How a B.C. man won one of the world’s most gruelling marathons

E3 And we are still gathering your spring break survival tips for parents 236-330-2623. Now even in the world of ultra marathons, the Barclay Marathons in Tennessee are infamous. This is about 100 miles. Runners have just 60 hours to finish the race. Last week, our next guest became not just the first Canadian to complete it ever, he won the whole thing. Ihor Varis is back home now in Chilliwack in the Fraser Valley. Ihor, Hi there. Congratulations to you. Hi, Gloria. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me back in your show. Well, goodness, if you keep winning, we’re going to keep having you back. This, this is amazing. I’m. I’m amazed you’re even recovered to the extent where we can have this conversation. I mean, I kind of undersold this race. Just what does the Barclay Marathons actually entail? Yeah. So Barclay Marathon is an ultimate endurance challenge where there’s only a small amount of people get invited every year, around 40 people or so. It’s it’s a mystery basically, so it’s hard to get in. Nobody knows how to get in, but every know everybody knows about the existence of this race. So in essence, you cover this 2630 mile loop, nobody knows exactly in the Frozen Hat State Park. Most of it is off trail. You end up gaining around 4000 meters elevation gain every single loop. It’s nonstop. There is no aid stations. There is no support. You’re in the loop. There is no GPS watches involved. There’s no phones allowed. So it’s just old school map and compass you and the forest and other runners there. And you do 5 loops of that in order to complete Barclay marathons. Oh my goodness, now we know. Some years no one finishes this race, right? But this year, five people completed it, including the first woman. What can you tell us about Jasmine Paris? Yeah, Jasmine made history, and I’m just so lucky to be able to witness it. She became the very first female to have ever completed Barclay marathons. She had only 99 seconds to spare. If you think about it, 60 hour event comes down to seconds and she did it. She’s the female from UK, she’s one of the strongest athletes I’ve ever seen in my life and she deserves it so much and I’m so proud that she was able to finish it and prove the race director wrong. Who always said that the females cannot finish this race. Way to go Jasmine. There you go. Now is it the same course every year? So no, it’s maybe half, some portion of it is the same, but it is changing and every time there is a finisher, the race director likes to make it harder. So every year it’s actually progressively getting harder. So some sections of the course remain the same, but there is always changes to the course and we do get the some sort of instructions the day prior and the master map to have a look at just a few hours before the race starts. My so why do you think five people were able to to complete the race this year And when, you know, as I pointed out, sometimes no one manages to finish in time. Yeah, I think it’s a number of factors. Well, first of all, we were very lucky and fortunate with the weather. It wasn’t raining. Usually when it’s foggy there, it’s really hard to navigate. You cannot see anything in front of you, but we locked out. We it didn’t rain, it was not foggy, The temperature was fairly low. It did get a little bit warm during the day, but that’s nothing compared to foggy conditions. Second factor would be a number of good athletes. There are so many strong and solid veterans who have done this race before, including Jasmine Paris because she attempted it twice and this is her third attempt. And there are other strong runners in the mix. And we worked together for as long as we could, which is for loops. And on the 5th loop, we’re not allowed to be in groups anymore. We have to be alone. We have to figure it out on our own. But by the by the 5th loop, we kind of figured out the course and you know, as much as it’s possible. And yeah, by helping each other, we were able to achieve this, I guess, historic finish. Five finishers never happened before. Yeah, but let’s put this into perspective. What was your total time? Ihor, it was 58 hours, 44 minutes, 59 seconds, 58 hours, 44 minutes. Like think about that. We know that during this race some runners can take short naps. 10 or 15 minute naps. You posted, you did not sleep one second. How is that even possible? I guess the body achieves what the mind believes, right? And I had experienced previously previous time we chatted with you when I went with it with almost with little to no sleep for four nights. So in comparison this event I had to skip only two nights, so I guess it wasn’t as bad. Granted, the exertion level is different here because you have to push, climb and descend a lot of the solid effort. But yeah, for some reason, I mean, I was getting sleepy a little bit here and there, but it wouldn’t stop me, you know, from keep going. And sleep deprivation wasn’t actually a big issue at this race for me. Oh my goodness, I don’t know how you do it. Well, what was for you the the hardest part of this race? You know, everything, everything came to into place. I feel, I feel like all the training paid off and everything I worked on. Some point my feet started blistering. The bottom of them developed trench feet. So it’s basically like blisters at the bottom of my feet. Because of all the wet conditions and not being able to change socks frequently enough. I would do in only 1213 hours every time I would complete the loop and unfortunately it wasn’t, you know, soon enough for my feet. I guess my skin is so weak and so it blistered a little bit and I ended up just suffering through for I guess almost 20 hours with those feet. But again, in the grand scheme of things where so many things could go wrong, like nutrition, you know, or your body conditions cramping, nothing like that happens. So I was thinking about it, you know, if I just suck it up for a little bit for those painful feet, it’s not a big deal, you know, compared to what could have happened potentially. How are your feet and and how are you? It hasn’t even been a week. Yeah, thank you. I, I’m feeling really good, you know, getting lots of sleep, sleeping a lot, you know, 9-10 hours. Sometimes I’m catching up on all the missed sleep. My feet are feeling much better. I can walk, even drug, but I force myself not to just to make sure I I fully recover first. Before. Yeah, well, when I talked to you in October, I certainly didn’t imagine we’d be talking about you doing another race so soon. What’s next for you? I’m almost afraid to ask. Ehor you know, nothing crazy planned. At least just going to do a few races in Canada. I’m going to travel across our beautiful provinces and exploring the trails here and, you know, supporting local race directors and doing their local races and you’re going to get some sleep in between. I hope that’s right. No. Yeah. For those races going to be 100 KA, 100 miles. So nothing really crazy like Berkeley. Oh my goodness. Well congratulations again and thank you so much for making time for us. All the best in your, in your recuperation. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Blurry. Always pleasure talking to you. That’s Ihor Varys. He’s this year’s winner of the Barkley Marathons, and he’s now back home recuperating in his hometown of Chilliwack. What amazing, amazing endurance.