 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today we have a running episode. I am chatting with Gary Cantrell, who is better known as Lazarus Lake. He is an endurance race designer and director, as well as a former runner himself. He does ultramarathons. His races include the Barkley Marathons, Big's Backyard Ultra, Vault State 500K, a race for the ages, and much more. This is also star of a 2014 film, the Barkley Marathons, the race that eats its young. Wikipedia states, and I quote, His races are known to be especially grueling. Trailrunner magazine called him an evil genius. The Leonardo da Vinci of Pain, a master of sadomasochistic craft. Yet, his races have developed an almost cult-like following. My view, of course, as your podcast host, is much more positive than that. Since Lazarus' event at Frozen Head State Park began in 1986, only 17 people have finished it. In most years, there are no finishers at all within the 60-hour time limit. Entrance pay, I believe, $1.60 to face the challenge. Lazarus also has worked as an accountant and a city treasurer. Lazarus, welcome. How's it going? All is going well. I have some very simple questions about what you do. What does running 100 miles tell you about yourself that running 26 miles does not? I guess it probably tells you four times as much about yourself. It's not really an extension of the same thing. It's a whole day instead of just a morning. When people come away and they report what to you about what they learned? Well, I think every, each time you step up a level, you find out that you can do a lot more than you thought you could do. Do you think that's true in most human spheres of endeavor? I think it would be true in all of them. I think that the experiences people have improved them across the sphere of their lives. Why are there so many STEM professionals doing your ultramarathons? Why are they so well represented? Because the races that we have, the one like Barclay, it's a problem-solving exercise. There are a lot of different variables that you have to be able to master in order to be able to complete it. And they like challenges. And what would some of those variables be? Of course, you have to be able to use a map and compass. You don't have to be the world's greatest orienteering expert, but you have to be competent. You have to be able to find your way around in the woods. You have to be able to manage your own physical well-being because there's no aid stations. So you have to pack and prepare for what you need to maintain your run. And then in addition at Frozen Ed, you have a highly variable climate where you could encounter... It could be 80 degrees and 15 degrees on the same loop. And how do the runners manage their water supplies? They have to carry it with them. We put a couple of water drops out on the course so that they could restock. But if it's below freezing, that water might be frozen and they might have to find some in a stream somewhere or a spring. And of all of those skills, which is the most scarce? Which holds people back the most apart from just the running and the endurance? What are they most likely to screw up? I think these days navigation is a bigger problem than it used to be because people have become dependent upon GPS. And if you don't use part of your brain, it kind of withers. So if you're not accustomed to knowing in your head where you are and just listening for a little voice to tell you when to turn next, it's something of a problem because they don't get to take GPS. And so they literally end up lost in the woods, some people. It happens. And what happens to the men? They just stay there for the rest of their lives. They wander slowly back to civilization or what becomes of them? They send out a call for help? If they don't find their way out in a couple of days, we'll go look for them. But usually that well so far, they've always found their way out. Sometimes they wander around for an extended period of time loss. But that's what they signed up for. They're on their own with all the electronics and all the things that the conveniences of modern life are gone. They just rely on themselves. And if someone sprains an ankle, eventually you find them or they try to hobble back? We have a 100% self extraction including a couple of broken ankles, dislocated clavicle, a fractured kneecap. The people that do this are kind of a different breed. They're physically pretty tough and they get themselves out. How many military people or say former Navy SEALs do this or are they not a major clientele? You do get special forces not just from the U.S. but from other countries. It's the kind of thing that appeals to them. And you had some Ukrainians recently, is that correct? We have people from all over the world. I know we've had Ukrainians in the past. I'm not sure we've had one in the last couple of years. And if you think about the motivations of these people, how much is it they're bored with their old gulls or how much they want to show status or are they wrestling with inner demons or all of the above? How do you think about what brings them to do this? There's different people who would do it for different reasons. But for the most part, they're really seeking the freedom that comes with being totally dependent on yourself. And then on top of that is the challenge of doing something that... It's about a 1% finish rate. You have selected the best of the best and out of those only the 1% make it. And everybody would like to think that they're 1% of the 1%. And before your health interfered, you used to run ultramarathons. What were your goals? I was never more than a mediocre runner so my goals were to do better than I had done before. I set lofty goals and didn't always achieve them. I actually thought at one point I could finish the Barclay. Did you try? Oh yeah, I tell people I got my 100 miles but it took 5 years, which is not a bad time at the Barclay. You've designed the course, right? So in terms of when and where to turn, you would know that more automatically than the other participants. I definitely had a big leg up on finding my way but I actually did take a wrong turn once that cost me about 4 hours. Let's say a friend of yours went to you and said they wanted to train their kids or their grandkids in resilience. Sticking with it, durability, what advice would you give them based on what you've learned? I think being in any sport helps you develop those characteristics. I would recommend for kids that they play sports that are appropriate to their age with people their age. If they were a runner, they should run track and field and run on the school team or the club team with other athletes that are the same age. The ultramarathons are more a place where older people are involved. When you say older, you mean in their 30s or much older? From their 30s up, we have the after race. A race for the ages will have 35 or 40 runners in the field every year that are over 70. With the oldest runners up into their 90s. How old do you think is the oldest finisher of the 17? That's easy. David Horton did it when he was 50. It was his 11th attempt. Do you think it's possible to do it at 70? No, but it's not really possible to do it at 50. But someone did it? Someone did it, but I think that's what we like to do the impossible. What's special about that guy who did it at 50? David Horton is one of the great ultrarunners. He's considerably older than 50 now, but he was through his career one of the better ultrarunners in the country. He was good at all the skill sets and he kept trying and honing it down. He had several near misses before he finally got it. Why is it that it's running as a sport that is correlated with the endurance mentality? I never see endurance tennis matches or endurance basketball games, not even endurance podcasts. Why running? I guess because it lends itself to it. People want to see how far they can go. The people who want to do that, if you think of the evolution since 1986, how have those people changed as a group or a class of participants? Humans have a collective ability. I guess it's unique among animals that we can compare what we've learned and learn from each other. The skill sets of the people that tried it first in 1986 were not comparable to today. The equipment is a lot better. In 1986, state-of-the-art lighting was a carbide lamp because your old flashlights with the bulb, you'd have to carry 10 pounds of batteries to get you through the night with good light. Now they have those little LED bulbs and it just takes a battery for the whole race. As for the people themselves, what's the main dimension along which they've improved? Just all of the fine skills of finding their way, using the map, how to prepare the map, what to carry for nutrition. Of course, their clothing is improved as much as their lights have. You don't have to carry as bulky of clothing. You have to carry a light enough pack that it doesn't destroy you to carry it up and down all those big hills. You don't have to be able to cope with it being 80 degrees or to be 15 degrees. I read one source online. It suggested that going up and down the hills was basically the equivalent of twice the height of Mount Everest. Is that true? It's a little more than that and that would be from sea level. I don't know why that's an important distinction to me because it doesn't mean anything to most people. From the base of Everest to the top is not 29,000 feet. That's how high the peak is from sea level. All this is taking place in eastern Tennessee, is that correct? It is. There are little puny mountains by Western standards. The highest peak is 3,380 feet. It's only about 2,000 feet from the bottom of the mountains to the top. You just do that distance repeatedly and they're extremely steep because of the geology of the area. Would you describe it as fairly rocky or what else would you say about the environment? It's pretty rocky but there's a lot of undergrowth. It's not as rocky as the western mountains which are newer and don't have as much soil and undergrowth on them. Plus they extend higher into the atmosphere. What's the chance you run into a bear? Not very good because you're making too much noise. You'll probably be around a bear but they'll hear you long before you get close. Which are the elements of those races that most often break people when they break? I think it's the cumulative climb. The race is 100 miles and the time limit is extremely slow by 100 miles for people who run distance. They're thinking 100 miles in 24 hours is hard. This one gives you 60 hours so they perceive it as being an extremely extended low level effort. But because the pitch is so extreme it's actually a really slow time which requires you to have all of your gauges on the red line. You're pushing it as close as you can get to blowing your motor. Pacing themselves is one of the skills they need to have. Is that correct? Yes. They have to be physically in the best condition of their lives. The training takes people right to the edge of injury just training for it. Then you have to be able to push your body to its maximum extent without something breaking down. Are you ever worried about government regulation intervening and stopping what you're doing? Would they allow this in Massachusetts? I think that we're greatly aided by being kind of grandfathered in. I know I look when people try to set up similar events say in Europe they make them put a tracker on everybody. Because the government wants to protect you from yourself. But we've always done it and they'll say well the tracker wouldn't make a difference because it doesn't tell the runner where they are. But it tells the runner someone knows where they are. And when they get out there to make these decisions on how to approach different things they have to bear in mind. There's no tracker on them. Nobody knows where they are. If they do something really stupid they're going to end up being somewhere that they have to wait until someone finds them. And it does have an effect even if it doesn't tell you where you are. In today's world being totally separate from your electronics is in 1986 it wasn't that big of a deal because you weren't constantly in contact. But now people are they're wired all the time. So they have a kind of withdrawal some of them. Like oh my goodness where's my email. Now they have plenty to occupy their mind probably if you just took all their electronics away and sent them on an average day it'd be a struggle. It would be a struggle for me without my email to check what am I going to do. Do you think it's easier when people say oh I'm just going to take this race one step at a time or is that a mistake. It's a combination. In any of the endurance events you really have to have two things in your mind. One is that you're focused on finishing. You can't do a hundred miler any hundred miler and say I'm going to run 50 miles and then evaluate. Because I can save you a lot of trouble at 50 miles you're going to decide to stop. But at the same time you have to live in the moment. You can't think about how much is ahead of you because your mind just can't wrap itself around all of it at once. If you're in a lot of discomfort right at this moment in your if the the races have a trajectory you'll you'll have up periods and down periods and up periods and down periods. When you're on the down slope your mind just projects it to go down forever and you think oh I can't go that low. But if you just stay in the moment in a while you'll find yourself in a better place. There's a researcher named Ethan Cross and he's argued that if you keep on saying to yourself you can do it. You can do it. A kind of self-talk. That helps. Do you agree? For myself when I'm involved in something like this there's not really time to give myself a pep talk. I'm totally absorbed with doing doing what I'm doing. I actually prefer to approach things with with a little bit of doubt. A couple of years ago I walked across the country and people would tell you. When I was I walked from the east coast to the west coast why was could still smell the ocean and people say you've got this. And I think well then why go through all this discomfort if I already know I can. So I believed I could make it to the Pacific Ocean when I topped the last mountain in the in the coastal range and I could see it. So you didn't just walk along interstates. No it was I walked some interstate I walked open range. I cut across parking lots and and I was committed to having a continuous set of foot string of footprints from coast to coast. But I was not committed to them going any particular place the easiest way I could get through the better. Did you listen to music or podcasts while you were walking. No it interfered that would interfere with the voices in my head. And what do they tell you. Actually I spent most of the time between days I would would read about the geology of the area I just seen and read about the history and. And other things of the area I was going into and then local people would tell me things about the places I was that otherwise you wouldn't know it was. It was an intense educational experience that really kept me mentally fully occupied all the way across. For ultra marathons how much to shoes make a difference. I think it's that I prefer to wear shoes. I know there's people that go barefoot but shoes are better. Why do they prefer barefoot that seems odd to me. I won't speculate because it's it's whether that whether that it's a real some real benefit to it or not. But shoes greatly reduce the number of injuries you're going to get to the to the skin on your feet. How prevalent is doping when people do ultra marathons. I don't think it's really prevalent because there's not. There's not a lot of real motivation to do it. There's not nobody's making big bucks as an ultra marathoner. I but I suspect you see it to some extent among people where you would you would wonder. Why you know you're you're an age group competitor you're not running at the front. But people people about anything there is that people could do somebody does it. What are some possible ways people might try to cheat. The most common one is to cut part of the distance off. You you do occasionally have people who who cheat. I get now you read about them in marathons and you would have the same have periodically the same thing in ultra running. But you know I I can't I don't think anybody except them really understands why they do it because. Ultra marathon performances don't mean anything to anybody but you. And you have a book page method to stop that correct. In the in the Barclay it's pretty effective. We have checkpoints that are paperback books. Everyone tears out the page of the book that matches their bib number. So we count all the book pages when they get back. And if they don't have the page you figure they cheated or somehow they just don't win. Well if you don't if you don't have all your pages you don't count it doesn't matter we don't really correlate it that you cheated. Usually people have lost a page forgot to get a page they've made some kind of other mistake. And they don't count as having one if they're missing a page that's it right no go. If they're missing a page there's no go. How do you choose which books to put out. I that's a lot of fun people we pick books that have appropriate titles. Such as. My favorite one was was the last book on the loop that was this if I can it wasn't always easy but I sure had fun. And but we we kind of have a theme every year when you're the theme was the Barclay marathons where dreams go to die. And another year it was the only thing that buckles here is is your knees. Buckling is a runner's term for finishing with a certain time and winning a belt buckle. So we take that year's theme and we try to pick books that kind of fit with the theme and then we go through the course and since we know when it starts and we know where it goes and you have an idea. What runners have been through what they're what they're coming to what time of day it is a little bit of a peek into their mind about what they're thinking or how they're feeling you try to make the book titles match. At 90% of the people they don't ever notice but some of them they they catch on and and they think we're really messing with them with the way the book titles are laid out. Why don't you charge more than $1.60 for people to run. Because it's it's a it's only a small number of runners and we don't want it to be a feat of finance. You know you have a you have a lot of things that people do but it's really like going to the Titanic. Going down on a submersible to see the Titanic doesn't require skill or dedication or effort just money. So we won't don't want money to be the deciding factor for the Barclay. We want it to be a test of a physical test not a not a financial one. Why don't you charge less than $1.60 then. Well then I wouldn't I wouldn't have money to buy Dr. Pepper's with. The early history of your races. How were they influenced by the experience of James Earl Ray. Not really at all. That's a that's a connection that that seems to be popular with the media because they're there. You know this is where that he escaped and and certainly it was a big national story. It was a bigger story in Tennessee than anywhere else. And it was really interesting to me because I had been hiking all through those mountains for years. And since I knew the terrain he was on I was quite interested in seeing how he did. And but I think any comparisons we make to James Earl Ray are kind of belittling his escape attempt more than. More than anything else. How did he do it. He only he didn't even make it the equivalent of a loop. And that was with his supposed freedom at stake. The admission the sign up process for the Barclay marathon. It's often considered opaque. How is it you decide who gets to run and who does not. Even though we try to make it a little bit difficult to even submit an application we get way too many. We pick through they write an essay and you look at the essays and try to pick out people who are going to get something from the experience you don't want. You don't want people who only are coming to post on Facebook that they came or to get on the entry list so they can post on Facebook that they were entered and then drop out before they have to hurt. So you still end up with a huge number of people and there there's a whole complex process of how we divide them out into different groups because. We don't want to have an impact on the the wilderness area where the race is held. So that's really dependent on not on the number of people but the number of laps. So you select people of different levels of ability. So that the total number of laps will come out to a space around 180 180 90 laps. And we can nail it pretty well. But then you get down to the people in those groups and you just have to draw I use the Excel random number generator. Everybody's putting a number that's within a group and I'm going to pick so many of them and I just have it pick a number in that sequence and that person gets in. And you think your process is working pretty well. And we get the right number of loops every year. Even even like this year when we had three finishers which is really really unusual. We still had just about the same number of total laps that we always have. It was fewer actually total laps than we had last year with zero finishers. And people need letters of recommendation when they apply. Is that true. No they write an essay even if even if someone's not particularly eloquent. If they write their essay they they reveal themselves. They show who they are. You want people that are going to get something out of the experience not people that will hate it. And not people that really aren't going to immerse them. They're just going to dip their toe and then post that they were there and leave. And you have staff who help you with all of this. I'm transitioning over to a guy named Carl Laniak because I won't be around forever. And we just had to you know get rid of the non-productive qualities you had like empathy. And other things that serve no purpose in a race of this nature. The people who help you they're volunteers or you manage to pay them or how does that work. How do the economics of this hang together. They're all volunteers the the race actually is not cheap to put on. And people donate and the biggest part of your donations come from entrance. And the the race has kept a we have a Barkley fund where we put the donations and use it to pay for the race. And it's maintained a positive balance since 1986. It says something good about the people that run it. And then we get some donations from people that just follow it on the Internet and and think it's important something like this exists. Are you at liberty to say what running one of these might cost. For the for the individual runner. For the whole aggregate enterprise all expenses. Oh God. I should be able to pop up a number right off the top of my head. I want to say it costs like eight or ten thousand dollars to put it on. But we do a lot of stuff that's that would not necessarily be necessary. You know we we bring all the barricades and hang the hang the flags of the countries and states where the runners come from and. And having all these supplies requires us to rent a truck when we first put it on it was just. There was nothing people showed up and we ran. And you light a cigarette and you blow a conch shell right. Now we blow a conch shell to tell them that the start is an hour away. There's a uncertainty is built into the Barclay everywhere because uncertainty is the most difficult thing for an athlete to deal with. So they don't know where the course exactly goes until the day before the race. They don't know when it's going to start until an hour before it starts. They know it'll start between midnight noon. And if it doesn't start until after daybreak there's a lot of sleepless nights because people are afraid they'll miss the cock. And you can't just Google online like what time and place the next one is right. That's somewhat of a mystery or how does that work. Now we don't tell what day the race will be run except to the people that are entered. And of course nobody knows the starting time. Nobody knows the starting time for next year's race. Now right now except me and Carl. And do you have media that show up they somehow find out or it truly stays a secret. We kept it a secret up through 2000 and then we had some elements in the park system that that didn't want the race to exist. And we we realized in the struggle to keep going that we had to exist. So where we had been turning down media requests we started accepting them. And strangely enough especially in ultra marathons where you would kill to get media exposure. We have to select the media that we let in at Barkley because the play the venue is is small and limited. You have to keep the number of people down or there's no place for the runners themselves. And which media do you choose and why first come first served. So it could be just a freelance photographer or sports illustrated. It was just a matter of which one we heard from first. It seems fair putting aside your own events. Do you feel that ultra marathons have become too commercial. There are more commercial than they used to be. You know everything changes. I think that there is still plenty of places for people to have the same experience. And the personal experience is not driven by the commercialization of it. The commercialization the slower time limits is one of the big is a bigger change than commercialization. When I started running alters the time limits were really pretty strict and everybody who ran was was young and in the prime of their career. If you had somebody run into their 40s or even 50 they were this rare exception. And now a lot more people can run and for a long time it extended my career because they didn't have the strict cutoffs they used to have. Eventually you get old enough you can't make the cutoffs anyway. All of these are just the things that happens. Things either change or they die. How close do you think we are to the ultimate fundamental limits on human performance in running. I don't know. I think that's what in a global sense that's what the ultra running is all about. Certainly at the top level is looking for what are the limits we're learning that people can learn and adapt to become better. And then there's this ability of the mind to drive the body beyond what seems to be physically possible that who knows where the real where the real limit lies. If you if we look at all sports as a whole what is the individual sports performance record that impresses you the most. So I might say Joe DiMaggio streak right 61 games in a row with a hit you can't miss once that to me seems really quite hard but what would you say. I would have to sit and really think about that a long time because I'm I'm an overall general sports fan and there's so many. Excuse me so many amazing things that people have done in and then to try to compare different sports. You can't even compare all the different running sports very easily. Have you ever seen the YouTube video where Steph Curry is shooting three point shots and if memory serves he hits 95 in a row without missing. I've seen exceptional high school shooters that can shoot pretty close to that. But so I I'm on the on the one hand I think you can't have too much respect for people who develop that kind of consistency in their shooting but it seems totally possible. Are there conditions under which you would stop a race. We haven't hit them yet but there would there would be there would be conditions where you would have to stop a race. They had a backyard in Finland this year. It was their national championship race and this huge storm went through with 100 mile an hour winds and it screwed power lines all over the course. They had to stop only a fool runs through live power lines on the ground. If you put aside the 17 people who have finished Barkley and just look at American society as a whole. Do you see overall a shortage of stoicism and inner strength a decline of manliness or how do you view where we're headed as a country. Well up until just a couple of years ago I was an assistant coach at the on the high school basketball team and today's kids are great. I go out and do these journey runs where I'm just exposed and out there with people and people are good. We just had an event where we took 82 people and we put them on buses and we bust them 350 miles away from they parked in a in a in a hay field on top of a mountain in north Georgia. We bust them 350 miles away and put them on the side of the road with a map. They had 10 days to get back to their car and so they they set out the first few people that went through the towns on the way. They would think that's a really fast homeless guy and then they would ask what's going on. And the next thing you knew people were putting coolers of drinks out by the road outside their house. They were loading up stuff and taking it and driving down the road to see where the runners were. The the race is called the heart of the south and it's not about the physical location. It's about the people and you go through what is supposedly a you know the rural south that have a great reputation as a humanitarian area area. But the support that people got along the way and the help and the things that everyone did for them. And no one was asking who was a Republican or who was a Democrat. There was people helping people being being out on the road as opposed to just watching the selective stuff on TV and working with the kids instead of just reading about them. This is a great place and it's full of good people. I think that if we just don't lose our confidence in ourselves that this country is going the right way. But say I read in the newspapers well the military complains that some fairly high percentage of American kids are not in good enough shape to even join the military. Should I dismiss that or is it correct? What do you think? I think that we probably aren't aren't raising a generation that's that's as good a physical condition as they could be. It doesn't mean they can't get in shape if necessary necessity requires it. Ironically that was a complaint of World War two that the recruits they got were not in good physical condition. But you know that's not something that's written in stone and can't change. Do you think disciplinary and coaches are still possible in 2023 America where the parents undercut them the parents get too upset? Everyone's too much a wallflower. How do you see this? Parents very often don't make a don't make a positive input into the sports for their kid. I think people of course I'm looking at high school coaches. I've not coached on the college level so I don't know the people. I think they really under appreciate the high school coaches that I knew and I've known a lot of them over a almost 40 year period. The two things that you look at that you want your kids to come out of your program with are character and integrity. And you're proud of the games you win and you're there to win. But you're really teaching the kids lessons that you hope make them better people. And I don't see that that's really changed maybe the manifestations of it. Maybe some of the stuff that you couldn't do now you probably never should have done. But you can have discipline without putting your hands on somebody. When you walked across America which was the place that surprised you the most? No place really surprised me. I got asked a lot what was my favorite place and I always told them it was the place I was at because... I like to say the next place that's coming. That's a good way to look at it too. I wasn't ever sure I would make the next place. But I think if I hadn't been doing journey runs for a long time I think someone that comes into it it's the first time they do it. They're shocked by how good people are. You have hundreds of human interactions they're all good. You have numerous law enforcement checks because sometimes you're doing things that don't look quite right. Of course when you're crossing a mountain pass in the desert in the nearest house is 50 miles away. The law enforcement is checking to see if you're if you're safe and sane. Sane being a good question but you know you you've got things under control. I got stopped walking through a really ritzy part of town at four in the morning looking like a homeless guy. What city is this? I don't remember what city it was. It was in Ohio and the policeman he would be derelict in his duty if he didn't ask why I was there. Because I didn't belong. But after we talked a few minutes he got out and took a selfie with me and that kind of that kind of says it. I walked through some what were considered really terrible parts of big cities. And you know talk to people they smile and a wave works the same in every neighborhood. So if you want to renew your faith in humanity and you want to renew your faith in the country walk across it and put yourself dependent on the kindness of strangers. How did carrying bodies to the morgue influence your subsequent life? It was how did you know I did that? Oh I read it somewhere. One of my jobs I worked the the 11 to 7 shift the the graveyard shift ironically. It didn't really bother me to carry bodies to the morgue because the person was gone and just the body was left. It's I don't think it probably influenced me. I was already maybe maybe lacking that part to start with. What did accounting teach you about ultramarathons and running? Well everything is numbers. I really enjoyed accounting. Your accountant knows more about you than anybody except maybe your doctor. You can look at the numbers and see what's going on in places that you've never even physically been. It's I wasn't really a math person who likes the pure math. But I love numbers for the information and sports and business and everything. Numbers tell you everything. Where did you work as city treasurer? Bellbuckle or somewhere else? Now city called Shelbyville. That's in Tennessee right? Yes. Yes it's in middle Tennessee. Was that fun? I enjoyed it greatly. I worked with a fellow named Ed Craig who was a really good city manager and I felt like we did a really good job for the city. I always looked at it that you know you're hired by the elected officials but I think as a government employee you work for the taxpayers. And I came away feeling that I did really did good service for the people who paid the taxes there so it was a satisfying. A satisfying stint. How does East Tennessee differ from West Tennessee? How should I think about that? I don't know since I live in middle Tennessee they're both slightly inferior to middle Tennessee. What makes them worse? They're not middle Tennessee. Yeah. Hard to see how they could be. East Tennessee is hillier and West Tennessee is more used to it's more it's got a great deal of the Mississippi alluvial plane. It's more rolling hills. But the people have a lot in common. People everywhere have a lot in common. What makes Bellbuckle a special town? That's where you live now right? Yes. Well I live near Bellbuckle. It's a small country place and people know each other. I really live in an area I would call Short Creek. I go out. I went out before I came on here and did my morning three hour walk. I usually see only a couple of vehicles. If I see somebody I wave because they either know me or they're going to stop and ask directions. Because if you end up here you are trying to get somewhere else. And it's just it's pretty and it's green and it's not real densely populated. And I know all my neighbors for miles around because I walk every day. It's special in the way in some place else would be if I lived there and had been there a long time. Do you have good barbecue there? I kind of lean towards the Texas style barbecue. But they have good barbecue in Tennessee. Do you have good waffle houses in central Tennessee? The Waffle House is the journey runner's friend. A reliable meal and a 24 hour schedule. And there's something else about Waffle Houses. People wouldn't know walking across the country and looking kind of derelict. I'll stop at one just because they have an indoor toilet. And then I buy something. On my travels I think if I go to a business and use their bathroom I should buy something. So I might stop and just buy a glass of chocolate milk. And I've had the waitress think I was down on my luck and ask if I needed them to buy me a meal. Because that's how people are. So if you go out to eat at a Waffle House, do you order waffles or you order something else? It varies. They've got a really good... I like their hash browns with pretty much everything in it. A omelet. But I'm not much of a waffle eater because this surf is too sweet for me. What are the books that have influenced you the most? Now I've got to try to think of the name. I think the guy's name is McPhee and he wrote Tales of a Former Earth? John McPhee, yes, absolutely. Great books. That's a great book. I read mostly nonfiction and tend not to remember the authors and the names of the books. What topics you eat about sports or running or what else? I like to read about sports and I like to read about geology. History fascinates me. Science, paleontology, archaeology, just kind of almost anything. Not chemistry or pure math are not really in my realm. Who's going to win the NBA title next year? The team that comes closest to running a real offense. Denver always wins. Denver looks good now, but you know that it's like AAU. They'll redraw teams between now and then. But it's funny, the NBA game, the rules are designed to make it as much as possible a game of athleticism, run and shoot. I guess you'd call me a basketball purist. I like the passing, the offenses, the defenses, the teamwork, the skills. I really like the high school girls basketball. It's the most beautiful basketball you see play. It's almost an art the way that they play it. But at every level when you look, it's still the team that is best at those aspects of the game. It's still the one that wins. Do you have a favorite player? Jokic, I believe is his name. Correct. Tremendous passer, maybe the best passer ever. Best since Larry Bird. When you were talking about the guy hitting 95 three-pointers in a row, there was a video of Larry Bird called 50 assists. And those are infinitely more impressive because of what they tell about the player's court awareness, knowing where everybody is. I'll ask you questions. First, over the last ten years you've become a lot more famous. How is that changing what you do? How do you cope with it? I'm lucky it didn't happen when I was young and would think that it really meant something. I'm still just an old hillbilly that lives in the woods. And some combination of circumstances have led to all this notice and attention. But it's not like I really deserve it. There are exceptional people all around who have done a lot more than I have. If it gives you the ability to maybe do some things that are positive or people will listen to you and you can give a positive message, then that's a good thing. But it's just a combination of circumstances unfortunately not reflecting something I've done. Last question. What will you do next? Whatever I can get away with. What will you try to get away with? A new kind of race or a memoir, a documentary? I can't get away with much because I'm old and slow and I would be quickly caught. But I'm really putting a lot of focus on this thing called the backyard ultra, which is where it's just kind of a different sort of running sport. And I think it emphasizes the aspects of competition that are more positive. Say a little more about that. It's a, you run a 4.16667 mile loop and you do it once an hour. You have a start every hour and you have to be there in the starting corral and start every hour and finish in time to be in the corral next hour. And it just goes on until there's only one person left. So it's not that hard to run four miles in an hour, but to do it on and on and on. And you only have this short time in between and there's, it's as we did the first one in 2012 and now there's over 400 of them in like 70 something countries. But it, the winner is the last person left and he can only go one lap after the, after everybody else is gone. Once you finish a lap by yourself, the race is over. So people who want to achieve big performances have to have other good runners out there with them. There's one winner. Everybody else is a DNF because the distance of the race is defined by how far the winner goes. So everyone else didn't finish. But people of all levels can go the furthest they've ever gone. It lends itself to that. It's really more about the individual achievement. And then the person who's the last person who DNF is called the assist because he's really the one who decided how far the winner went. And without a good assist, you can't have a big performance. We're having the world championships in October here on my farm. You know, we've got runners from 30 something countries and a lot of really exceptional athletes it's going to be. And I got to set it up where you remove the politics from sports. Everyone is there because they qualify. And I never liked beauty contests in sports when you're picking, picking all stars or whatever. You like to get it down to be purely objective and no subjectivity in it at all. But I think it's a version of running that has a place for people at all levels to succeed and to accomplish something. It just seems like a worthwhile place to apply my time. That sounds great. Lazarus Lake, thank you very much. I appreciate you talking to me. Hopefully I've seen the impressive list of people, guests that you've had. And I thought, oh, I'm being lined up as a change of pace. I really look forward to this one coming out. You put many of them to shame. Well, I appreciate that. I don't believe it, but it's still nice to hear.