The first thing to say about The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats its Young is that it's very funny. There's plenty of dark, sadistic yet twinkling gallows humour. The star of the show is Lazarus Lane, co-founder of the Barkley Marathons race and a master of comic timing. You get an early sign of what's to come when a worried producer, riding in Lazarus's battered pickup, points out that it looks like the petrol gauge is on empty. Except on this gauge the E is to the right and the F is to the left. Lazarus assures her there's nothing to worry about, as the E is for Excellent and the F is for Fucked.
This is a man who likes to tinker and invent things for his own amusement, and the beauty of this film is how it lets us in on this. Is Lazarus short of white shirts? Then the entry fee that year will be a white shirt. Has he tweaked the 5 loops course this year? Yes he has, yet somehow every loop remains officially 20.0 miles. What is 3 laps of this gruelling course called? A 'fun run'. If you retire early (as most competitors do) and curl up in a ball of exhaustion, how is this greeted? With peels of laughter from all around and a bugler playing Taps, the US equivalent of The Last Post. The race that eats its young indeed.
Now imagine a rolled up carpet. Except instead of carpet pile it’s made of scores of maps stuck together, which when unrolled reveals the state of Tennessee. And on it, marked with a felt tip pen, are all the roads and routes Lazarus has run. You think to yourself: this is man who could really do with Strava. Except of course he shouldn’t. It’s perfectly fitting that he doesn’t use technology, and this ethos is applied to the race which allows no GPS or altometers. You need a map, a compass and orienteering skills almost as much as you need ultramarathon endurance. The only course markers are books, such as "The Idiot" and "A Time To Die", which competitors must find and then tear out the page corresponding to their race number as proof. The secret start time is announced only 1 hour in advance - with a blow of a conch - and then the runners head into the hills, attempting loops in alternate directions by day and by night.
After humour, the strength of this film is that the subjects are not professionals, and their experience is covered in a low-key, restrained manner - letting the course itself do the talking. As we follow several characters' progress you soon realise how brutal it is. After one lap there are already gruesome cuts on the back of runners' calves, and later we'll see a full-foot blister being drained and more than a few disoriented victims. The drama builds as the two frontrunners head off on loop 5 in opposite directions. By now the retired runners have turned into the support team. The jeapardy centres on the only other runner remaining (who looks like a cross between Perry Farrell and Vincent Gallo), still out there in the dark, as he attempts to complete the fifth and final loop with time running out.
At this point an apparently random rule is revealed as a stroke of genuis: on loop 5 the running direction alternates for each person in turn. As a result of which the front two, who have helped one another along to this point, have their competitive spirit given free rein. There's no moral quandary about whether to stick with a struggling companion or push on to win, as the last loop is solo. What's more, the two have no idea how the other one is getting on, and will only find out if and when they finish. Joker that he is, and for all his quirky tricks, it's clear that Lazarus deeply understands the balance between camaraderie and competitiveness - and has designed a race to encourage both.
The message, if any, is to live in the moment and explore your limits, but just do what you can and appreciate that achievement - don't compare. There's no schmaltz or sentimentality here, no emoting, no slow mos and sun spots. There's no pounding timpani or stirring strings either, just some gentle backwoods banjo here and there. And the film is all the better for it - it’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cheer, and it might even make you cry.
Watch the Barkley Marathons on Netflix
compass photo by Dmitri Dzhus