Endurance

The “Weekend Reading” posts by Gordon are one of my regular sources of interesting stuff – I know I’ll usually find something interesting there that I haven’t found/seen myself.

A few weeks back, he added a link to this story of endurance (and absolute lunacy) which I found fascinating.

Gary Cantrell clanged a bell at 6:40 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, signaling 70 runners to jog off into the woods on his farm in Tennessee. They had an hour to complete a 4.1667-mile loop trail. Easy. Most of the group finished with 15 minutes to spare. The bell clanged again at 7:40 a.m., and they ran it again. And at 8:40 a.m., and 9:40 a.m., and every hour after that until, one by one, they quit. There was no known finish line. The race went on, day and night, until the bell clanged and only one runner answered.

(That’s the introductory paragraph to the story)

I find myself hugely in awe of people like these – the determination to keep going, at the cost of just about everything, until they simply can’t do any more. I know my own endurance isn’t bad (well, at least in the context of general humanity) and that I can keep on going for a decent amount of time. While I’d never do a challenge like the Backyard Ultra, it’s not the walking/running that would destroy me, it’d be the time spent stopped each hour. If I’m walking (or working, driving, whatever) I can keep on going for as long as necessary. But when I stop, I stop. Restarting is (for me) far, far harder.

Regardless though, the entire concept of running four miles each hour, every hour, without a break – that’s awesome.