His name was Emile and his stories beggared belief: living with Aboriginal peoples in Papua New Guinea and the Amazon and competing in six or seven-day-long ultramarathons. I’d never heard of anything like that...
Articles by Jared Beasley
As running gear gets more sophisticated each year, the idea of “naked running” has become a thing. In recent terminology, it has come to mean simply running without a watch. But races fitting the t...
It’s just past midnight on a night in June, but Nathan Echols is awake in a sweat. I’ve got to get back, he tells himself, sitting on the edge of the bed. The kid still burns inside him, the one who’d do anything to w...
He fought in Vietnam and Korea. He was a Mormon-turned-Catholic priest who went by Bill or Wolfgang or Wolf. He was an ROTC instructor, an exorcist and paranormal researcher. He was a radio host. He was a runner. And, ma...
On the first day of the Sri Chinmoy 3,100-mile race, Trishul Cherns was just settling into a comfortable pace when he felt a pair of animal eyes locked on him. The hungry, curious stare was from a skinny...
It was the middle of the night in 2004, and Su-san reached for another “Dora Choco,” a Japanese treat made with two pancake-like castella cakes sandwiching a chocolate core. She’d brought exactly 24 to the Czech Repub...
In 2017, journalist Charlotte Helston had been hunting an ultrarunning urban legend for months. It seemed she was out of luck. Some said he was the most elusive man in North America. Hyperbole for sure. But there was...
They always come when there’s no sleep. The simple ones. They start in the port-o-potties: everything pulsates – the exhaust pipe spins – the urinal thrusts forward. It’s 2013, and 54-year-old John Geesler is on the th...
November 2016 – approximately 1:30 a.m. – Mark Twain National Forest Deep into the Ozark Trail 100, Kimmy Riley hears another noise. It sounds like gibberish. This time it’s on the right side of the trail. She hushes...
Mauro Prosperi was lost in the Sahara Desert, guzzling his urine inside a marabout, a long-forgotten Islamic shrine, occasionally used by the Bedouins. He sat atop a mound of sand blown in from the storm, a gaggle of...
Patrick Macke was slowly slipping into an altered state known only to the highly drugged or the deliriously over-exerted. The last communique from his crew was that there was a motel 30k from Melbourne and the finish...
Al Howie was on the lam from Interpol and living as an illegal alien in Canada when he became one of the most stupefying runners in history. From 24-hour runs to six-day races to 1,300-milers, Howie ran on pavement in...
In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, the ultra-trail scene quietly lost a piece of its bedrock. Friends and family were led into an ordinary hospital room to say goodbye to a very unordinary man. Angiosarcoma of the...