Hi and welcome back to the Run to Run.
Tonight we've got a returning guest, Ian Bethune, who has just
been away on a little trip to Tennessee to a little known race
called the Barclay Marathons. Well, I'm, I'm sure we'll get
into what the Barclay marathons actually are, but we, we put out
a question on Instagram and Facebook of what what people
want to know about the race. And we are fully aware that it
is quite a secretive. We'll find out why, what is
secretive, and hopefully Ian will tell us what he can and
tell us what he can't talk about.
And as in, he will say he won't talk about it because he's not
allowed to, because if he's got any interest in going back, he
won't be allowed if he leaks anything and it could jeopardize
the whole race. So we're fully expecting him to
say no, go away. Absolutely, yeah, I've got got
got a few red lines and if we try and cross them I will tell
tell you to stop. It's OK, Ian, we know that.
It's me that we'll probably ask those questions.
We're ready. As we said, Ian is a returning
guest. So if you want to know all about
Ian, we have got a previous episode.
Please go back and listen to it. Tonight's episode we're
concentrating on the adventure that he has just had less than
two weeks ago. So welcome back, Ian.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Looking forward to it. Thanks so much for coming on,
Ian. So the first question and to
make surprise, I've not even got this wrote down because he
mentioned that in the intro. A good place to start, I would
imagine. As for those that don't know,
what are the Barclay marathons? Sure.
So I'll give you the the short version.
I mean, I, I the famous I wrote in my my race report blog.
If, if you really have never heard the Barclays, you know,
pause this video now pause the podcast you listen to go to
YouTube and search for where dreams go to die, which is the,
you know, the most recent comprehensive documentary on it.
Or there's a really good one called the race.
It's it's young, which some people can get on YouTube,
depending on where you are. But basically, what is the
Barclay marathons? So it is 100 Miller and the
reason for the courts will be clear in a minute.
It's held in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee over in the
States. And it is one of the races which
is kind of the brainchild of Lazarus Lake and the guy behind
the the backyard ultra and and many other ultra races.
And so the format of it is it is five loops of a 20 mile course.
And that again the, the, the air quotes there is because the, the
route ever since it was 100 Miller, which is about 30 odd
years ago, the route has been exactly 20 miles, even though it
changes every year. And you know, it's widely kind
of known to be significantly over 20 miles.
So if you do the full 5 loops to complete the course, you end up
doing significantly more than 100 miles.
So it's essentially all off trail in this in Frozen Head
State Park, which is a, you know, really mountainous,
heavily forested State Park. And yeah, it's, it's off trail
and there's no marks route. You have to navigate yourself
around in these woods. You're not allowed any
electronic aids. So you're basically navigating
with a map and compass. The race organizers do provide a
map with the route on it, but not a printed copy for everybody
like you might get some other races.
There's one copy that gets laid out on a picnic bench about 12
hours before the race starts, and you have to copy it onto
your own map. So that's a little bit of a
little bit of extra challenge there.
They also give you a set of written instructions, which is
about, you know, thick pages for, for the clockwise
description, another 6 pages for the anti clockwise loop
description. And again, if you've read any of
Lassie's writing, you know, he's, he writes a lot on
Facebook and things about and he's written books and things.
He's a very idiosyncratic way of writing.
And the instructions, you know, might be more or less helpful,
shall we say. So.
Yeah. So that that's the the format of
the race and yeah, but it's also basically completely non
supported as well. So from when you start that 20
mile loop, then you're you're on your own.
Usually there's one or two water drops and where they just leave
these, you know, they're probably 10 or 20 litre
containers of water out. Those, of course, may be frozen.
The race is held in the kind of, yes, spring, winter kind of
boundary. Like historically, it was always
held around April Fool's weekend, but more recent years,
it's got earlier and earlier in the year.
So, yeah, it's certainly not uncommon for those, you know,
water drops to be frozen solids. And the weather can be.
In fact, the weather at Frozen Head State Park is it's
notorious for being a microclimate.
So, you know, it can really change very rapidly between
what's at camp and, and what's at the top of the the mountains.
And I didn't say as well, actually, as well as it being
at, you know, 20 mile loop. Each loop has nominally 15,000
feet of climbing and descending, so again, if you do the full 5
loops to complete the race, that's 75,000 feet of a cent and
descent, which is roughly equivalent to climbing Everest
twice from sea level. So yeah, steep off trail,
hardened navigation, no support. You can see why I thought it was
a fun idea to go and do it. And you said you're not, that
you weren't allowed any electronics.
And a lot of people are used to having Agps watching the wrist.
Yeah. Did you have your GPS?
No, I mean you, you, you're, you're absolutely not allowed to
take any form of electronics with I mean the only electrical
light you can take is head torch.
And then the, the race management issue you with a
watch which for the last couple of years has been like just a,
you know, cheapo Casio digital watch and it's set to race time.
So it like it goes to 0000 when the race starts.
The other thing I didn't mention is that the race, the actual
when you, when you go to the race, you know what day it's
going to start on. And but it can start at any time
within a 12 hour window from midnight through the the midday
of the following day. And that start gets announced by
Las bluing a a conch shell. And so you kind of, you know, in
this case, you know, we were all asleep during the night and you
get woken by the the blast of this kind of horn conch sound
and that signals you got an hour till the start of the race.
And at that point, the issue with the watches, of course,
because they're, they're set to race time and they don't want to
reveal what the start time is. So yeah, you're out there by
yourself. The only bit of technology
you've got is this watch that's just taking the the time away.
And if you, if you run, the time limit for the to do the full 100
mile race would be 60 hours. So that's, you know, 2 1/2 days
of yeah of good fun. So if you if your watch is set
to race time so it's going to take down to 0, how long before
did you get your watch? Yeah, so as soon as the the
conch has been blowing, so one hour to the start, then the
watches are available for collection.
So I think I, you know, so I, I was, I was asleep.
So you're allowed crew. So this year you're allowed one
crew person. So my crew who went over with me
was Alan Parkin, who I know at least Mike will know.
So I gave Alan the unenviable task of staying awake all night
and listening for this conch while I was fast asleep in my
tent. So.
Yeah. So yeah, Well, I did wake up
when I heard it, Yeah. Got changed, got some breakfast
into me and then went and collected my watch probably half
an hour before the start. Something like that.
Do you think you're you're backyard?
You're used to getting up, You might get 5 minutes sleep and
then you get up for a yard. There's another last lake race.
Do you think after the conch blew that was the equivalent of
2 minutes to the next yard? Do you think that helped?
I'm not sure that the backyard kind of the experience of the
backyard is necessarily helpful in not getting ready in an hour.
I mean, but if an spoiler alert, I only completed one loop and if
I'd gone out to a second loop and you know that transition
between loop 1 and two, we are very much thinking about it in
terms of like backyard style. Be really efficient, quick as
you can, you know, be in and out in like 10 minutes if we could
have so. And you know, Alan's an
experienced backyarder and backyard crewer and I've done it
many times as well. So, you know, we, we, we had a
good plan for that. Unfortunately, we didn't get a
chance to get into practice. So I have two questions off of
the back of that. The first one is did you get to
keep the watch? And the second one is, how did
you manage to sleep knowing that from midnight on the day you
knew it was starting, that you could have been cold at any
time? I don't know if I'd have been
able to sleep. Yeah, I mean, so the first
thing, no, no, we didn't get, we had to hand the watches back in
at the end. And I assume though I thought
they were the same set of watches that were used last year
and maybe they'll use them again, I don't know.
But you know, sleeping, I mean, so like similar to the, the
backyards, I suppose, you know, lies is quite like a, a
psychological guy and likes to kind of play with your mind a
bit these races and, and the, the start time uncertainty is
kind of part of that. And my way of thinking about
most preparing for this is like, obviously there's going to be
uncertainty. Like, you know, you don't know
even what the route's going to be exactly until the day before.
You don't know what the start time is going to be until an
hour before. There's like all these things
that are like uncontrollable stuff that you just can't
influence. You just got to deal with it
when it comes. But there's a whole bunch of
other stuff that you can predict and can prepare for.
So, so that part is like, well, the start time, I just don't
know what it's going to be, so I'm just not going to worry
about it. And, you know, the and the and
the plan was said we had in place was that, you know, Alan
was going to stay up so that there's no risk of me sleeping
through it. You know, there's been stories
in the past of runners that have left through the conch and like,
you know, been late to the start.
And, you know, I didn't want that to be me.
But yeah, I mean, I think it kind of helped coming from UK
time zone to the US. So it's like 5 hour time
difference to the eastern half of Tennessee.
And so I although I'd been there like probably 4 days, you know,
before the the night the race was due to start, my body clock
still hadn't fully moved over. So like when it was like 8-9
o'clock in the evening, I was kind of ready to go to sleep.
So I think I was like in my sleeping bag by 8:00, you know,
doing some last reading over the instructions and stuff like
that. And then I think I was faster
asleep by about 9:00. And then in the end, the
conscious blowing at 5:00 in the morning.
So pretty much had eight hours of solid sleep, which is about
as good as you could possibly hope for, I guess.
And I tend to sleep quite well in the tent.
I mean, I know not everybody does, but works for me.
So yeah, it's good. And the you mentioned people in
the past have missed the start. Are they allowed to start late
because the time is not valuable or anything?
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's happened for, for quite a few
years. So, you know, maybe they take a
different view of it these days. But certainly, you know, the the
stories I've heard was that runners were allowed to start,
they just started late. And it's not like the backyard,
you know, where you have to go when the bell goes.
Otherwise you're counted as a as a, you know, did not continue.
So yeah, I think even for last to like, you know, disqualify
somebody who'd come all the way from, you know, wherever they
live to run the Barclay and they overslept by half an hour.
He's like, no, you can't run. But obviously, you know, the
clock starts running at the at the 0 hour.
So if you're a late start, you've got less time.
And I didn't say it when I was describing the race, but there's
also cut offs for each loop as well.
So essentially like if you want to complete the full 5 loops in
60 hours, that's averaging 12 hours per loop.
Then there's actually a cut off of 13 hours, 20 for the 1st
loop. Well, for for each of the first
3 loops and then say. So that basically if you do 3
loops at 13 hours, 20 per loop, that adds up to 40 hours.
So if you complete 3 loops in 40 hours, you can get what's called
a fun run finish because you know, doing 3 loops, the
Barclays fun. But if you, if you want to carry
on to do a 4th loop or a 10th to 4th and 5th loop, you have to
finish those first 3 loops within 36 hours.
So, you know, 12 hour, you know, keeping to that 12 hour per loop
average. So yeah, that's why I ended up
falling foul off and then I completed the 1st loop, but I
was over the time limit. So yeah, as I said, we didn't
get the opportunity then to go out on the 2nd loop, didn't have
to do a loop to loop transition and like that.
Is there a reason why 3 loops is the fun run and not 4?
I think it kind of goes back like so the Barclay.
So this year was the the 40th, the 40th anniversary of the
Barclay or might be the 40th running of it.
I can't quite remember. There's two years that it hadn't
run. I think in my head the first
year was 1986, but I'm not not 100% sure.
So when it originally started, it was a kind of 50 mile or
which was about 60 miles and then after so so the guy called
Ed Ferto, who's known as frozen Ed after the the frozen head
State Park. And so he was the first finisher
of that fifty mile or back back in back in the 80s.
And then they introduced the extension to the 100 Miller.
So I think that kind of is by by adding sort of another couple of
loops. And so I think that's kind of
where the the the kind of fun run and it is.
I mean, like, clearly it's really, really hard, but you
know, like the fun run is something that I think is kind
of achievable for like good runners if they have a good year
and don't make many mistakes. To complete the the full 100
Miller, you know, you need to be either like super elite in terms
of fitness or just have an ABS. You know, there have been in the
past like some, you know, not well known superstar ultra
runners who've come and and finished the race, but it but it
is rare these days. Did you have a plan to?
Like you said, you only did one. Yeah, and we'll find out why
that was the case. Did you have a plan to or an
aim? Was it to finish five loops, was
it to do the fun run? Or was it just to get round one?
Yeah, I mean, I had, I had thought about this, you know,
what's the right way to approach the race.
And the difficulty is, is that, you know, I mean, I've done a
lot of research, so I had a very good idea what it's getting
myself into, but it's very hard to find something that's a good
analogue of it to predict how well you're likely to perform.
So until I went there, like, I really had no good idea how I
could stack up, you know? So like I planned for and hoped
for the best, you know, I had food bags made-up for five
loops, you know, but I just didn't know whether that was
going to be realistic for me. So I took the view of right,
well, I'm going to go, go, as, you know, go as fast as I can,
as hard as I can. And just, you know, take it one
loop at a time. Because, you know, I mean, I, I
did have a good idea like what sort of pace you need to run at,
you know, what sort of times you need to hit in order to have a
reasonable chance of, of getting rounds to a fun run.
And, you know, I would be lying if I didn't say I thought I
could do at least a couple of loops, but that was very much
what I hoped I could do. I didn't know if I'd be capable
of doing that. And as it turned out on this,
this occasion, you know, it turned out I wasn't.
But I think I mean, again, there have been some people who've
rocked up to the Barclay and you finished it on their first rate
the first attempt or finished a fun run in the first attempt.
But generally speaking, it's you know, and haven't spoken to some
people have been involved in previous years.
It's kind of expected to be a multi year project where you go,
you learn a lot the first year you're there.
I mean, again, people had talked to said, you know, do your
research, do your homework, be prepared, But nothing can quite
prepare you for being there. And you, you will learn a hell
of a lot in that first year you're there.
And, and some, for some people, they go there, they learn a hell
of a lot and they go, I don't want to ever do this ever again.
And, and you know, for other people, they learn a lot and,
and hopefully get a chance to come back and do again and do
better. And you've got people like
previous guest John Kelly who go there, finish it, and they
haven't learned not to go back again and see what you learn the
next time. Yeah, yeah.
Well, that and that's the other thing is that they, you know,
the course constantly gets tweaked every year.
So I don't think there's been any years for the course has
been exactly the same from year to year.
Generally speaking, it's pretty similar.
But when somebody finishes the race, then the race management
will make the race harder. So their idea is to keep it at
this. What they say is that, you know,
at the outer limits of of, you know, human possibility.
So if people can finish it, we'll make it a little bit
harder. And so it was 2024, they
actually had five finishers of the full 100 miles, which was
like unprecedented in the, in the history of the race,
including famously, you know, Jasmine Paris being the first
woman to finish it. So I think it's in 2025, they,
you know, made a fairly significant revision to the
course, which, you know, of course made it harder.
And this year was again, pretty similar.
And there's been, there was quite a lot of discussion, you
know, on Facebook groups and stuff after 2025 where there was
like John Kelly, who's a three time finisher of the race and
like all around Barclay legend, he managed a fun run on the 2025
course with like 10 minutes to spare.
And it was the only person that did that.
And there was this kind of various people ringing their
wringing their hands going well, has this gone too far this time?
He's made it impossible. But you know, he's just said
really well, you know, it's now up to the runners to to raise
their game. You know, the course is what it
is. I'm sure it'll be tweaked again
a little bit for future years, but it will kind of remain at
the same rough level of difficulty.
I know those before there was periods like in the 20 tens, I
think where there was like 8 years where nobody finished the
race. And then eventually, you know,
runners got better, they figured it out, they figured out the
navigation, you know, improved their skills, etcetera and and
people finished it. So I think that's what Liza's
waiting for, and if it's another eight years before anybody
finishes it, that's fine with him.
And you mentioned Jasmine Paris there, there is a a really good
YouTube documentary about her doing the race which is well
worth a watch. Yeah, yeah, there's loads of
stuff out there. Like if you go, yeah, I did a
lot of research. I can't remember, like I must
have listened to about like 50 hours plus of podcast stuff,
like every YouTube including like, you know, German and
French documentaries with subtitles and AI dubbing and all
this kind of stuff. You can really go down the
rabbit hole on this race and there is loads of good stuff out
there. Well, while you were doing your
researching and you put your entry in, which I think we know
as a secret, not many people know how to enter, which is one
of the beautiful mysteries of the race.
But you eventually get told that you're in and you obviously have
quite a lot of running pals that know how big a deal the Barclay
is. How did you manage to keep it a
secret? Yeah, I mean, obviously like you
Oh yeah, it's no, no, no secret that, you know, I've been
interested in doing the Barclay and I think I've said to people
that I, you know, I knew how to enter, sorry, I should say I
knew how to apply. So I'll not say too much more
about the application process. But actually, I mean, you know,
Laz has talked about in quite a lot of detail and and Jared
Campbell as well, who's like the the all time GOAT Barclays four
time finisher. He's talked about it quite a lot
and, and they both describe it as like a filtering process that
it's hard because if you made it easy, all these people that have
like no business being at the race because they wouldn't have
a clue. You know, if you're like, the
first hurdle is figuring out how to apply and if you've got the
right kind of dedication and attention to detail to figure
out how to do that, that tends to translate into the kind of
people that will do better in the race.
So that's that's their kind of idea.
So, yeah. And again, it's well known that,
you know, once you've sent in your application at some point,
as you said, yeah, you get your, what they call the letter of
condolence, which is last year, I'm sorry to inform you that you
have been allowed to enter the Barclay Marathons.
And, and yeah, see you get that, you know, I'll just say at some
point later on in the year and, you know, as people now know, so
this year the race was on the 4th February, the 14th, which is
like almost a month. I mean, I said it's been
gradually getting earlier since the original April date, but
this was like almost a month earlier than than than what was
what's been in previous years. So, yeah, like for me, I was
like, OK, right. I've got a month less to train
for this than I thought I might. So I suppose in some way, like,
yeah, I mean, there's quite often I kind of like, guess when
the Barclay is going to happen and guess who's going to Barclay
and people like, start looking at people's Strava and things
like that. I think like people will look at
like John Kelly or, you know, Aurelian Sanchez or, you know,
other serial Barclay runners. I think I was a bit off the
radar. So nobody was like nobody was
looking at my Strava thinking I was going to the Barclay.
I mean, I did have a bit of fun with like posting some like
pictures of, oh, I'm doing some training on a steep briar
infested wood in the dark hint, hint, which is kind of funny.
And there, there was a couple of people who kind of put two and
two together and, and guessed I might be going, which of course
I didn't confirm to them. But there was a point, I would
say probably just a couple of weeks before I was actually due
to go to the race where I, I put together a little Facebook group
of people that, you know, there was a few people that knew like,
obviously, like my close family knew, you know, Alan Mccrew, he
knew there's a few, few other people like that.
And then there was a bunch of people who I thought they'd
guessed or they'd asked me and I denied it kind of thing.
And I put them on the Facebook group and said, all right, guys,
I am going to Barclay. I'm not telling you when it is,
but but when you do find out that I'm there, you can't say
anything. So because as you said in the
introduction, you know, the race is held in a certain amount of
secrecy. And basically the reason for
that is because they don't, you know, part of the experience of
doing Barclay is that you're out there by yourself and they don't
want a whole bunch of spectators turning up at the park.
There's already 40 runners, you know, 40 crew, assorted race
organization staff there. So let's say there's 100 people
crammed on this little campsite and they don't want loads of
spectators turning up. And also, you know, the majority
of the race, the Fed takes place off trail.
And so that's by special permission of the the Park
Authority. So again, they don't want people
come in, you know, going up the park trails to find out where
the the race route crosses it and all that kind of stuff.
And this year, especially the actual So I think most people
that know a bit about the Barclay know the kind of starts
and finishes at this like iconic yellow gate.
So that where the yellow gate is and the normal campsite that was
actually being renovated this year.
So for like the first time ever, I think the Barclay didn't
actually start at the Yellow Gate.
So again, even more so this year there was like we were crammed
into a little temporary campsite.
They really didn't want any, you know, a lot of the park
facilities and stuff were closed to the public.
So they really, really didn't want people coming, which is so
we were given like a like a three line whip.
That's basically said if you or your crew or your friends and
family are responsible for leaking the date, then you're
not coming back. So that's why having So, yeah, I
did keep a big secret. And then, you know, as I say, a
couple of weeks before, I just said to those people that I
thought were either wearing on the secret or I thought I'd
guess I was like, you know, you guys, I'm telling you that I'm
going, but you just need to keep it under your hat.
And that's the way I handled it. Well, we have a mutual friend
who did know that you were out there who to protect their
identity will remain nameless. But I messaged them and says
that even at Barclay and they didn't message back.
And I was like, oh, I know that because they always message
back. I was like, oh, that must be.
But they didn't say anything. And then when you announced,
they then told me that was so hard not to say anything.
I said to them, I actually feel sorry for you that you and then
a message when you can, Rawson says.
If you 2 if I'll do Barclay, please don't tell me I don't.
Want to know that? Just don't.
I'm happy to find out with everyone else.
That's just too much. Yeah, and it's the same for me.
Like, you know, like as I said, it's been something I've been
wanting to do for years and years.
And when the call kind of finally comes, you're like, oh,
I can go to the race. You're like, I just want to tell
everybody, but like, you know, you can't.
And, and it's kind of funny that like, yeah, I mean, you know,
Julie was in the same as well. Obviously she knew that I was
there and she knew she couldn't say anything.
And, you know, her phone was ping, ping pinging because there
was this photo that came out from the start line which showed
the back of me. And it was the hat.
Yeah. So, so there was the the hat was
the same hat that wore at Racecourse Scotland.
So that was quite, quite well known.
And I had the, the, the Geo camo Flancy short that I'd done a
little like show and tell on on them on Instagram about a few
months ago. So, you know, obviously I was
completely offline for the duration of the race.
But even, you know, Alan in the camp, there was no phone
reception in the camp. So in order to get online, we
all had to like walk about about half a mile down the road to the
visitor center where there was Wi-Fi.
And of course, you know, for him as crew, he's sitting there
waiting for me to come back from the loop.
It doesn't know when that's going to be because, you know,
you've got no information. There's no GPS tracking or
nothing. You don't.
There's one point on the course where people can see runners
come through, but on this that that's about roughly 1/3 of the
way around. And so, you know, there's a big
margin of error as to how long it's going to take people to
come in. So he's sitting there waiting at
camp and, you know, I can't give any updates anyways and doesn't
know that there's this mad speculation going on.
And of course, it wasn't, wasn't then until I finished the race
was, you know, timed out. And then I walked down the road.
This is like around, I think we finished about 11:00 local time.
So walk down the road about midnight to get the Wi-Fi to
tell everybody that actually, yes, I had been in the race.
And then I sort of could see all this like, yeah, this, this
photo had gone round and, and various people were like posting
other pictures of me taken wearing some of the same care,
other races. And it was just really, really
funny. I I was in various groups
chatting about it and although it was a picture of you, we
obviously know that now. It wasn't 100% that it was you,
it was somebody wearing clothes that you have been previously
seen in. So.
I I saw people saying, no, it's definitely him.
It was never definitely you until you said that it was you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and that that's the kind of
like the sort of rules or unwritten rules about or
conventions about the Barclays that the, the only official
source of truth is this guy Keith Dunn, who has a, a Twitter
or Blue Sky Now feed. And he does the official race
announcements. And what they, what he tends to
do is until somebody gets to the point of completing a fun run,
he just refers to people by nicknames.
So even then, you know, there's nothing official to see who's
there. And so part of the idea is that,
you know, you can go there completely anonymously and never
confirm that you're even there. And so, so there's, you know,
for me, because I didn't officially even complete a loop
and you know, there's no record, no official record that I was
ever at the race. I don't appear.
There's not a start list, there's not a results sheet that
has my name on it. So, but I mean, there is, I saw,
you know, there's a little community of detectives on there
on Twitter. And I think they had a list of,
I think about 30 something of the 40 starters that they reckon
they'd identified. But again, it's then you know,
but it's up to the runners if they if they want to announce
that they were there after the fact.
Were you given a nickname? I didn't get a nickname because
I didn't complete a loop. So yeah, so that's, that's
that's something. If I get a chance to go back and
get a loop, we'll find out what they're going to call me.
Well, we've been quite selfish asking our questions make,
haven't we? So should we lay the carpet down
for the listener questions now? Yeah, I'm sure there'll be
plenty more questions coming from us as we go through these
ones. Go for it.
OK. First one was about entry fee.
There have been previous you got to produce number plate and it's
a small fee and other rumours. Is there anything that you can
tell us about what the this year's entry fee was?
So I mean, again, there's, there's quite a lot of
information already in, in the public domain.
So if you're there in your first year as what they call a virgin
runner and you have to bring a number plate from your, your
home country or state. And so that's, that's always
been the same. They get, they get hung up
around the, around the camp. And so by the time we finished
the race, there was a new section added to the hanging
number plates with the virgins from this year.
I think then if you're a veteran to returning runner, then
there's a, you know, what you have to bring varies from year
to year. So I think in the past it's been
like accessories for Lassies, wardrobes.
He's asked for like shirts or like socks or stuff.
I should say actually as well, I keep saying about Lass, he was
the originator of the race, but actually he's in the last couple
of years, he's kind of handed it over to to Carl Laniak, who's
now the official race director. But last is obviously he's still
around and he's still, you know, looms large over the event.
But it's actually Carl that's the the Rd. and he does the
registration and ultimately, I guess the the course and
everything else is his responsibility.
And so maybe, maybe now the the entry fees go to Carl, I don't
know. But yeah, I think the, the
returning veteran runners, I believe this year they had to
bring like a like a Christmas ornament from their like, you
know, something that was like culturally, you know, from that
from there, from wherever they was, they came from.
And then if you're one of the finishers this year, it was just
John Kelly and Aurelian who are prior finishers and they have to
bring a pack of cigarettes, which I think was the last
because I don't believe Carl smokes.
Yeah, see, see. See, I'd, I'd bring a number
plate. But one of the other things that
they also just kind of like a fairly recent tradition, I
think. So previously, like the, the I
said, the Friday night, I mean, normally the race starts on
Saturday, but sometimes it's been midweek start.
So the night before, traditionally there's been like
the the Barkley chicken BBQ, which has always been a bit
risky because they basically BBQ the chicken from frozen.
So it's basically charred on the outside and raw on the inside.
And, and, and runners kind of tended to steer clear of it.
But what they did in the last few years is they've encouraged
people to bring foods from their like again, from their home
country or their home state, whatever, and have like a kind
of like potluck supper type thing.
So I brought a six pack of iron brew, some tonics, caramel
wafers and a haggis. So I say that the haggis didn't
go down particularly well. It was, I think alienate the
leftovers of that. But they, there's a I've got a
really nice photo of me handing a can of iron brew to last
because he's really into his like his sodas, like he's Doctor
Pepper and all that kind of stuff.
So I was like, oh, here's, here's some Scottish soda.
And John Kelly would have been all over that as well.
A bit because he likes an iron brew.
Yeah, I see. I only have because I was flying
and I was kind of weight limited in my luggage.
I only had a six pack. So maybe if I get to go back all
just you know, get a second case and bring a 24 pack or
something, I don't know. But yeah, the the arm boot
disappeared in no time and then the tunnel shortly after.
I see your number plate, Ian, just before we move on, was it
your own red plate that's on your car that you took over or
did you personalize it? You know, my, my one is
legitimately my, my car, but I got one that had, you know, you
when you get a number plate, you can choose to get the plain one
or like the UK one or the Scottish 1.
So I've got the, it's got the salt iron on it.
Yeah, the reason I ask is because on one of the pictures I
noticed, I know that Paul Gibblin's done Barclay before
and he's got pylon on his. Yeah.
Cool because. It's yeah, there's quite a few,
like quite a few runners have got like personalized ones and
you know, like I don't think it's what it says like Barclay
with A4 instead of an A and stuff like that.
But yeah, no, I went for the the genuine 1.
And obviously between like you changed car park, campsite,
whatever you want to call it this year compared to last year,
the number plates are not there throughout the year.
Where do they go? Are they hung up at Las's house
or? I think I heard him say on a
podcast he'd always stored them, but he's given them all to Carl
now. So I guess Carl comes in his
garage or something, I don't know.
And then they get so like one of the things that happens on the
day before the race before like registration is that like all
the runners and everyone who's there who's kind of arriving on
that day and pitches in together and help set up the camp.
So, you know, we were like, you know, unloading firewood from a
truck because they had they have, you know, big like fire go
in for the duration, you know, hanging up all the strings so
that there must be, I don't know, like several hundred of
these number plates now. And so it's actually quite a,
quite a substantial task to hang them all out.
We've had various questions about how far in advance did you
know that you were doing the race and I think that the key
one is Sebastian. Not even sure how to pronounce
his name. Is it Recon?
Racon. Racon Yeah.
Yeah, the guy that won the spine race this year.
Exactly. He won the spine.
Would he have known that he was doing Barclay when he was doing
the spine? Yes, John Kelly also was in the
spine as well and he he he fell and hurt his knee quite early
on. He DNF D from it.
Yeah, he was back at Barclay. But yeah, yes, they would have
both known by that point that you only accept.
So, you know, they, they, they give condolences to 40 people to
get. So there's 40 runners on the
starting field and, you know, people can't drop out for
various reasons and they have a waiting list.
So some people can get called very, very late.
I think normally you see if you're an overseas runner, you
can't get called more than a month, like with less than a
month to go to the race, just because logistics makes it
impractical for you. But if you're AUS runner you
know you can get called a few days before if somebody drops
out. Just be ready for doing 100 plus
Miller in the middle of nowhere somewhere in the country.
I mean, last I said, you know, if you're on the wait list, you
should train like you're in the race.
Yeah. And moving on from that with the
time scale, how 2 questions do you have time to train for?
You've just said if you're on the wait list and you know that
you're doing that potentially, I would imagine that you do have
time, but how can you train for something like that when you
don't really know the course or today you have an idea, but.
Yeah, I mean, so again, without, you know, saying exactly too
much about the the time scales. But you know, my plan had been
after God's own backyard in November that I was going to
have, you know, I'd hit all my goals for the year, done more
races for the year. I'd done enough mileage,
accumulated a bunch of niggles as you do.
And I was like, that's fine. After gob you I'm just going to
take it easy. Literally have like 3 or 4 weeks
of like basically no run in, maybe do a little bit of run
over Christmas and like get into some training in in January.
That was like my idea of the end of the year and that plan went
out the window and I was like, right, I better start training.
And, you know, I've done, as I said, I've done a lot of
research over the years, you know, to understand what was
involved with the race. So I had a pretty good idea of
what the course was likely to be.
In actual fact, I was pleasantly surprised when I got to see the
course map, how close what I had sketched was to the reality of
it, you know, having never actually seen, you know, the
real course map was pretty close.
So I mean, I plan to, you know, more mileage, but a lot more
elevation is basically the, the, the short, short version of it.
I mean, I don't normally run much with poles.
So I do a lot more training with poles just because the steepness
of the train and the, the roughness of the train and a lot
of the claims the, the 15,000 feet per loop.
It's not like like a mega climb, like you're climbing Ben Nevis
from sea level. It's lots and lots of claims in
the like 1000 foot to 1500 foot range.
And so I'd identified, I mean, actual fact, Like I find a
really nice off trail section down in the back of Canoe Hill
just in Perth, you know, basically going from the top of
Canoe Hill down to the to the a 90 and it's like it drops about
800 feet in about 1/4 of a mile. And the first time I went over
it, I was like, this is like suicidal because I mean, I do.
It's probably a bad choice of words actually, because people
do jump off the cliffs. That could help.
But. It does say how bad that is
then. Yeah, there's a, there's a gully
between the cliffs on canoe and you can get down it and it just
goes steeply, steeply down this slippery over leaf strewn
banking all the way down the A 90.
So I mean, I didn't do all my train hill training on stuff
like that, but I did do a fair amount of, you know, off trail
up and down through kind of overgrowing stuff.
And yeah, I don't remember offhand what the kind of numbers
I think I must have done about maybe about 60,000 feet or
something like that in January, which is, you know, as much as I
could have realistically fitted in.
I think just with like family and other life commitments that
are going on and other people that have been public about what
the how they've trained for Barclay in the past have done a
hell of a lot more than that. But you know you can only do
what you can do with the the time that you got.
And the going on those off trails, does it help by like for
you? Getting there doesn't prepare
you. Do you feel no with hindsight?
I think it did. I mean, there wasn't like very
much about the race that like surprised me in terms of like,
you know, the the terrain was kind of pretty much what I
thought it was going to be. So, yeah, I mean, how much the
specific training I did helped me in the race, you know, it's
really hard to say. You know, maybe if I get a
chance to go back and and do some slightly different
training, maybe you might, might, might see how it is.
But yeah, I certainly felt like I was capable of moving well on
the terrain that the on the on the real racecourse.
So yeah, I think, I think it probably probably did set me up
pretty well. And you mentioned before about
hinting about briars and stuff like that.
What are briars and what would the Scottish equivalent be?
Yeah, so I mean an actual fact. I mean, people go on about the
the famous frozen head Stawbriars.
They're actually like, they're not that bad.
Like they're not the worst thing you have to contend with on the
course. I mean, they're basically like
brambles. I like, if you think of like a,
you know, long thin stems with just little thorns on them,
That's what they're like. I think I posted a photo in my,
in my race report of what my like, knees look like between
the top of my socks and the bottom of my shorts.
And people talk about you getting your, your rat bite from
the, from the race. And yeah, it's just, yeah,
scrapes really. I mean, there's certainly, I
mean, I think they like the terrain generally.
It's like, it's like old deciduous woodland.
So like bits of bits of like like that I found around like
Canoe Hill, Moncrief Hill near me are actually pretty good
analogues to that. You know, most, most of Scottish
forestry land is like, it's called, you know, planted
conifer, like Forestry Commission planted plantations.
And it's not like that at all. You know, they're much denser
and you have pine needles on the floor, whereas this is just like
the terrain is. The trees are more widely
spaced, but it's just loose air with loose leaves on the top.
And then in bits around the course, you'll find these
patches of briars. And sometimes you can get around
them. Sometimes there's not really any
sensible diversion. You just got bashed through
them. And I know that you wear a
certain brand of shoe all the time.
Were you wearing them and were they suitable?
Yeah. And so I was in my favoured
Salomon sense ride 5, which I was very pleased to find out
that in actual fact Jared Campbell, as I said, the the the
goats of Barclay. So I think he used to be
sponsored by Last Portiva and he was saying on a podcast, since
he was no longer might have been last Portiva anyways, one of the
one of the brands he he's now running in these exact same
shoes. I was like, yes, and I know that
they were absolutely fine. I mean, you know, you're sliding
around on that. It's the kind of like slippy mud
and slippy leaves. If even if you had like someone
with a bit more tread than than what I've got, you're still just
gripping at the top layer and then the the top layer will
slide from the bottom layer of the ground and you're still
going to slip anyways. So that's always been my kind of
kind of view of them. And yeah, they worked out really
well for me on the race. And we spoke about the leaked
photo earlier on. It was one of the few that the
public did get to see. Were you surprised when you did
come back to reality, how quickly people had thought they
had worked out it was you? I, I saw the, the, the, you
know, all this Facebook threads and stuff of people trying to
identify me. I mean, in, in hindsight, it was
kind of hard to see how quickly it happened.
I didn't really know. I just found the whole thing
really hilarious that, you know, there'd been this like, mad
speculation going on. I'd had absolutely no idea about
it all. So, yeah, it's pretty, pretty
funny. But I mean, I don't know if you
guys know like like like how long did it take for someone
actually dropped my name from the when when the race started?
For me, the first, it was before the race start, it was when you
were standing at the temporary yellow gate.
It was that picture. It came out straight away.
Right. And then and then what literally
like within minutes somebody went.
That's Ian. Was it that?
Yeah, as soon as the photo came out, that was people were 100%
sure it was you. OK, that's interesting because I
and also like, I mean, I, I don't think there was, I think
they did do a very good job of keeping the start date on the
wraps. And because it was so early, I
don't think many of the people who'd normally be looking for
people who are like, you know, these people are tapering for
something and we think think they're doing the Barclay.
There wasn't really much of that and so so I'm quite, quite
surprised how quickly people did jump on it.
Yeah, I, I saw a post somewhere, somebody mentioned about the
start. It was probably about four days
beforehand and I think it was on Reddit or something like that.
And somebody came back going, no, you're a month early.
And then the the thread was just silenced at that point and I
didn't think anything more of it.
It wasn't until the actual race start that I knew it was
started. Yeah.
And so it was a 6:00 AM start local time.
So that was like 11:00 UK time. So yeah, everybody was awake.
At least it wasn't like you're, you know, if it started at like
the middle of the night UK time, that'd be a different story.
We were all on more runs at that point.
I was certainly on. I was on the West Highland Way
when I got the texture and I went no way.
That's really funny. I'm going to ask as well.
This is about another side question that's not been wrote
down. How did that feel for you being
in a bubble with no tech or anything like that?
Because obviously, especially for Julie, she'll have been just
say don't watch it if she can come and visit you.
And Julie does an amazing report, which we briefly spoke
about before we started recording on your Facebook page.
It's a really good read. But it's it can't be like any
other race you've ever done. So the point?
You've got no tech at all apart from this watch and your head
torch. Yeah, I think it was really hard
for her, like not knowing what was going on.
And as I said, you know, we were given very strict instructions
not to really say anything during the race.
I mean, even like the, there was a few official sanctioned media
people who were there and I think one of them put out a post
that said like shortly after the the race started and it was
officially announced by Keith, he put a post going, I'm a
photographer at the race. I won't post anything else until
afterwards. So like there was really was
like a like information blackout.
So I think it was quite hard for people that, you know, that knew
I was there and we're wanting updates.
For me, it was great. I mean, like part of the appeal
with Barclays that is it's it's low tech, it's old fashioned.
You know, you're out there by yourself solo, you know, not
relying on anything except, you know, your own skills, your your
navigation and your cut off in the world.
And even in, I mean, maybe if you're, I mean, I, I'd like a
prepaid T-Mobile SIM for over in the US, but I didn't get signal
in the camp. I guess some people probably had
some phone signal in the camp. But for me it was basically like
apart from, you know, nipping down to the visitor center to
get Wi-Fi and send messages home to say, you know, I was there, I
was checked in all that kind of stuff.
We really were in a little bubble.
You're with a bunch of like minded people.
I mean, that's like, I think for most of us, one of the reasons
like why we like running ultras is the community and you bring
together a bunch of people to go and do like a, you know, an epic
race for everybody that's there at the Barclay.
They've wanted to be at the Barclay for, for, for years
probably. It's a big deal.
Everybody's really excited and everybody's on the same page.
It's just a great bunch of people hang out with for a few
days. So yeah, if you were like
halfway around the loop, the furthest away point from the the
campsite, and something happened, you weren't with
anybody else, is there any way of communicating back that
there's something wrong? Nope.
Absolutely nothing and a couple. So I think Matthew Blanchard,
who's one of the French runners who I think we, he was out on
loop 3 but didn't finish his 3rd loop.
And you know, he mentioned that it was part of his thinking that
you're starting to get cold and borderline hypothermic.
And he was like, you know, if I'd had, if I knew there was
AGPS tracker on me and maybe we would have taken more risk.
But you know, with nobody know where you are, you had to make
the call to come home for safety and you'd bail out off the
course. There have been people, I think
the record's slowest. I think there's a guy quite a
few years ago now who only completed two books.
So the books of the checkpoints that you go around there, you
can play 2 books that it took him like 30 plus hours.
But I believe it's true to say there's never been a search and
rescue operation. I think they've been close to it
at times, and I think there's been a few times where they have
sent rotteners out to look at the books.
So I didn't say this in the description, but basically as
you go around the course, you get to these.
You find these books in the woods.
They're basically unmanned checkpoints and you tear out a
page that corresponds to your bib number.
So if they're wanting to find out where someone is on the
course, they can send routes out to the books and look to see
whether your page is gone. So I think in the past they have
done that. And in actual fact, there was a
guy this year who took, I'm going to say it was over 30
hours I think to complete loop one.
Yeah, it was really quite a long time.
But they weren't worried about him for a couple of reasons.
One was that that he'd been seen by other runners and he'd been
seen on the course. So they knew he wasn't lost or
not badly lost. He was making progress and then
when the runners, I think even the Loop 3 runners started going
out the other way, I think some of them passed them.
So although he was long overdue, like the race organizers were
pretty confident he was a still moving, not injured and roughly
on the right course. So they were like, no, we'll
just wait for him to come back. I mean, I guess at some point
that, you know, some, I think in the past, like once it gets to
start 30 plus hours and, you know, they, they, they might
think about trying to work out what's happened to somebody.
But yeah, they, they very much major on the, you know, in the
whole history of the race, nobody has had to be rescued.
Your first rule is you will self extract.
There's been people that have dislocated shoulders, broken
ankles, you know, people that have been so lost their mind
because they're so tired or whatever that they've wandered
into nearby towns and been picked up by the police, you
know, but but people have always got back.
And that's the number one rule. You, you, you lay on you
heavily. You don't want to be the first
person that has to be rescued. So that that's that's definitely
in your mind. This may be the first no comment
question that came into my mind, but do you all have to sign
waivers to say you've understood that and as you yourself
extracting and you're going into this knowing the risk?
Yeah, it's part of the application process.
You have to sign a waiver that indemnifies both the race
organisers and the Park Authority, then that you're
doing the whole event at your own risk.
Yeah. And.
But I still had a ITRA trail run in travel insurance policy.
Whether that or got me anything if I had to be helicoptered, I
don't know. But I, you know, I mean, we all
know that the American healthcare system is a thing
that requires a credit card to access.
So I wasn't going to do something like this without
having a healthy travel insurance policy behind me.
Did you take your credit card on the loop with you?
I did not. So I was just thinking if you
had injured yourself, you managed to get on.
There is a road that goes around the side of the State Park that
is the shortcut back to the base, which is, is it Quitters
road or something like that? It's called.
If you had to, we'd been able to would you just hitched a ride
back to the start or what? Yeah, so I mean, so quit
Quitters Rd. Is that so?
It's some quite interesting sort of terminology.
I mean, Quitters Rd. is very, it is not a tarmac Rd.
It's like a like a Jeep track. It's a pretty ropy, to be
honest. I mean, there are like there's
a, there's a highway, like a proper tarmac road to the kind
of southeast of the park that some people have come out onto
in the past. But it's a hell of a long way
around and and you'd have to hitch back for sure.
But yeah, yeah, there's, there's plenty.
You know, one of the things in yourself, if you spend any time,
which everybody who goes through probably should spend lots of
time looking at the map, you know how everything's
interconnected. As I said, the race is mostly
off trail, but it does intersect with the way marked park trails.
So it might take you several hours, but it should always be
possible for you to find your way back.
And if you think about it, you know, if the course is 20 miles
or 20 something miles roughly as a circle, you know, you just do
the maths. You're probably never more than
5 or 6 miles away from where you started.
You may have a massive hill in the way, but you know, it's self
extraction is possible. And that's one of the, you know,
people are are often tempted to go down Quitters Rd. when maybe
they don't need to. Yeah.
Do you think that's the sort of people know it's there?
Is that why they tell you it's it's quitters Rd. you can quit
to? You're almost given the option.
I think it even says in a couple of places in the course
instructions. It's like if you just turn left
here, 2 miles and you'd be back in camp.
So there you are again. That's last.
Just just just drink feeding, you know?
But like, like in the backyard, here you can just quit and all
the suffering stops. And talking about the navigation
and how hard does it, is it, I would imagine you've obviously
got a basic knowledge of NAV and compasses and maps.
Is it just the same in America as as in the UK and how?
What's that side of it like? I would say that the things that
make the, I mean, the navigation is really hard.
I mean, it's what I mean like clearly that, you know, the
amount of elevation is hard. The fact that you're, you've got
no navigation lanes makes it hard.
But I think the thing that makes it most difficult to navigate is
it just all looks the same. So like if you're used to
navigating on Scottish hills, generally speaking, once you're
above, you know, the tree line or 1500 feet or a bit higher,
maybe there's, it's all bare and you can see a long way.
So you can work out what you're looking at, which direction
you're going in. If you're trying to follow a
Ridge, you can see where that Ridge goes.
At Berkeley, everything is forested.
So it's forested right up to the tops of the mountains.
And you rarely can you see more than even it.
Even in daylight, you can barely see more than, I don't know, to
300 meters. You're just just looking into
forest the whole time. So if you're like at the top of
a, you know, somewhere you've maybe got a couple of ridges
that are coming off and you're like, which one am I going on?
You need to use a, use a compass bearing there to work out which
one to go in because everything looks the same.
Or like, you know, if you're following a Ridge and it starts
to veer one way or veer the other way, or maybe it's split,
you know, there's nothing that you can see in the distance.
It says, oh, I'm aiming for that thing that's, you know, my next,
my next checkpoint, my next book is maybe half a mile away.
But I know it's in that direction because I can see that
hill that it's on you, you really can't see very far.
So it makes it quite difficult to like, like you can quite
easily make small errors that then compound because you can't
see that you've gone wrong. And so I think that's the
navigation was it was really tricky and I think I would say
by about halfway around the course, I think I've learned a
lot about how to navigate in that terrain.
But by that time, of course, it's kind of too late Do.
You feel it's helped your navigation then for this
country. I think they're kind.
I mean, like, as long as you can do the basics of like know how
to use a compass, you know, how to take a bearing off a map,
know how to take a bearing off an object that you can see if
you can do those things. Those are the same skills that
transfer across both. But the, you know, the, the, the
wayfinding I would say is, is a very different skill.
And, and particularly like using the instructions that they give
for the course is quite, it's clearly quite course specific.
And they, they do make sense in their own way.
But so one of the things that I'll give you give you a few
kind of examples of it. So the problem is you're in a
forest, You're always surrounded by trees, you're always
surrounded by rocks and you're always surrounded by streams, or
as they, they call them creeks. So like the course instructions
might say all this Ridge and you'll find yourself at the
confluence of two streams to the east of those there are four
rocks. And under those rocks is the
book, right? So you're in a forest that's
full of rocks and streams and trees.
So in actual fact, and some of the features are very specific.
So there's one part which it's been on the course many, many
years, and you have to climb up a Ridge.
You hit the top of the hill and there's some some capstones,
some big, big rocks on the top of the hill.
And there's a natural arch. It's called the Eye of the
Needle. So you climb up this.
Then there's part of course, at this point I was actually solo.
I climbed up this, this Ridge here at the top of the hill,
there was some capstones. I found a hole through the
capstones. I crawled through it.
No book in it. I'm like, right.
So, so you can, you can very easily convince yourself you're
in a place that matches the description when actual factors
about 1/4 of a mile away from the actual eye of the needle.
And so I, I searched around on this particular hill with some
particular capstones for about half an hour, you know, went up
and down the Ridge and, you know, I believe that the, I
figure should be at the North End of the hill where I hit this
little tunnel of between the rocks was at the North End of
the hill. Everything looked correct, but I
was, but I climbed the wrong Ridge.
So I probably, I was about maybe like I maybe been 10° off on the
bearing at the bottom of the hill, ended up quarter of a mile
away at the top in a bunch of stuff that looked exactly like
it should. And it took me like half an hour
to figure out I was in the wrong place.
By the time I then got back, you know, quarter of a mile along a
Ridge probably took me 10 minutes or something, found it
and I was back on course again. But it's, that just kind of
illustrates how the navigation is tricky.
And it's really like the instructions describe the route
really well if you're on it, but they don't make it.
They don't describe it in a way it's easy to get back onto it.
And I guess that's the, yeah, you can make mistakes quite
easily. I mean, John Kelly, you know,
he's talked about his lot. Everybody makes mistakes.
He makes mistakes. But the really good runners and
the really experienced runners, they learn to correct mistakes
while they're just little mistakes.
And and I, I certainly made a few pretty big ones, so.
You've not sold it to me, and that does not sound fun.
But that's the fun of it. Is that like Oh.
No, I would be raging if. I get me wrong.
And you're like half an hour to find a book.
I'd be like no sack that and I would throw a hissy fat and go
back to camp. Yeah, but but, but that's that's
that's what makes it fun, right? It's it's like, you know,
nothing. No one.
Yeah, there's no thought on my watch.
I can follow, you know, it's just, I've just got to figure
out, you know, I'm in a bunch of woods.
Nobody knows where I am. I'm probably 2 hours from camp.
I've got to sort the problem And that, you know, and I mean,
you're right, it's probably not for everybody.
And, and you know, some people will go, why the heck would you
want to do that? And you know, it's not, it's not
for everybody, I guess. And that's not being exclusive.
It's just like it's not fun for everybody.
No, I've been terrified by a bear or something like that.
I mean, that's the, that's the wildlife on the course as well.
There is, so I didn't come across.
I think I got a pretty good sampling of most of the
experiences that you should have at Barclay, but meeting the
feral hogs which are on the loose in the park, I did not
find any of them. I saw a few signs warning them
and it's not actually on the course, but on the, on the one
of the park trails where I was wrecking a couple of days
before, there was like a big hog trap.
So it's like a big fence with like a, a gate.
It's got a sensor on it. The hog goes in and it drops the
gate. And partly they're actually like
a, they're basically an invasive species and they're breeding
like mad. And so then they've got like
open season for you people to shoot them and stuff.
But some of the runners, and I can't remember whose race report
I read it in, but quite near 1 of the books which which I, I
was at at one point and they went into a little cave in the
night and they found like a dozen of these wild hogs in this
cave. And they're like what?
Right. We'll just, we'll just back off.
But yeah, apparently they can be quite aggressive and stuff.
So, yeah, they're the main hazard.
I don't know if they get bears there.
I don't think they do. But like them in the campsite,
like they like the the waste bins in the campsite, they're
like, like bear proof bins. So like, you know, there's a
little patch that you have to open to get into them.
And they do say like if you're camping.
And so there's like wild, wild camping spots that you can use
and like, if you're just like a tourist in the park and they say
like, you know, keep your food off the ground and stuff like
that. So I guess then I think it's
mainly the these, these wild and wild boar type things and
they're the, the, the feral hogs.
One of the sort of folklore keywords, whatever you want to
call it, about the race is the human sacrifice.
Yeah. Could you tell us what the human
sacrifice is? And the question from the
listener was, who was it this year?
Yeah, so, so everybody in the starting field of 40 gets a gets
a bib number. As I said, you have to pull out
the page that match your bib number.
So and because of course pages have numbers on both sides, the
numbers are only odd. So you know, so I was bib #3.
Bib #1 is normally called the the human sacrifice and they are
generally speaking, I think well, as I said, he normally
allocates that bit somebody that he says has absolutely no
business being at the race. So, but that that doesn't mean
they're like not a good runner in their own right.
So I think there was a year like maybe like 10 years ago that
they had Mike Wardian, you know, like really fast ultra runner.
I, I could be wrong, but I think he was given the human sacrifice
bed because like, as like, you know, you need more skills than
just being fast to be good at the Barclay.
So, yeah, so, so, so the human sacrifice is kind of, again,
it's just a psychological warfare between lads and the
runners. So he gives the the big #1 to
somebody. I can see who it was because,
you know, she posted publicly about who, who, who she was that
they call it. And there's a woman called them
called Kelly. And actually I had a better chat
with her before the race. Don't think I'm really caught
with her afterwards. But, and she was, she actually
got a very late call up. I think she had, I think she
said she was about 10 days before the race that she was
given a call up because somebody dropped out and she was at the
top of the waiting list and she turned up and she was given bib
#1. And I think she kind of wrote on
her Facebook page that, you know, it did kind of mess with
her a bit. You know, she was a bit, but she
took it as like, well, he thinks I'm the, you know, the one that
set up to fail. I'm going to prove him wrong
that that's the way she kind of dealt with it.
And did she make it round one loop?
I believe she did part of the loop and then came back to camp,
so I don't believe she completed the full loop.
So maybe Carl or Laz, whoever said that she was a human
sacrifice, maybe they felt justified.
Yeah, I guess so. But yeah, I mean, I don't think
they apart from bib #1 I don't think they seed the other bibs.
So I'm not reading anything at the fact that I was #3.
As you tell yourself, anyway. Yeah, yeah, but John Kelly was
#11 Damian was #11 so yeah. Anyways, I'm telling myself
there's no CD. And you, did you get to talk to
Laz Gordon Camp? Did you talk to him about
backyard altars at all? I had a bit of chat with Las.
I personally didn't speak to him about backyarding very much.
Alan Parkin actually, I think he think he posted a video on his
Facebook last week or something after the race.
But you know, Las is doing a yard a day challenge, so he has
to do his walk his backyards 4.17 miles every day.
And so me and Alan, we ran into Lass while he was going up and
down the road doing his yard. And I'll interviewed him a bit
and it's quite funny because he knew who Alan was because back
in the day he was Alan was the number seventh ranked backyarder
in the world about 10 years ago when backyards were just get
started and Laz remembered his name.
So there you go. Claims of fame.
Yeah, so we had a brief chat about that.
So this can be quite an open-ended question from a
listener. How amazing is it?
I mean like, obviously like the, you know, I could have done
better in terms of performance, you know, I'd hope to do better.
But in terms of the experience, you know, absolutely amazing.
You know, the whole thing from even just like a couple of days
before we had a chance to just, you know, recce on the public
trails in the park, like driving in past the frozen Head State
Park sign going into the visitor center.
Like it's like massive like fanboy experience.
You know, it just I don't have the grin off my face for days.
And I said this to various people, you know, at their race.
And, you know, the entire time we were out there on the course
was like, it was, you know, it was clearly, it was hard, don't
get me wrong. And, you know, getting your legs
cut by briars, falling on your backside, all this good stuff,
getting lost. But it was like, genuinely Type
1 fun. Like I was doing the whole thing
with a massive smile on my face. And like, even if I never got
the chance to go back again, like I'm just really, really
happy I got a chance to go. So yeah, amazing.
Like bucket list life experience stuff.
And you, you mentioned that you were bib #3, so you had to
collect pages 3 and 4. I'm guessing each lap that you
do, you would have got a new number, but for lap one that you
did, you are big #3. Have you kept all your pages and
what are you intending and doing with them?
Yeah, I've got all my pages. They're there with my bib number
and a little plastic baggy. Still, I haven't quite decided
what I'll do with them. I mean, I had a few suggestions
from people and I've seen what other people have done, like
you're mounting them in a in a frame or, you know, obviously
I've got my map from this year as well, which it's my other
kind of memento alongside the pages.
So yeah, I'll probably do something, you know, get them on
the wall in some way, but I haven't quite finalized what I'm
going to do. And the books that you were
picking the pages from, Do you remember any of the names of the
books? Just a few of them in the books
again, they're always chosen to kind of yes, the psychological
warfare of last versus the the runners.
I think there was one that was called left behind.
There might have been one called someone like like No Way Out or
maybe like Into Darkness or these kind of, and I think the
last one was a movie called like Nearly there or something like
that. So yeah, but but you know,
they're there to kind of toy with the runners.
So, and like you'll probably know that like quite famously
and I think it was 2017, Gary Robbins and the Canadian guy, he
completed the course, well illegally he didn't complete the
course, but anyways, he was 6 seconds over the 60 hour cut off
and the next year one of the book titles was called 6
seconds. Yeah, all right.
We've mentioned lots of times that you stopped on loop 1, but
what we haven't asked is what happened.
Yeah, so I mean, I'll give you a quick summary of of it really.
So it's actually incredibly frustrating because basically on
the the first, the first kind of claim, the way the course is
organized this year, about the first 3 miles of the course are
on trail. I mean, like the the park
trails, they're probably like, they're much more sketchy.
Like like if someone says, you know, running on a trail and you
think like the West Highland way or something like that, they're
not that good. But they are recognizable trails
and they are maintained to some extent.
But yeah, so the first like 3 miles is basically uphill with a
little bone hill in the middle of it and down to a Creek.
And then you go back up. So literally boosted up this
this claim and everybody goes off like, you know, bats that
hell at the beginning, like, like, I think mainly because
people don't want to get caught in a in a conga train as you go
up these this trail. And anyway, so my idea was,
well, the route to success at Barclay is to get around the 1st
loop with somebody that knows what they're doing.
So I was like, right, there's there's a bunch of experienced
people up in front, You know, John Kelly's there, Damian Halls
there, a bunch of the French guys are there.
And, and so we're running up this, this trail and it's, and
the, the kind of conga line, kind of basically there's like
15 or 20 people up at the front, the fast guys.
And then gradually it kind of thins out.
And I was just like hanging at the back of that group of 1520
people thinking this is fine. I'll just just hang on the back
of this group and they'll know what they're doing.
I'll follow them around, I'll learn the course and we'll see
how things go. And then basically on the at the
top of the first climb, so like maybe like a couple miles into
the race, something like that, It's like right, done the first
climb. I should start getting food in.
So I go into the pocket, pull out banana, start eating the
banana, take my eyes off the trail for a second and just do a
massive ankle roll. And I was like, like literally
like, like have a like broken my ankle.
Like it's incredibly painful. And I was like hobbling for
about down to this next Creek for like 5-10 minutes.
I was like basically just hobbling along.
And of course that group of 15 just disappeared off in the
distance. And I mean, I don't know how
much it like actually slowed me down.
Like I mean, the ankle, I don't think, I don't think it was
broken. I think it was just sprained.
But you know, I did did the rest of the loop on it and it didn't
really feel like it slowed me down that much.
But for that like maybe 10510 minutes where I just couldn't
move on it and lost touch with the group, that was the kind of
thing that screwed me. And I was like, I just like, of
all the rookie mistakes to make, like you prepare for this race
for years, you know, you've been waiting to do it and you fall
over and hurt yourself like an hour into the race.
It's so frustrating. But so basically I ended up
doing the first three books solo, which like from our
experience point of view, was super cool and super fun.
Like to be out there on the Barclays course by yourself,
navigating by yourself, you know, great experience as far as
race strategy goes. Talk disaster because that's
when I like, you know, made some navigational mistakes and stuff.
And then, yeah, I think on the 4th book, I arrived at the book
as a bunch of other people were in the area searching for it.
And we joined up and we, we found the book pretty quickly
after I joined of the book when I turned up and then another
person, another group of two came down as well as we all kind
of formed up as a bit of a group.
And we caught up with another guy later on in the course and
we kind of drifted in and out a little bit.
But basically we did the last 2/3 of the course as a group of
eight and more or less stuck together all the way.
And I would say probably I went yeah, 2/3 of the way around.
We kind of accepted as a group that we were going to be over
cut off. And you know, that was fine.
Again, you know, being realistic about it.
But we're all, you know, agreed that we were going to complete
the loop, you know, going to do all the books, make a complete
loop of it. And then in the end, we were
just over 17 hours to get around the loop.
So yeah, I mean, there was a few a few navigational errors that
we made while we're in the group.
But like being in a group is like a double edged sword, I
would say. I mean, in our group there was a
couple of people who are veterans, but they were not like
super experienced or one of them had done a couple of loops for
like 10 years ago. And a couple of others have done
partial loops in the past. So it wasn't like we had
anybody. It was like an absolute like
Oracle that knew everything. So it's more or less like we
were eight people figuring out and like trying to navigate by
committee. It does reduce your mistakes,
but it takes longer as well. And, and there was a point
midway around the loop where there was like me and two of the
other guys who are at that point, like feeling much
stronger. And we're doing a climb.
And we were getting away from the group.
And we were kind of like, should we push on?
Should we try and ditch the others?
It would be better for our race. And, you know, does it increase
our chances of completing the loop?
But in the end, like, we got to top the climb and we're looking
for the book for a bit. And the group formed up again.
And then it kind of never really, never really split up
much after that. So yeah, I mean, like I said, I
think in terms of like Barclay experiences, you know, I got to
do a bit of the loop by myself, got to do a bit of a loop in the
group, got to do a bit of the loop at night because we, yeah,
I mean, it started at 6:00 AM, so it was dark for the first
hour and then, you know, we finished about 11 O clock at
night for the last 3-4 hours we've been in darkness.
So, yeah, you know, ticked all the boxes of apart from meeting
the feral hogs, which I didn't. Yeah.
So that's pretty much the story of my race, I think.
Yeah, if I, if I hadn't fallen over and twisted my ankle, maybe
I'd have, maybe I'd have hung on with that faster group.
I mean, I would say I about 3/4 the way around my legs were
starting to give a bit. Like as I said, there was a
point where a few of us thought we could maybe push on a bit
faster than what the group was doing.
By the end, I was just happy to be going around with the group
and we were having a nice time, especially once we'd all like
accepted that we were going to be over cut off.
Like then all of a sudden everybody was a bit less
stressed and it was a bit more like chatty and everyone's
having a bit of a better time. So yeah, I think as you said,
the problem within the group, although.
The group can possibly make things easier and also if one
person's like strong minded enough they'll say we are doing
this and then the whole group makes the one mistake.
So it works both ways. But it sounds like you have had
the Barclay experience. You you got out of it what you
hoped for apart from you didn't get on to the next loop.
But yeah, as you say, it's a learning experience.
It's for a multi year project. And even if you did 5 loops,
it's still an ongoing project. Barclays still there.
You can still go back and I fully expect you to be applying
again. I definitely will be applying
again. I mean, there's absolutely no.
Guarantees about whether you'll, you'll get back in.
I mean, the, the, the process by which they select the entrance
is quite obscure. I mean, they have talked about
it a bit, but it has been said, you know, like, I mean, that was
also part of the reason why as a group, we're like, we will
complete the loop because people who make the effort to to, you
know, not give up are seen more favourably and are more likely
to, you know, if you do a couple of books and bail out, they're
probably never going to, you know, probably never going to
get a chance to come back. And, you know, obviously we were
all a bit slower than what they like.
But yeah, I think we showed that we were, you know, willing to,
you know, to, to, to get stuck in and, and figure it out and,
and get round. So has there ever that you know
of being a? Human sacrifice.
That wasn't their first time there.
Oh, I don't know. I don't know.
I would guess not, but I don't know.
Yeah, it's a strange one. Because then you'd have to,
like, they would have had to let you in twice when they thought
that you weren't supposed to be there.
But yeah, I mean, there are people who get to come so.
Lazar said that, you know, so the, the, the park area is like
AI can't remember what the name like like a nature reserve
basically. So it'd be like in in the UK,
it'd be like a, a site of special scientific interest,
like a protected area. So like the race, like the, the
normal park rules are you can't go off the trails.
You stay on the trails, you know, it's a, it's a nature area
and the race gets given special permission to go off trail.
And so they, they, they really try to minimise impact that the
race has on the environment. And one of the, the ways they do
that is that Lass picks the field.
So he doesn't pick 40 people that he believes a chance of
doing 5 loops. He picks people that he thinks
are only going to do one or less than one.
So that on average, his aim is to get, I, I think he said
around like maybe a maximum of 80 loops done like in, in
aggregate over the whole field in a year.
And so, so there definitely are people that he will pick.
He doesn't necessarily invite you back because you're really,
really good and they're going to do well.
He you might be there being one of the people that he thinks is
going to do 1 loop and that's fine.
And there are some like, so for example, like Frozen Ed, you
know, who was the first finisher of the like 50 Miller back in
the 80s. He wasn't there this year, but
he run, he's run almost every year.
Like I'd say he's probably run it like 25 or 30 times.
And he's now I don't quite hold this.
I think he's probably about 70, something like that.
So I think he can, he doesn't really have a, you know, have
the ability anymore, You know, although he was a really good
ultra runner in his day, he doesn't have the physical
ability to get round one loop in the time limit.
So I mean, I don't think Lance would ever invite him back and
give him #1 bib. But like there clearly are
people that he does invite back, not expecting them to do well.
So maybe it has happened. I don't know, right.
I I think that's the end of the listener questions and.
That's the end of my questions. I Nick Nick is quiet for a
change, so I'm I'm assuming that she's got no questions left.
No more from me. Exciting.
Thrilling. I don't know how.
To explain, Barclay, I'm not sure that I'll be applying or
trying to find out how to apply, but good luck to anybody that
wants to find out. And don't go asking Ian because
he won't tell you. And for for tonight, it's
goodbye for me. Thank you Nikki for being Nikki.
Thank you Ian for coming on. It's a nice thing.
Thanks for coming on for having us guys.
Yeah. No, it's great.
Great. Chat hope people have.
Enjoyed it, find it interesting. Fantastic experience.
Totally recommend it if it's your bag.
If not, you can. You can listen and watch and be
glad you're not doing it.