The race began with 70 runners. By nightfall of the first day, the field had already started to thin.
"You'll wonder how someone can inflict so much pain without a weapon," says the sixtysomething man who goes by Lazarus Lake. He is leaning against a metal barrier on his property in Bell Buckle, Tenn., wearing a red beanie embroidered with GEEZER. He has a bushy white beard, a pot belly and square-rimmed glasses. He looks like a lumberjack Santa.
It is 6:35 a.m. on an October Saturday. In a small clearing, just off an access road, Lake spray-paints a starting corral around a pack of six dozen men and women in tank tops and short shorts.