Tales from Out There: the Barkley Marathons, the World's Toughest Trail Race is a delightful surprise of a self-published book—well-written, meticulously detailed, technically accurate, with useful maps plus several black-and-white photos. "Frozen" Ed Furtaw has done a fine job of recording the history of the Barkley, a 100+ mile trek across the rugged terrain of central Tennessee's Frozen Head Environmental Education Area. Chapter 16 (covering 1997) of Out There offers "Famous Inspirational Quotes" from Barkley runners, including:

• "Oh God, I can't believe it hurts so bad."
• "I thought this would be the toughest thing I ever did ... it is much worse than that."
• "Every race has bad places; this one just doesn't have any good places."
• "I have never taken over an hour to do a half mile before."
• "I sure hope I never come back."
• "This is just meaningless suffering without a point."
• "You cannot understand until you have been Out There."
• "You must only not quit; then you will finish. Now, I must quit."

In the HAT Run 2006 I ran briefly with Keith Dunn, who had done a partial Barkley lap the prior year and who planned to go back. "You don't have to be fast to run Barkley," he told me, "just stupid!"

^z - 2010-05-11