He said he was just an old hillbilly from East Tennessee. When parting I told him I was happy to have met someone IвЂ™d admired since I first heard of his crazy races long ago. IвЂ™ve been told вЂњhe likes Camels, whole chocolate milk, liver cheese (spicy greasy burgers will do), and Dr. IвЂ™m sure he would appreciate the company if you want to join him for a while. You can track LazвЂ™s progress online and check his planned route. Knowing that many otherwise ordinary people managed to run more than 3,000 miles across the United States may have given him broader perspective on whatвЂ™s possible and impossible. But unlike many of us, he kept on exploring his limits. Like most of us, Cantrell ran in high school and then went on to road racing and marathons. Cantrell took up running as a boy when his father did, and that was when jogging was the new thing in 1966. But he said he knew all about that race because his father grew up next door to Andy Payne, the winner of that 1927 race. Cantrell said he was not, although heвЂ™d coincidentally used many of the same roads in Ohio and Indiana. It was a stage race and traveling circus from Los Angeles to New York that was a huge media event in its day and largely forgotten decades later. I wondered if Cantrell was following the course of the 1927 Trans-American Foot Race, nicknamed the вЂњBunion DerbyвЂќ. I also discovered a remarkable coincidence. HeвЂ™s seen much of the country but this route will help fill in many of the parts he hasnвЂ™t seen. ( Link here if embedding doesnвЂ™t work on your device)Д¬antrell is following US Route 20, starting in Newport, Rhode Island, and finishing in Newport, Oregon. He does, however, have a tongue-in-cheek cause to promote at approximately 55 seconds into this video: You donвЂ™t ask an ultramarathoner why he is doing what he does because we all know the answerвЂ¦there really isnвЂ™t any reason. We canвЂ™t tell them exactly where the finish line is, just when they havenвЂ™t gone far enough and when theyвЂ™ve gone too far.вЂќ When he found out I am a math teacher he told me about the longest race he directs, the Vol State 500k.

Cantrell is an interesting guy and вЂњshyвЂќ and вЂњquietвЂќ have probably never been used to describe him. Still, heвЂ™s going at a respectable speed for a guy with serious back problems who has been putting in 30 miles a day for more than a month. Age and injuries mean heвЂ™s doing it at a slower pace than he would have back then. Gary is in his 60s now and, as a serious ultrarunner himself in the 1970s and 80s, had once thought about running across the USA. I pulled over, parked my car along the side of the road, and walked back to meet them. The one on the right I immediately recognized as Cantrell: bushy beard, and white shirt that likely had once been part of a race entry fee. So I drove west for an hour, and a few miles into Indiana I came over a hill and saw two men walking along the road. By the time I knew what was going on heвЂ™d already walked through my hometown of Toledo and was crossing the state line out of Ohio. He is walking across the entire USA and has nearly 1,000 miles under his belt so far.

Yesterday a birdie told me that Cantrell was passing through my neck of the woods. Cantrell is the creator and director of that race, possibly the most difficult in the world.

Maybe youвЂ™ve heard of him through the excellent film The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young. I just walked for an hour with Lazarus Lake.

Lazarus lake