The Barkley Marathons

Every Spring in northeastern Tennessee, roughly 40 people compete in a marathon they are very unlikely to finish. This is the Barkley Marathons. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:14Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is Stuff You Should Know. And we are giving up right out of the gate on our episode about the Bar Blue Marathon.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  That's right. Our friend Chad, we want to shout out our friend Chad Crowley, who we've talked about before, who was the producer and director and showrunner of our TV show back in the day.

• 1:37Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  I got this idea from Chad because we had coffee over the holidays and he is running ultra marathons now.

• 1:46Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Which is a very Chad thing to do. Like he starts running a handful of years ago and then now is running ultras.

• 1:51Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  And I was like, Chad, how long is that? And he said 60 miles generally.

• 1:58Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  And I said, could you run to Athens? He said, how far is Athens? And I said, and I can't remember how far, I said like 80 miles. He said, I could run 100 miles.

• 2:08Josh Clark?

  Wow. But he'd need a ride back.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Are you kidding? He said, it might take a while, but I could, I could probably run 100 miles. And I'm just like floored by this idea. The people can do this. And he said, he said, man, you should do a, you guys should do an episode on the Barkley Marathons, which I'd heard of before.

• 2:23Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Which is this, yeah, which is this ultra marathon plus, a trail run plus, in the mountains of northeastern Tennessee, that is known for just being a crazy race, a crazy hard race, and having a really unusual origin story and unusual founder, and just how it's all done, just this remarkable story. And I agree.

• 2:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's a really great documentary from 2017 called The Barkley Marathon: The Race That Eats Its Young, which is a nickname for that race. And there's a few people in there who are seasoned trail runners, ultra-thoners, like, people who know their stuff and have done crazy things as far as running goes, who are like, this is far and away the hardest race on the planet. Like, there's nobody who's doing anything like this. And if you think you know what you're doing, you're going to be completely amazed at how far off you are in what you thought this is going to be like. It's that hard.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, you got a chance to watch it?

• 3:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was good. And there was a guy who was a special operations, like, I guess, a former special ops soldier. It was like, I've done crazy stuff with my body, and this, like, that did nothing to prepare me for this.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was really well done. It's on YouTube. And I recommend watching it, because it really, there's a lot of drama that takes place the year that they did the documentary. I think they did it on 2012 or 2013, maybe?

• 4:01Josh Clark?

  Oh, was it?

• 4:02Speaker 02

  And it came out in 2017, you said?

• 4:04Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. So, yeah, I was confused at what year it was.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  I think it was 2012 or 2013. And it was, there's a lot of good drama, so we don't want to spoil some of the stories that happened. But I recommend watching. And here we go with Barkley Marathons.

• 4:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. So, the whole thing about Barkley Marathons is that you can trace them back, I mean, you could start at the very beginning. We talked about in our, what was the one crazy marathon episode we did not too long ago?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  It's on marathons.

• 4:32Josh Clark?

  No, it was on a specific marathon in, I think, Los Angeles.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. We did one on marathons. Years ago.

• 4:40Josh Clark?

  No, remember the guy who was running the human zoos at the World's Fair? Came up with a, like a, he called it the Special Olympics Marathon? This was months ago, man.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Hey, you can't remember it either, buddy?

• 4:55Josh Clark?

  All right, well, I can't remember.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  You remember it existed at least?

• 4:58Josh Clark?

  Yes. Anyway, oh, get this. Apparently, we did an entire short stuff on Saturn's rings and didn't mention it. Because I have no recollection of doing a short stuff on Saturn's rings, do you?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't remember that.

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  You do remember we did a Saturn episode that came out like a few days back?

• 5:17Speaker 02

  I'm so mad at you right now.

• 5:19Josh Clark?

  Don't you?

• 5:20Speaker 02

  We're still getting emails on that one, so yes, I do.

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right, cool.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  What LA marathon are you talking about?

• 5:25Josh Clark?

  It might not be LA, but it was, it was like, just, you remember like that one Italian guy? I think he was running in like.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 5:34Josh Clark?

  He'd stop and eat people's fruit and stuff.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:37Josh Clark?

  And there were the two guys from Africa who were like.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  I remember that now.

• 5:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was, I can't remember where it was or what the name was.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  What it was.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Oh, boy, people are just screaming at their pod player right now.

• 5:49Josh Clark?

  The sad thing is, the whole reason I brought that up, Chuck, was to say that we went over a lot of the origins of marathons in that episode, so we don't need to do that in this episode. Can you believe that we just did all that?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  And in our marathon's episode.

• 6:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Anyway, let's not even do that. Marathon's been a long, a long time.

• 6:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Ultra marathon started in the 1970s, and that's what we're really talking about. And this guy, Gary Kentrell, AKA Lazarus Lake or Laz, he's in his 70s now. He is our, he is the creator, along with his friend, of the Barkley Marathon, whom he named after his friend, a farmer named Barry Barkley. In the documentary, very sweetly over the end credits, they ask him, with Barry, why he named it after Barry? And he said, well, he used to help me with a lot of races and, I don't know, it just fit.

• 6:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Barkley, he's a farmer. He's like, he's never run anything like that. And he said, I have no idea why he named it after me.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there's no real reason, but they're called the Barkley Marathons. And Cantrell has an interesting story in that he is a former athlete. He's run supposedly over about 150,000 miles in his life.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  But he smokes Camel cigarettes. He just floods his body with Dr. Pepper. He's, you know, older gentleman now and has kind of wrecked his legs from all that running. So he hasn't run for a while, but he got interested in this as a Boy Scout in Tennessee as a teenager, or pre-teen, I guess, when he was, started doing backpacking trips that he hated, until he found out there is a great joy in overcoming a hardship and doing something tough physically and completing a goal and got kind of hooked on that feeling.

• 7:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he also apparently really liked the idea that if he continued to work at something, he would continue to improve. And that's a big part of running. That's a big part of running. It's a big part of hiking. It's a big part of doing anything worthwhile. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, he got the bug pretty early on. He started running marathons. I think in 1966, he started running. By high school, he was running marathons. And then he started running ultra-marathons. And he was there like right at the beginning of the ultra-marathon craze, which I think kicked off in 1974 with California's Western States 100. A guy named Gordy Ainsley set that up.

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  And so by this time, you know, the ultra-marathons were starting to catch on. And Gary Cantrell was enough of a runner that he knew of these things. But he was also married. He was starting to have kids. He had a job as an accountant. And he just couldn't travel the country to go participate in ultra-thon. So he started setting his own up around Tennessee.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. They first took the form of what he called journey runs, which is, this all sounds fun. If I was into running, I would do something like this. But he and his friends would get together and be like, all right, let's run from Knoxville to Nashville. Or let's run, I love the through-run. Their idea of a through-run was either from Alabama or Kentucky, running to the other, just straight through Tennessee. Let's run through the state of Tennessee. A pretty fun idea. They were doing these, they led to some other kind of legit races. I think one of the two is still around. He called it, and he's always had a sense of humor. You can tell by the way he names these things. The last annual Ball State, obviously Volunteer State Road Race,

• 9:24Speaker 02

  which is a 311 mile run from Missouri to Georgia.

• 9:30Josh Clark?

  Missouri to Georgie.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Exactly. 10 day cutoff time, no comfort stations along the way. You have to source all your own food and water and shelter along the way. And then another one called the Idiots Run, which I don't think is around. 123 mile gravel, all gravel road run.

• 9:52Josh Clark?

  My god.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:53Josh Clark?

  That's so bad. That's just such a bad idea. Well, he called it the Idiots Run for a really good reason.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:59Josh Clark?

  And that's the whole, his whole jam is like, he loves coming up with a kind of race that just is at the border between the possibility and the impossibility of human endurance, of what the human body can actually do. Like, he wants it just inside of that limit so that you could, if you push yourself enough, complete this, this race. But most people are just not going to be able to because it's so close to impossible.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, many, many years, the Barkley Marathon has no finisher at all. Many years, no one makes it to the fifth loop. There are four loops. It will get into all this in a second. It's happening more and more now. I think just there are more veterans that come back that once you kind of know the deal, I say it gets a little easier, but you know, a little easier in that it's possible to finish. It's never easy. But I think the veterans have an advantage for sure.

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because I think... I think the astonishment at how difficult it is.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:06Josh Clark?

  Probably takes up a lot of your mental energy and focus while you're, while you're doing it for the first time. And that, yeah, once you've even tried it before and even dropped out, you probably are past that. And that's gotta be a huge leg up.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 11:20Josh Clark?

  So we should talk a little bit about the whole, the whole basis of all this, right? Or do you want to take a break?

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's, let's talk about where this thing's held, right?

• 11:29Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, the whole thing is held at frozen head state park. It's named after.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Says it all, huh?

• 11:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's named after the tallest peak in this state park. It's in northeastern Tennessee, which is kind of, I guess, where northeastern Tennessee is where Virginia and North Carolina come together with Tennessee. It's a beautiful area and this would be in the Cumberland Mountains. And this particular state park is not like the kind you just, you know, go to, everybody goes to on the weekends for picnic. It's pretty remote. It's 330 acres, but this 330 acre state park is surrounded by 24,000 acres of forest land.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 12:08Josh Clark?

  And the whole thing, I guess, started with convict leasing. So this, this area is like really dark.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  You know?

• 12:17Speaker 02

  No, totally. And if you look at, you know, they do these aerial shots in the documentary of this prison that we're about to talk about. And it's just, you know, it's in the middle of nowhere, like at the bottom of, you know, a sort of a ravine and very inhospitable. I mean, you'd like to think about places like Alaska being like, you know, some of the most inhospitable places in the United States. But, uh, I mean, the mountains of northeastern Tennessee are no joke.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  No, and this area is inhospitable because of its terrain and in part because of the weather and the elevation.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:52Josh Clark?

  The whole reason there's a prison there is because back in the 19th century, Tennessee started making money by leasing its prisoners, convicts, to mining companies, coal mining companies, just make a little extra on the side from forcing your prisoners to engage in hard labor, right? Well, I think in our.

• 13:13Josh Clark?

  Man, I need to keep a list of all of our episodes like handy because I can't remember the name of it, but do you remember that one war, the strike war in the 19th century? And I think coal mines in-

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Uh, Madawan.

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  Madawan, yes, thank you. In that episode, we talked a lot about what happened also in Tennessee's coal mines, where the labor was taking on management and it was resulting in wars. Well, one of the things that resulted out of this in Tennessee was that the laborers, the free laborers who worked for the coal mining companies would frequently help the convicts who were, whose labor was being leased out by the state, uh, escape. And so Tennessee was like, well, fine, we're not doing that anymore. But undeterred, they just started setting up their own coal mines and using the, the prisoners directly instead of leasing them out.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Exactly. Uh, and they needed somewhere to put those prisoners, so, or workers, I guess, slash prisoners. So they built a new prison. Uh, it is called Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. And, uh, in the 1930s, a lot of that land eventually became that great conservation area that we were talking about, those 24,000 acres. And the New Deal era civilian conservation corps built a lot of trails. It became a natural area, you know, officially in the 1970s, but there are these trails there now. Not like, again, like you said, not like a lot of state park trails that you go to. Uh, a lot of these trails are still pretty rough.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Um, the prison, uh, stayed open, but what, why we're telling you all this is for a couple of reasons. Uh, one is at one point in the race, they navigate through a, a tunnel, like a little water channel that goes under the prison, and that's part of the race route, uh, where you're definitely going to get your feet wet. Um, I don't think we mentioned you're running through rivers and things, so like wet feet and it's just a part of the, the challenge of this race.

• 15:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Uh, but the prison remained open and James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., uh, was sent there with six other men. He escaped in 1977 from Brushy Mountain and spent 54 hours in that rugged terrain, uh, eventually being, uh, recaptured about eight miles from the prison.

• 15:26Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  And- Lazarus Lake, old Laz, Cantrell, heard this story. Heard they made it only eight miles in that 54 hours. And he said, man, I could travel 100 miles through that terrain in 54 hours. So he invents this race, sort of inspired by this. He said that he still gets hate mail every year and angry letters for people that think it's some sort of tribute to James Earl Ray. And he's like, no, it's the opposite. Like it was started because I'm making fun of the fact that this guy only made it eight miles and we're doing 100.

• 16:04Josh Clark?

  Right, right.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  130, really.

• 16:07Josh Clark?

  You want to take a break?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's take a break. We know the name of the marathon. We know where it takes place. We know who started it and where it came from. And we'll be back with more of the Barkley Marathons right after this.

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• 21:13Josh Clark?

  So, like you said, I think in 1977, James O'Rey escapes and Cantrell lived in the area. He said it was big news at the time. So he was aware of this. And a few years later, he and his friend Carl Hen, known as Raw Dog for reasons that I don't want to ask about. They decided- I don't think it was in 1985. I don't think- You don't know? All right, you're a good point. So they decided to hike into the state park. This is a place where he's like, okay, like, we could totally do so many more than eight miles in 54 hours. Let's go check this out and have fun. And like you said, most of this area are not- Nature trails where like there are signs posted. There's a path you can look down and follow.

• 21:57Josh Clark?

  Like, these are hard to find trails that you need to know how to use a compass, a contour map, like all you have to, you have to be good at orienteering is what it's called.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 22:08Josh Clark?

  In addition to hiking and putting up with all sorts of terrible, just uncomfortable stuff and pushing your, your limits. So these guys were like, let's just go for a fun hike for a day.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they showed up there. There was a park ranger that was like, you guys should leave, like you shouldn't be out there. It's like, it's not like you think you're going to get lost, you're going to get hurt, you're going to need rescue. They ignored him. They did make it through. They did an eight mile.

• 22:39Josh Clark?

  They didn't even like, know his, his existence.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, he just walked right by. They made this eight mile hike, this loop, but it took them a full day, which is, you know, you're, you should be able to hike much more than eight miles in a day. And it required a lot of orienteering, like you said, and paying attention to that kind of thing. And he said, all right, I think I have an idea here for a race. Let's make a nearly impossible to finish race. I think it's kind of hard to tell because there's not, there's not a website for this. You can't get like historical, I mean, people have written about it since then, but you can't get like the official website documentation on this race and history because it doesn't exist. They keep it very much under wraps.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  So the way he tells it on the documentary, it was always supposed to be 100 miles, but no one ever did more than the first three loops out of the five.

• 23:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  I think though, maybe this first version was shorter. It was about a 50 to 55 mile course. It was held over April Fool's Day weekend, 1986. And the initial cutoff was 24 hours with 13 participants and zero people finishing.

• 23:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And this is just a 50 to 55 mile version. Like you said, officially the, the current Barkley Marathon is 100 mile. And in reality, it's also like 120 to 130 miles based on reports from people who've actually run it, right?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he changes the route every year a little bit. That's why it varies. But the year they did the documentary, it was documented at 130 and everybody is like, "It's not 100. Just stop saying that."

• 24:19Josh Clark?

  So the first version, like you said, is three loops. And it wasn't until two years after the first one that somebody completed it. And I mean, we're talking like dozens of people attempting this. And it took three times before one person finished. And there was something about this that I don't know if we've mentioned yet. Just this first version, there was an elevation gain of 24,000 feet. So all of the times you went up and down, if you count all the ups, it would equal 24,000 feet in elevation that you've climbed over these three loops. And that is a lot. And in fact, the guy who finished, Frozen Ed Furtow,

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:05Josh Clark?

  He was just Ed Furtow until he won. And then from then on, he was Frozen Ed Furtow.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:10Josh Clark?

  He thought that there was a misprint in Ultra Running Magazine that the elevation was actually 2,400 feet, not 24,000.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I guess we can go ahead and tell everybody, the current iteration, like we said, is supposedly 100, but it's really more like 130 miles. It's got a 60-hour time limit. And the elevation is, the total elevation climb over that race, if you finish it, is 60,000 feet, which is equivalent to walking up and back down Mount Everest twice.

• 25:44Josh Clark?

  Yes. Yeah. So yeah, the total elevation's 120,000. Because yeah, if you go up 60,000 feet and you're coming back down, you got to come down 60,000 feet. Yes, it's harder to climb up, but it's not that easy to go down too, especially if you're on an incline. And that's a big part of it too, is sliding into things like briars and saplings.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:06Josh Clark?

  It's rough. Like just watching like the effects on some of the runners' bodies and like what they were coming back to camp looking like was

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 26:15Josh Clark?

  Pretty bad. Some guy had like a head wound and they show him like slipping on rocks and hitting his forehead. It was really, it's nuts what these people are doing to themselves.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, their legs are all just, because these briars, they have to go through one part, which is a really heavy briar area. But Every single person's legs are just thrashed.

• 26:36Josh Clark?

  Like, it looks like ground meat.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, like disgusting, bleeding. Their feet are disgusting and blistered and just riddled with... I think the one guy that, um, we'll get to the stops, but the one guy, they were like, "It would take you eight hours to fully dry your feet out." So, you know, you can't, you're not gonna get dry feet.

• 26:57Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Which is a big problem. Uh, and, and they're basically not sleeping.

• 27:03Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Uh, when you, when you complete a loop, you have what's called an interlooper period, where you can do whatever you want. You can take however much time you want to get, uh, you can get first aid, you can eat, you can drink, you can rest, you can change your clothes and socks.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Uh, you can take a nap if you want, but that clock is still running. So, how long you wait is, is up to you.

• 27:23Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Uh, I think the, the winner that year said he slept about an hour total. So, just try staying up and awake for 60 hours in a chair.

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  Without drugs.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. These people are, are doing this and, you know, we say it's a, it's a run. Like, a lot of this is hiking and bouldering and walking and crawling.

• 27:46Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Uh, so it's not like they're running the whole time, but it's just brutal.

• 27:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really is. One of the other things that really kinda gets us across too is, is in what you said. So, you're, you've got 60 hours to finish and from the start, the clock's always ticking, right?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:01Josh Clark?

  But you're going 130 miles. So, if you do the math, uh, Olivia helps us with this and she pointed out that...

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Thank goodness.

• 28:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you could sleep for two eight-hour nights and still finish this course at a 20-minute mile pace, which you, you can basically do on your hands and knees and still complete it within the 60-hour cutoff. So, the fact that some people can't even finish the first loop...

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:26Josh Clark?

  Goes to show you how difficult this is. That if it were flat, it would be beyond easy. But those same, those same, um, limits, the time limit and the, um, length put on this, this particular terrain or in this topography is just, it, it changes absolutely everything.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Um, I, this 12-hour time limit per loop must have come in after the documentary, right?

• 28:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that confused me too because they were finishing in like 13 hours and something like that. I didn't get that. So yeah, I think it must have been a new one.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. So finishing the three loops, if you finish three loops, that is considered a fun run and that is a designation and that is a huge accomplishment.

• 29:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Just to finish the fun run. We should add, he also has a Baby Barkley in the Fall, the Barkley Fall Classic, which is a 50K, so 31 miles, and that has about 400 runners. But only about 35 to 40 participants are allowed per year to compete in this thing because of, you know, it's out in nature so that the state won't let them have like hundreds of people. Like, not a ton of people can go watch. It's just like family and I think some, you know, former winners can be there. And it's, you know, it's a pretty small operation because they just can't, you know, run roughshod over the area. But

• 29:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  They have the 60 hours to complete. Now, 12 hours per loop. The first loop is run clockwise. The second loop, which is at night, will go counterclockwise and then again, day/night, clockwise/counterclockwise. And then this is pretty devious. The final fifth loop, if you get there, the first person to finish the fourth gets a choice which way they want to run. And then they start splitting people up because almost everybody runs with a buddy or two. It really, really helps to have someone out there and they're really helping each other. But at the end, he's like, "You're gonna lose your buddy. Which way do you want to run?" And the first person will say, "I'll go clockwise." The next person has to

• 30:29Speaker 02

  go counterclockwise and then they alternate. So at some point, if they finish that fifth loop, they're gonna pass their former buddy going in the opposite direction.

• 30:39Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah, and in the documentary, Cantrell points out like these, by this time, these people who had like formed serious bonds by running together

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Oh, totally.

• 30:49Josh Clark?

  on these loops are now direct competitors. Like now it's a race because they're in the fifth loop and whoever's gonna finish and what time they finish at

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:57Josh Clark?

  is going to determine the actual winner. Like now there's a possible winner.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:01Josh Clark?

  And everything changes. So I don't, they probably don't like clasp hands and then, you know, they're pulled apart, you know, sadly, when they have to go in different directions at that point.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's probably, it makes it a lot tougher, but I get the idea that if you make it, if you're one of the maybe Two, maybe three, maximum four people that are even on the fifth loop. Then that's when things get serious, isn't it? That's when it turns into an actual race.

• 31:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, that's what I took it as too. And one thing that I didn't get, I got from context. I didn't see it anywhere because I guess it's so obvious. No one thought it needed to be spelled out, except me. But it's the same loop, right?

• 31:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:43Josh Clark?

  Okay, so they're doing the same loop five times, which is why they do it clockwise and counterclockwise and different ones at day and night, so that you can't just be like, yep, I remember this. This is nothing. Now I remember exactly what the trail is. You, you're, you're super disoriented the first time, but it's not like you have it down pat after that first loop necessarily.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it definitely doesn't seem like it gets easier because they were finishing, when they were fresh legged at loop one, they were finishing in about eight or nine hours for the fastest times. And then those fastest people were doing like 12 and 13 hours on the next loop. Through the darkness.

• 32:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  And we should mention the, the weather, you know, it's with these huge elevation changes, you're going to go from temperatures, sometimes in April, in the eighties, where it's low, to like 10 degrees at night. They have about 100 gallons of water they put out randomly on the course. Like there are no technical water stations, but you'll just happen upon a jug of water. And, and Laz said that, you know, one year they were 108 pound blocks of ice because it was 10 degrees at elevation.

• 32:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  It's just crazy.

• 32:55Josh Clark?

  I say we take a break and talk about how you would get into this race and then what it's actually like running it.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 33:01Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 33:18Josh Clark?

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• 34:20Speaker 02

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• 34:29Josh Clark?

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• 34:36Speaker 02

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• 34:45Josh Clark?

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• 34:56Speaker 02

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• 35:04Josh Clark?

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• 35:23Josh Clark?

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• 35:43Josh Clark?

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• 37:11Josh Clark?

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• 37:44Speaker 02

  All right, so we're back. The race is about to begin. We should point out, too, the other thing to keep in mind is if you quit, quit near the start-finish line.

• 37:54Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Because like a lot of people finish like a loop and they're like, "I'm out." Or maybe the two, where a lot of people get to that third front run and they say, "That's good enough for me." The one guy in the documentary quit and it took him 10 hours to navigate back. Because it's not like they send somebody out. You don't tap out on radio and they come and get you.

• 38:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  You just decide, "I can't do this anymore." And then you very slowly walk back to the finish line.

• 38:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and at some point, you might as well be like, "Well, at least I guess I'm gonna have to finish the first loop. I might as well keep going that direction."

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, totally. Or if there, I mean, it depends on where you are. If you're below the halfway point, a lot of people come back the way they came.

• 38:34Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah. So going even back before the start of the race, you said that the Barclay Marathon has no website, and that is intentional. The whole thing is meant to be kept largely a secret. There's not a website. There's not like some information on, "This is how you apply." You have to use basically your investigative skills just to figure out Gary Cantrell's email to email to ask to apply. And they make it really, really hard to apply for this because in part, they're just weeding out people who don't have even the beginning of the motivation and dedication

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:16Josh Clark?

  to complete this race. Like if you can't even go to this trouble to like really do your research to figure out how to apply,

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:24Josh Clark?

  then don't even bother trying to apply.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  There's no website? No thanks.

• 39:28Josh Clark?

  Exactly. And if you do want to apply, you have to cough up a dollar sixty.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a non-refundable application fee. I think most people send in two single-dollar bills because he says they don't give change. And he, every year, he chooses a range of people. Some of them are very experienced, some of them are random. Every year, he chooses one human sacrifice that he said the runners even appreciate, even at the expense of not getting in themselves. He chooses one person that has no business being there. In the year of the documentary, that poor guy made it six hours.

• 40:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  And I knew as soon as that guy headed out in his camouflage cargo pants.

• 40:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  I was like, this guy, what is he doing? What's he wearing? So he didn't make it very far.

• 40:19Josh Clark?

  No, he didn't. And he was like, this is, it's six hours, man. Like, he didn't make it very far at all.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 40:26Josh Clark?

  And this guy was way more qualified to do it than like the average person. Like, it wasn't like he was just some, like, he went and plopped the guy out of McDonald's, like, mid-bite of a Big Mac and threw him on the trail.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 40:40Josh Clark?

  This guy was in pretty decent shape. And he thought that he had a chance. It's not like he's like, yeah, I'm gonna go be the sacrificial human.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 40:48Josh Clark?

  He thought like he was going to try to complete it. He didn't even, I don't even think he made it halfway through the first loop, did he?

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I don't think so. No, it was pretty funny and sad. He took it on the chin like a, like a, like a big boy, though.

• 41:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Yeah, imagine if he'd started like yelling.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Right. You just brought me out here to make fun of me. Uh, a little bit more about the application process. Everyone knows it takes place generally around April Fool's Day. They send in an essay to get in with weird prompts. Like, one year, it was what's the most important vegetable group. One of the women, I think she was in the documentary that year, Beverly Abs, who, by the way, that year, completed the fun run, so quite an achievement. She said, she was told to send the application in exactly at midnight on Christmas Day in the time zone where Lazarus Lake was. So she had to figure out where he was at the time. And then she wrote a poem as her essay, and she got in.

• 41:49Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  And then, once you get in, you get a letter that says, "I'm sorry to inform you that you have been accepted." Basically misery awaits you.

• 41:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's the whole, the whole jam, the way that it's treated is like you're, like you're not going to finish, you're a dummy for even trying. There's this weird kind of push-pull going on that, that Gary Cantrell established basically out of the gate, that's based on his kind of impish sense of humor.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:18Josh Clark?

  And so that means that like you're just as likely to be abused or mocked when you like quit as you are to be told like, hey, you completed one loop, that's pretty good just in and of itself. It just, I guess, depends on what his mood is right then. And a lot of people like aren't, don't really like this guy that much. Like if you don't, if you're not tuned into his sense of humor, you're probably not going to like him. You might find him obnoxious or, you know, might find him just mean. But if you are tuned into it, I think he's, he's pretty funny. Like reading about him on paper and reading interviews with him, I was like, I don't really like this guy.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:56Josh Clark?

  And then I saw him in the documentary, I'm like, oh, okay.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Same.

• 42:59Josh Clark?

  He's, he's just hard to translate into a description. When you see him talk yourself, you're like, oh, yeah, he's, he's fine.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's, he's one of the, the great eccentric's of the world and sometimes those people are hard to, to pin down, you know, because they don't fit into a box.

• 43:14Josh Clark?

  I know, but he has to.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Some other fun things, if you're a first time runner, you bring a license plate from your home state or home country and he makes these cool signs out of them and hangs them up. If you, you have to bring a gift as well if you were a part of the race. If you are a first time runner, you have to bring an article of clothing. And the documentary was very funny. He said, it kind of depends on what he needs. One year it was a bunch of white Oxford shirts, another year it was socks, another year it was flannel shirts. And then if you have finished the race and you come back to race again, you have to bring him a pack of Camel cigarettes.

• 43:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the Camel cigarettes play a big role because the start of the race is marked officially by him lighting a cigarette. So everybody's standing there at this gate, that's the official starting line for the race. And just standing there waiting for him to light the cigarette. And he finally does, and it's like a random time. I think it was like 8:11 a.m. when the whole thing started. And he lights a cigarette and everybody takes off.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, when you get accepted, you know what day it's going to be on. You go, you camp out in the campground, and you're just sort of waiting for him to blow the conch. He blows a conch. Sometime between midnight and noon on the Saturday of that weekend. You don't know when it's coming. So if he blows it at, you know, 7 a.m. or sometime in the morning. You're up all night. You're not getting sleep because you're so amped up and ready for this.

• 44:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  And apprehensive because you don't know when it starts. Again, he's just sort of messing with people.

• 44:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  And so when he decides to blow the conch, he blows the conch. That means you have one hour. And everybody, you know, starts getting ready to go at that point. There is no prize, we should also mention.

• 44:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  The prize is just finishing this thing.

• 45:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, there's bragging rights for sure. Like if you told any ultra marathon runner, you know, trail runner. That you completed the Barclay Marathon, like they would drop to their knees and start kissing your rings.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:16Josh Clark?

  Like it's a big deal to have finished this. And yet there's also like, from Gary Cantrell's perspective, from everything that I've read. The way that he describes it is like, he's giving people an opportunity to push themselves to their maximum possible limits. Because remember, this race is intended to be just inside the possible, the human.

• 45:41Josh Clark?

  The possibility of the human body, right?

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:43Josh Clark?

  So if you can complete it, like you're doing all sorts of things that you never thought you were capable of doing. Like your mental endurance is among

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 45:51Josh Clark?

  The greatest of people walking around.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:54Josh Clark?

  Um, and so, yeah, it's a, it's way more than just bragging rights. Like if you're, if you're into bragging rights, you're probably not even gonna finish the first loop. Like if that's why you're doing it and you somehow got accepted, it's not gonna translate. So these people don't care about bragging rights, even though they, they would have bragging rights for life.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Totally. I like that one dude, the, the long haired guy from Arizona. In the documentary, that, that was his first one. Uh, he just had a cool vibe, like everyone had a pretty cool vibe. Like it's a really, it has a great spirit of, of, of helping one another out. And during the interloper periods where they're, which is by the way, the only time they're allowed to have their sort of aid crew with them, like they don't, you know, they can't get help along the way.

• 46:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  So, uh, this is when they see other people and there's other former winners there. And when people drop out, they stick around and they're really helping people get their, their feet together. And they're giving them dry socks and, uh, feeding them. And it's just a real great spirit of sort of camaraderie and helping one another out, it feels like.

• 46:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Cause as people get pared down, the people around them are like, they want to see somebody succeed then.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 47:06Josh Clark?

  Pretty cool.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Uh, real quick, what else as far as housekeeping? No GPS?

• 47:10Josh Clark?

  That's a big one.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Uh, they can wear a little cheap, or they're given a little cheap watch. And I think they banned, uh, altimeters in 2014.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Or 12 or something.

• 47:23Josh Clark?

  Something like that.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:24Josh Clark?

  Either way, you're stripped down to like the bare essentials.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:28Josh Clark?

  Uh, and you have a map, but you don't have a copy of their map. They give you the master map to use to trace the route onto your own map. And if you trace it incorrectly, well, that's TS for you. And people do get lost like a lot. There was one guy who, um,

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 47:44Josh Clark?

  Don't remember what year it was. Oh, in 2006.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:48Josh Clark?

  This guy wandered off the course and spent 32 hours trying to get back.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 47:53Josh Clark?

  And in the end, he only was, he only did like two miles of the actual course. He wandered so far off course. So the way he put it, he, he did, um, 16 hour miles in this race.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  God, I felt so bad for that guy.

• 48:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. And then what else Chuck?

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Uh, this is, to me, this is kind of one of the coolest things because the whole time until we had gotten to this part, I was like, well, how do they know that people are running that route? Because they're not staked out along the way. Uh, in the documentary, they had some people staked out a little bit just to get some footage, but it's not like they have people at checkpoints that are making sure they're on the route and all that. He did something pretty lo-fi and genius, which was he puts 10 books out, 10 to 12, depending on the year, uh, at different points along the way. And you have to rip the page out corresponding to your bib number. And that is the proof that you ran the real route. You have to show up with, uh, depending on how many books, 10 or 11 pages.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  When you touch that start finish line and you have to turn them over to Cantrell and he has to look them over and verify it.

• 48:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I'm guessing that they, they, are the books in the same place every time?

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Uh, that I'm not sure about.

• 49:05Josh Clark?

  But I do know that they hide them. They're not just always out in plain sight, like the one of the things you're having to stay oriented. You're having to push your body and endure. And then you're also at the same time having to make sure you don't trot past one of the books. So you have to backtrack and get the page out.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the one guy, the year of the documentary that won and set the record, I think he said he spent a couple of hours looking for the book at one stop.

• 49:29Josh Clark?

  I would lose my mind, man.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:31Josh Clark?

  And also if you're like, well, how do you get the same page 11 times? You get a different bib number for each loop. So you would be tearing out a different page each time.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think there was a story just last year, in fact, there was a French, uh, runner who got to the final loop,

• 49:50Speaker 02

  to find that a book was, was gone. There was a day hiker that thought the race was over and took the book as a memento. So he's like, what do I do? He completed the race and when he got back to the gate, they had turned the book in, so they, they counted that.

• 50:02Josh Clark?

  That's awesome.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:05Josh Clark?

  I've read about one runner too, who I think this, I don't remember what year it was, maybe 2016 or 17. He made it, he showed up six seconds after time.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 50:18Josh Clark?

  And, but he had all his pages and they said like he was just collapsed on the ground and he said, I have all my pages, but he didn't make it by six seconds.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  You know, I bet that he feels a great sense of accomplishment though.

• 50:34Josh Clark?

  I would think so, sure.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Like he finished that thing, six seconds be damned, you know?

• 50:39Josh Clark?

  You'd have to be one hell of a perfectionist to be like, well, I failed.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Technically, yeah.

• 50:45Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  I think there was one more piece of housekeeping here.

• 50:50Josh Clark?

  Housekeeping?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  When a runner gives up, a guy named Dave Hen, who was a race volunteer, plays taps on a bugle.

• 51:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that's Carl Rawdog Hen's son.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Oh, is it?

• 51:06Josh Clark?

  It is.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  Rawdog Jr.?

• 51:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, little Rawdog.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Or the third, yeah.

• 51:12Josh Clark?

  He said, he said that he thinks the reason why is because it's just one final punishment for you from Gary Cantrell, to basically be humiliated with taps. Then on the, on the other side, some runners, when they finish, especially when they, they actually complete the race, he has one of those Staples easy buttons.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:33Josh Clark?

  That they press and when you press it, a voice goes, that was easy.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's really fun to watch.

• 51:38Josh Clark?

  It was.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  Someone just like, on their last leg, literally like, you bleeding at the legs and he's like, hit the button.

• 51:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Because that was easy.

• 51:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the, the guy who was on the documentary was, I think his name was John Kelly, he finished second of two, I think that year, or maybe three. And he, they show him and he's just totally out of it. Like, he's sitting on a, on a chair with people surrounded, surrounding him talking and.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:07Josh Clark?

  He's just in another world, like totally out of his skull, because he hadn't slept at all, like that whole time.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, 60 hours.

• 52:14Josh Clark?

  It's crazy.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Oh man, the one guy that couldn't, in the documentary that, that tapped out and was just like crying.

• 52:21Josh Clark?

  Oh, I don't remember him. Which one?

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. That was tough. He had kind of dark curly hair and he was pretty pumped up going into it about his chances. And, uh, yeah, I mean, what can you say about a race where like, whatever, probably 98% of the people never finish it?

• 52:36Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Maybe more, maybe 99.

• 52:39Josh Clark?

  That was a, um, well, yeah, so I think officially 20 out of 1,000 plus people have finished. So I'm sure we have some

• 52:49Speaker 02

  There's math.

• 52:49Josh Clark?

  6 graders who can calculate that for us and send it in.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Uh, let me see, last, I'm sorry, this year, there were a record five people completed it. And that is, I, I think the maximum before that may have been three, maybe four, but usually it's one, maybe two or zero. Uh, last, I'm sorry, this year, a woman was a finisher for the first time, Yasmin Perris. Or Perry, I don't know how she pronounces it. Uh, she came in two minutes short of the deadline to finish that race.

• 53:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So she finished with two minutes left, right?

• 53:23Speaker 02

  That's incredible.

• 53:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really is. And one of the reasons it's incredible is because Gary Cantrell, this is another reason a lot of people don't like him. For years and years and years, he would say publicly, there's no woman out there who could possibly finish this race. And, um, you know, he was criticized for saying that kind of thing because there's plenty of amazing women marathoners and ultra-thoners and trail runners. And he defended it by basically saying, if a woman could defeat this, it would be exactly the kind of woman who would need to hear somebody say something like, a woman would never be able to complete this.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got, yeah, and I don't know if I'm being an apologist, but I got the idea that a lot of that was sort of goading

• 54:07Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Someone to finish, like

• 54:09Josh Clark?

  That's how I took it, too.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, deep down, he's like, there's going to be a woman that's going to do this, and maybe I need to stoke the fire a little bit.

• 54:15Josh Clark?

  Right. So finally, yeah, I think Jasmine Perris, I think she's a, she's a Brit who teaches at the University of Scotland. Did you say that part?

• 54:24Speaker 02

  No, I also said Yasmin Perry, so.

• 54:26Josh Clark?

  I know. I was just gently correcting you.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm sure it was Jasmine Perris.

• 54:30Josh Clark?

  Yasmin Perry.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Who else? In 2024, a mechanical engineer named Jared Campbell became the first four-time finisher. He's in the documentary. And an interesting, just sort of side note in this, and Livia pointed it out, but then when you watch the documentary, it really hits home, is that it seems like this race and ultra-marathon-ing and this sort of endurancing attracts people of very, very high intelligence. I felt like every person they interviewed were like, "I'm an engineer, I'm a scientist." And they talked to, almost called him Barkley, to Lazarus about this, to Cantrell in the documentary, and he said, "Yeah," he said, "those are the achievers in life. Those are the people that go to

• 55:14Speaker 02

  graduate school and go to get their doctoral thesis, and people who set hard goals and accomplish them, it just sort of fits." And I never really thought about that tie, but I don't think there's a lot of dum-dums that do stuff like this.

• 55:29Josh Clark?

  No, although you kind of have to be a dum-dum to do it.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  It's a weird dichotomy.

• 55:34Josh Clark?

  Yep. I say we finish on the story of John Fegaveresi.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  All right, let's hear it.

• 55:40Josh Clark?

  He was a runner in, oh, I don't know what year he ran, but he was an experienced ultra-marathon runner. He participated in the Badwater Ultra Marathon, which runs through Death Valley, 135 miles.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:57Josh Clark?

  And he was like, "This is, that's nothing." I'm paraphrasing.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:01Josh Clark?

  I'm sure he wouldn't say this, but he was basically like, "You can't even really compare the two." And he completed it. And he was so incoherent from sleep deprivation that he apparently didn't remember, like, downing a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, like, at the finish line. He had no idea that he'd done that. And he spent the next day and a half just laying around the campground, recovering. So after that time, he's like, "All right, I guess I'll drive home." And he started falling asleep on the way home. So he had to stop and check himself into a hotel, where he slept for another 16 hours.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Oh, man. That's called human exhaustion.

• 56:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I say we quietly close the door and leave John to his slumber and go on to listener mail.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  I do want to shout out the record, though. Brett Mon, who has won it a few times now, I think. He's a physicist. The record, current record right now is, lies with Brett at 52 hours, 3 minutes and 8 seconds.

• 57:16Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Just incredible.

• 57:17Josh Clark?

  You woke John up.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  That's right. Sorry, John. Go back to sleep. Here's your chubby hubby.

• 57:21Josh Clark?

  That's the best.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  I can't find it anymore.

• 57:25Josh Clark?

  I can't either.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  It's, people say it exists. I get pictures occasionally, emails, but it doesn't exist in Atlanta.

• 57:33Josh Clark?

  That's sad. What did Atlanta do to be so punished?

• 57:36Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't need ice cream anymore, anyway, which is the saddest part of the story. All right. I'm going to call this "Lake versus Pond." We got quite a few emails. By the way, I want to mention one differentiator we saw, said that the difference they heard between lake versus pond is if sunlight can reach the bottom, if it can, then it's a pond. If it can't, then it's a lake. But this comes from Mark. "Hey, guys, the answer, I think, depends on who you ask, but as an ambassador from the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota, which is technically 11,842 lakes, perhaps I have a bit of clout. Most folks would assume the difference has something to do with size and depth. It's not quite that simple, though.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  According to a 2012 CBS News article, retired DNR water supervisor Glenn Yakel suggests that a lake needs to be large enough and deep enough to allow for wave action, to be considered a lake, that can clear vegetation from its shoreline. A pond, on the other hand, lacks this wave action, meaning its shoreline is typically surrounded by vegetation without clear boundaries. But, guys, it gets even more complicated. Government agencies often have regulatory thresholds that lead to discrepancies per state. For example, here in Minnesota, with our 11,842 lakes, has fewer lakes than Wisconsin, and any Wisconsinite will gleefully point out that they have 15,000. But here's where the differences come into play.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  While they do have 15,000 lakes, their definition includes a body of water with an area of at least 2.5 acres. In Minnesota, our standards are higher. And to qualify as a lake here, we must cover at least 10 acres. If we lowered our threshold to match Wisconsin's, we wouldn't dare dream of it, though. We'd have over 20,000 lakes."

• 59:22Josh Clark?

  Wow, Chuck, I feel more Blake-informed than I ever have been in my entire life.

• 59:27Speaker 02

  For real. That is from Mark. Mark said, "Always a pleasure to listen to you guys with my boys, who are six and seven, and big fans." And Mark had replied with their names, and I'm very frustrated because I cannot find that reply. So, let me just say, Mark and Sons of Mark, thank you for the support.

• 59:44Josh Clark?

  Yes, and I can vouch for Chuck Mark. We just edited out many minutes of him searching for that email. So, he really did give it a try.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Sorry, guys. But they're six and seven, so maybe that's for the best.

• 59:54Josh Clark?

  Right. If you want to be like Mark and his unnamed sons, you can write to us as well. Send us an email to [email protected].

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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