Speaker

Lazarus Lake

Lazarus Lake

Endurance race designer and director, born Gary Cantrell; a former mediocre-by-his-own-account ultrarunner who now designs events built to defeat almost everyone who attempts them. His races include the Barkley Marathons, Big’s Backyard Ultra, Vol State 500K, and A Race for the Ages (ARFTA) [?].

Lake founded the Barkley Marathons at Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee, in 1986; as of this conversation only 17 people had finished it within the 60-hour limit, and most years produce no finishers at all. He worked previously as an accountant and as city treasurer of Shelbyville, Tennessee — a background he credits with teaching him to read what numbers reveal about people and situations he has never physically seen. He is the subject of the 2014 documentary The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young [?]. He has walked across the United States coast to coast and organises the Heart of the South journey run. He was transitioning day-to-day direction of his races to Carl Laniak at the time of this conversation, and was putting increasing focus on the Backyard Ultra format, which had grown from a first event in 2012 to over 400 races in more than 70 countries.

Core positions

Lake designs difficulty into the composition of the field, not primarily the course: applicants are screened by essay and sorted into ability bands so the aggregate number of laps run each year lands near a fixed target, regardless of the finish rate. He treats uncertainty as a deliberate design material — withholding the course, the start time, and even the following year’s race date — on the view that not knowing is the hardest thing an athlete has to manage. He holds, as a working belief rather than a measured claim, that people across all domains of endeavour routinely underestimate what they can do; on the separate question of where the absolute ceiling on human performance lies, he says plainly that he does not know. He insists on keeping entry costs minimal (Barkley’s fee is $1.60) so that money, not ability, never decides who can attempt his races.

In the wiki