Gary Robbins on hallucinations and being defeated by the toughest race in the world

In early April, Vancouver runner Gary Robbins lay awake in his tent. He stared at the tarp walls that separated him from the Tennessee wilderness waiting for the eccentric race director Lazarus Lake to light the tip of a cigarette to signal the start of the race.

Robbins was at the 2016 Barkley Marathons, which is actually a 100-miler and is considered one of the hardest events in the world. The race has no set time. Instead, runners are given a 12-hour window between 11 p.m. on Friday night and 11 a.m. Saturday morning with a one-hour advance warning.

On the night before the race, Robbins lay awake knowing he could get the warning at any moment. When he started to run the hardest race of his life, Robbins had only slept an hour and a half. This is one of the many reasons why, since its kickoff in 1986, Barkley has a nearly 100 per cent failure rate –only 14 runners have ever finished.

The unmarked course meanders through the Tennessee wilderness and the route changes every time someone is successful in making it to the end. Runners prove to directors that they make it to each checkpoint by bringing back a page from a book that waits at each one – and once arriving at the points, they have to find the books, which are hidden.

Heading into it, Robbins was quite confident that he would become the first Canadian to make it to the end. He took to Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain for his training, disappearing for hours at a time and running laps up and down the mountain in all weather.

For Robbins, the hallucinations during the race started early. He started to forget who he was running with even though he and competitor Jared Campbell had been together the whole time. “We couldn’t remember who the other was,” he explains.

So it’s not surprising that by the fifth lap – where runners are required to go solo – the hallucinations were getting worse. Robbins started to see mysterious numbers on tree trunks. The sound of a babbling creek sounded like voices of a group of campers. Eventually all water sounds became human voices talking. Then, trees took on the appearance of faces watching him. “It got to the point where anything with two holes in it looked like a face,” says Robbins. “I’m seeing faces everywhere in the forest.” He continued, pushing on past the numbered trees and tuning out the voices. “I was aware of the fact that I was hallucinating,” he says. “I knew how long I’d been awake for. I could rationalize the whole thing. For a bit it was entertaining.” But then Robbins got lost. He hadn’t sleep for nearly 90 hours at this point and while he had come too far, in his sleep-deprived state, he panicked and made a wrong turn. It resulted in him aimlessly making loops in the forest for two-and-a-half hours, unable to recognize the terrain. “As I was getting to the two-hour mark, I knew the race was over. It was a downward spiral mentally and emotionally,” says Robbins.

Because of that time spent lost, he didn’t finish. No Canadian has yet to finish the Barkley Marathons. “It ’s t he ult imate physical and mental challenge,” he says. “I know I have the ability to add myself to that f inisher’s list .”– SM