Articles by Gary Cantrell

The Math of Finishing

There is probably nothing in sport less appreciated than finishing. Not finishing the way we usually think of it in ultrarunning—the act of crossing the finish line—but “finishing” meaning to close out a performance. The...

Transitive Property

There was a big Backyard Ultra that took place in Brazil and the top four backyarders in the country were all there. Each of them had a breakthrough performance in the past year, pushing the national record up and up. Gr...

Miles on the Centerline

If there is one thing we all think we know, it’s how far we’ve run. Daily, millions of runners look at their map, GPS watch, phone, treadmill monitor or a variety of electronic devices, and carefully record the...

An Acquired Taste

Adventure. Isn’t that what drives us to do these crazy things called ultras? What is an adventure anyway? Some like to say that it is not an adventure if you know how it will turn out. And that is true. But maybe ther...

What it Means to Quit

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend an Australian rules football (ARF) game. The basic rules of the game were not hard to follow, although the finer points eluded me. It was a game where the decided underdog jum...

Hallucinations

Howie Stern It was my first ultra that went all night – 24 hours on a quarter-mile track. Having heard all about the hallucinations that runners got during these long races, I was not surprised when I s...

Fear of Failure

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 great things. It stands between us and limitless possibilities.

Fear of Failure

It haunts us. It limits us. It leaves our dreams unrealized and our hopes unmet. It stands between us and limitless possibilities. It is our nemesis, but we seldom recognize it when we see it. Consider this oft given...

A Journey Run

There is a lot of information to be found on the topic of training for ultras. You can find advice on everything from the food you eat to the socks you wear. There are guides for every step of training mileage. You ca...

Misery

“Why is it that everything you enjoy doing seems to involve an extended period of misery?” At first, the question really made no sense. What misery? Sure, it was about 110-degree heat index and we hadn’t slept in 36 h...

Closing a Race

One of the most underrated aspects of an athlete’s performance is closing. Whether the sport is golf or ultrarunning, all the training in the world, the best pacing, the best nutrition—none of that matters if the athl...

Don’t be a WOTTE

They used to call ultrarunning a subculture. But we have grown. As a matter of fact, we have grown so much that now there are subcultures within the subculture. Prominent among these is the aid station subculture. It has...

The Art of the Death March

We used to have a saying about running ultras, “You can only gain minutes, but you can lose hours.” Maybe that old saw is still around. If it isn’t, it should be. It holds a lot of truth as an “either-or” choice. It h...

Pride in Performance

Sometimes it feels as though ultrarunners have a particularly perverse way of viewing the sport. For some reason, we seem to take pride in our incompetence. I guess that sounds rather harsh, but think about it, how ma...

Footprints of an Ultrarunner

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 ultrarunning, one way or another. Leave the footprint you want those who follow to see.

How to Finish Your Own Barkley

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 and prepare yourself to eliminate wasted time. Most importantly, you must maintain the effort even when success doesn’t seem possible.

The “Trail” Wins the Barkley Marathons

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 failure of the temperature to reach above freezing during the race – both the weekends, before and after, it had reached into the 70’s. Most of all, just knowing the nature of the Boundary Trail, we shouldn’t have even tried. But we did.

The Ultrarunning Calendar

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 running calendar has become a part of social media. I think the value still distills down to the same essential ingredients: the numbers and the compulsion to improve them.

Trans“con”: Following Robert Young’s Record Attempt Across the U.S.

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 this run in California, Robert Young and his transcon were not even a blip on my radar.

High dive (or a week before the big race)

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 of nerves.

Whether There’s Weather

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 the forecast. Of course, it really makes little difference if we are headed to a race. Having invested our children’s inheritance in the entry fee, we’re going to go no matter the weather.

View from the Open Road: Behind the Sticks

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…

You Might Be An Ultrarunner If …

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, but, just as there are Americans, and Southerners, there are runners, and ultrarunners, and:

The Night Before

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 sheets with hyperactive bladder and bowels and cold sweaty feet and hands. Most of all, I wish that tomorrow held something other than an early rise and a day of exceedingly painful effort. Ah, well. close the eyes, breath deeply, and please, please, go to sleep.

The Boring Ultrarunner

Your great victories seldom make entertaining stories. What people want to hear about are your appalling errors and grievous miscalculations.

The Borg

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 a laser beam. Even at a race held on a paved, certified, one-mile loop, the race director was accosted by runners during the event, swearing that the loop distance was far more than a mile… their GPS measurements proved it.

Heart Of A Champion

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…

For The Challenge

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 might come across as a throwaway line. But the truth is, there are many nuances to the challenge of running ultras.