"[Gary Cantrell's] backstory is as fascinating as the races themselves, and this is the definitive telling."
Description
A rare look into an enigmatic accountant from Tennessee’s backwoods who morphs into Lazarus Lake, the world’s most notorious race maker.
The Endurance Artist is an all-access pass to the world’s most extreme races and the mastermind behind them, where we witness firsthand the gears, the machinations, the egos, the surprising humanity.
The most grueling and ingenious races in the world are the creation of Gary Cantrell, better known by the nom de guerre Lazarus Lake. He has been described as a “hillbilly genius” and the “Leonardo di Vinci of pain.” His Barkley Marathons is known as the most difficult ultramarathon ever devised, a fight club in the wilderness run in secret. With books hidden in the woods, condolence letters, a cigarette-start, and elevation gain that amounts to summiting Mount Everest twice, it defies convention. Big’s Backyard Ultra pushes human beings to their absolute limit on a four-mile loop that is run every hour, starting on the hour until there is just one runner standing—most recently, a high school teacher who ran 450 miles without sleep.
Author Jared Beasley ferrets his way into the world of a recluse hell-bent on rewriting the rules to reveal a life reimagined and failure reinvented. Laz calls into question our obsession with winning and fairness, success and failure, and whether these ideas handicap potential.
Reviews
"Lazarus Lake may be a sadist, but he isn’t a simple trickster. He’s dealt with medical torture, profound penury, and relentless pain. He’s turned it all into creation and inspiration. He’s also walked across the country three times. I had long known about [his] races, and I’ve been delighted to learn about the man behind them through Jared Beasley’s wonderful book."
“One of the most compelling narratives to emerge from the running world in years... this is a story about human complexity, about the paradoxes we all carry, about how the most interesting lives are often within normal people who just need to be tested beyond perceived limits.”
"This is a truly brilliant book. Even if you’re not a runner, you’ll discover a fascinating story of sport and human endurance."
