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Showing posts from March, 2021

My Barkley Story

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People Paid to Do This??? Aka Barkley Fall Classic 2015  My Barkley story starts several years ago. As a native Knoxvillian, I grew up near Frozen Head but had never actually been to the park until my friend Liz Norred was running in a race called Barkley Fall Classic in 2015. This is oftentimes referred to as the baby Barkley, a 50k version to give more people a taste of the spirit of the big Barkley. I was racing in a lot of triathlons at the time, and would be attempting Ironman Chattanooga on the next weekend. My type A, technophile, road-running, pace-obsessed triathlon world was about to crash into the laid-back, burrito-fueling, mud and dirt, power-hiking world of ultra-running. I grabbed my camera and hiked up to the one place where I was allowed to see Liz – the fire tower. I arrived at the top in time to see most of the participants make it to the top of one of the biggest climbs in the race. Runners were rolling over the top of the hill and collapsing, emerging out of head-h