Failure has a unique place in our lives. We do not want to fail. It is painful. It is embarrassing. And it is absolutely necessary if we are to accomplish …
Author
Gary Cantrell
Gary Cantrell
Gary Cantrell writes the “View From the Open Road” column. Gary has written for UltraRunning more or less continuously since his column “From the South” first appeared in Volume 1, Number 1 back in May of 1981. He is perhaps most well-known as the founder of the Barkley, a trail race in eastern Tennessee. (Although some would comment that it isn’t really a race, and others would add that those aren’t really trails.) He is also the founder of the Strolling Jim 40 Mile and periodically organizes a 314-mile run across Tennessee, the Vol State Road Race. He is currently the race director of the Backyard Ultra. In the real world he works as an accountant.
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We cannot all have the talents of elite runners, but there is nothing that prevents us from approaching the sport with the same professionalism. You will leave your footprint on …
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The secrets to completing the Barkley, or your Barkley, are not about diet, equipment or your crew. You must learn as much as possible about the course you are facing …
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Rules; who likes ’em? Nobody. Who needs ’em? Everybody. Running ultras is supposed to be fun. The last thing we want to deal with is having a bunch of rules …
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We should have known better… The 13 starters were indicative of what would transpire. The fact that Barry Barkley, the race’s namesake, had to work and missed the event. The …
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The calendar was my first running “tool.” When I began seriously training, a simple wall calendar provided a handy place to record what I had done. These days, the old …
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How we had come to be sharing the intimate moments of a collapsing transcontinental run attempt was quite a story in and of itself. A month earlier, when he began …
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while i was plugging along down the road, today, i was thinking about the time period you have entered. This time immediately before the big race. these are the days …
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No one watches the long-range weather forecast like an ultrarunner. Whether we are planning some long training run or preparing for an event, nothing weighs as heavily on us as …
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The first good advice that most of us receive, regarding the running of an ultramarathon, is to “break it down” into manageable pieces. And good advice it is. Once the…
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With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, but, just as there are Americans, and Southerners, there are runners, and ultrarunners, and:
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What am I doing here? And why did I decide that this was the race to “go for it?” Now I just wish I were at home between my own …
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Your great victories seldom make entertaining stories. What people want to hear about are your appalling errors and grievous miscalculations.
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As best I can tell, the GPS mile is somewhere between eight and nine tenths of a mile as measured by a steel tape, a wheel, a surveyor or even …
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From the greenest novice, to the most seasoned veteran, as ultrarunners, each of us has an ambition of reaching our potential. Whether our goal is to simply achieve a finish…
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It is the number one answer to the number one question we get as ultrarunners… “Why do you do it?” “For the challenge!” The answer sounds so glib that it …
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There really is no big secret to improve our results as ultrarunners. For all the time and energy we expend on nutrition, gear, cross training, and other peripheral aspects of …
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There seems to be a consistent demand for how-to articles on ultrarunning. Newcomers to our joyous sport eagerly seek advice on how to minimize the time spent as novices so…
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From the house it looked just like snow. For 36 hours, billions of tiny bits of ice had poured from the sky. By the time it finished, everything in sight …