who complete all five loops.
Video posted on Canadian Running Magazine’s website Monday shows Robbins sprinting to touch the famous “yellow gate” that marks the end of the course and collapsing to the ground. Robbins had collected all of the book pages that are used to mark progress on the course but got disoriented in fog and snow near the end of the final loop.
“I took the wrong side of the mountain in the fog,” Robbins can be heard explaining. “I went the wrong way.” Race director Gary Cantrell, a.k.a. Lazarus Lake, clarified that even if Robbins had touched the gate before the 60-hour cut-off he would not have been an official finisher because he did not complete the full course.
On Tuesday Robbins wrote a blog post on garyrobbinsrun.com that described his foggy finish.
“After collecting my 13th and final book page, having not stopped moving for even a second on my fifth and final lap, the fog had once again set in,” he wrote. “As I went over the final bump on the course I knew I would hit a trail, go left, and run down into camp with maybe five minutes to spare, but the math added up, I was going to make it.”
But something went wrong on that final turn, and Robbins soon realized he was going in the wrong direction. Panic set in as he frantically fought through sleep deprivation to get back on course.
“I ripped open my map and the gravity of things hit me,” he wrote. “I did not have enough time left to correct my mistake by going up and over the mountain again. If I did this I would have finished in maybe 60:05 and I would not be an official Barkley Marathons finisher. Here’s the thing though, that’s exactly what I should have done, and the one regret I have after now sleeping is not doing just that.”
He did not turn back, however, and instead he “bushwhacked down the mountain at breakneck speed” before crossing a river that was swollen from recent rains.
“I took one step off the river bank and was already chest deep. I would never have made the decision to attempt to swim such waters under anything other than a highly sleep deprived and stressed state of mind.”
Once across the river he spotted the camp and raced in for his frantic finish. Though he was agonizingly close to completing one of the most difficult tasks a human can attempt, Robbins was fully accepting of his fate.
“The Barkley Marathons is not an orienteering style race,” he wrote. “You do not get to select the route that best favours you between books. You need to navigate between books, off trail, but in a very specific direction of travel. My finish, even if it were six seconds faster, would not have counted. I put Laz and the race in a precarious situation and in hindsight I’m glad I was six seconds over so that we didn’t have to discuss the validity of my finish.”
Robbins, a highly decorated ultra-marathoner, first attempted the race last year and finished 4½ laps before hallucinations and a navigation error made it impossible for him to complete the course in the allotted time. It was the best ever finish for a Canadian racer and third best for a rookie. Following last year’s race he vowed to go back again and again until he finished.
At the conclusion of this year’s race Robbins was once again serenaded by a bugler playing “Taps,” a tradition carried out for all who fail to finish.
“I did not finish The Barkley Marathons, and that is no one’s fault but my own,” he wrote. “That one fatal error with just over two miles to go haunts me.”
For more information about Robbins and the ridiculously hard Barkley Marathons, check out our feature story on last year's event. The Press Play Network's Stream Queens podcast also did a deep dive into the race last week, revieweing a documentary film titled The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young.
