In The Spell Of The Barkley, by Michiel Panhuysen

Running Book Reviews with Alan and Liz

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In The Spell Of The Barkley tells the story of the Barkley race in Tennessee with its history and traditions, how the author discovered it and became determined to finish the “fun run”, and explores the reasons why participants keep coming back despite being almost guaranteed to fail. The book is a mix of the authors experience and stories of the people he met in the ultrarunning world. A few people he talks about in the book are:

• Frozen Ed; the author of the book Michiel read, and the person who invited him to come watch his first Barkley.
• Jared Campbell; 3-time Barkley finisher.
• Gary Robbins; Canadian ultrarunner who missed the cutoff by 6 seconds when completing the Barkley and so doesn’t count as a finisher.
• Gideon; an ultrarunner and friend who crews Michiel through several races which he ended up finishing in part due to the Gideon’s help.

Michiel Panhuysen is a Journalist and ultrarunner. He is a multiple-time Barkley entrant, having fallen under the spell of this event in the early 2010s when he read Frozen Ed's book Tales From Out There. On each occasion that he entered, the Barkley won, but not because Michiel came unprepared. He ran many grueling races and events including:

• Tor des Geants; a 330 km race with 24000 m of D+.
• Petite Trotte a Leon (on 3 seperate occations); a team event that is far from being a little jaunt through the mountains and requires navigation skills.
• The Legends Trail; a 250 km race through the Ardennes.

If you're interested in getting a copy of the book for yourself, you can find it on Amazon:
https://a.co/d/hQbSVNB

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