📚Book Announcement📚 Back at the Barkley firepit this year – and thrilled to announce THE ENDURANCE ARTIST is now available for pre-order! This rare look into Lazarus Lake will be published by 80/20 and distributed by Simon & Schuster. #BM100🔗bit.ly/3FuwNe5 It began with a question—one that ran through Laz’s life, his races, and my encounters with him: “What makes you quit?” And what started as a simple biography morphed into something else altogether. There’s hard, insanely hard, then there’s Laz’s creations. He’s been called everything from a hillbilly genius to an evil mastermind to “the Willy Wonka of the Woods.” Through jeerleaders, taunts, and non-standardized (often unknown) distances – Laz questions whether our obsession with fairness ultimately limits our potential. His Barkley Marathons is widely regarded as the most difficult and ingenious ultramarathon ever devised. Set in the thorny wilds of Tennessee, runners hunt for hidden books in hills, hells, and hollers. In 38 years, only 20 runners have reached the finish line. His Backyard Ultras upend our notions of winning and losing—a race with no finish line, where “speed kills” and the best finish last. The Endurance Artist offers the reader a ringside seat to these crucibles and punches through the gore to expose a surprising humanity beneath. Along the way, an unflinching portrait of Lazarus Lake emerges – an aimless hippie-turned hospital orderly-turned accountant, who took a simple idea – that failure has to hurt – and made it into an art form. "I was captivated. The suffering, striving, and dreaming of the ultra-community is right there smack up against the unanswerable yet irresistible question: Why does anyone do this? So many insights into Laz and his legacy, while never losing track of the basic mystery of the man." —Tom Foreman, Emmy-award-winning journalist at CNN "Beasley finally delivers the tale so many of us have waited to read, a book as rambunctious, bloody and—yes, beautiful—as its subjects. If you're a runner—you'll devour it. If you're not a runner—you'll devour it. " —Chris Solomon, Contributing editor at Outside magazine “Whether you run or not, you will love reading about the quirky, brilliant, hillbilly genius of Lazarus Lake who, like Bob Dylan, isn’t afraid to experiment. He doesn’t care about expectations or what others think of him. The Endurance Artist will... leave you simultaneously laughing and cringing as you meet a cast of characters as exceptional as they come.” —Marshall Ulrich, best-selling author of Running on Empty and Both Feet on the Ground. Endurance athlete, speaker, and Route 66 UltraRun race director. 📢I'll be covering this year's Barkley for The Guardian. Stay tuned! #TheEnduranceArtist #lazbook #ultrarunning

I plan to be in Bell Buckle, TN next October. On-the-ground coverage. It's going to be epic. It always is.

The Belgian duo has stopped. They completed 124 Yards. 124 hours of running. Ignored 124 chances to quit. A new World Record. 👏

Yard 124. The dynamic duo of Belgium continue. 🇧🇪

I wrote about these two in the Laz book. It was 2023: "Ivo crossed the line, mere seconds left, and staggered backwards into the corral. Laz rang the bell. Ivo stumbled. A competitor caught him, pulled him across the start line...Ivo ran on." 👇 amazon.com/dp/B0DV4NBP4S?lv=…

Yard 123. Ivo and Merijn came in at the first whistle (3 minutes till the bell). A short turnaround and they are back out.

YARD 122 Two Belgian runners, Ivo Steyeart and Merijn Geerts, have broken the World Record in Backyard Ultra. The previous Record was 119, set by Australian Phil Gore. The Belgians continue to run.

Yard 112.

Yard 111 underway in Belgium. Ivo and Merijn return to the course. Between them, they've run 916 miles. So far.

Ivo and Merijn are in from 110. Next up 111.

Yard 110. Two Belgians. Both former WR holders. Chasing 119.

Yard 109. It does go on. What's left? The World Record. Just 10 Yards away. Ivo Steyeart and Merijn Geerts are chasing it. 🇧🇪

Yard 104 is underway. Noll and Dowdle for the US. Course Record is 10 Yards more. 15 for WR.

Yard 103. Dowdle sprinted in with seconds to go. Stumbled around and is now out on the next loop.

Yard 102. Now, it's individual. Each national champion earns a spot in the individual championship to be held in 2027 at Laz's course in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Called BIG'S. So, six runners push on.

Yard 100. This race began Saturday morning.

Yard 98 underway. 4 countries remain. Each has two runners. These are the US, Japan, Belgium, and France. Australia still in second place but have no more runners to score extra points. Team USA in the lead.