Here’s the thing: one of the principal differences between the “marathon” and the “beyond” (besides the distance) is the terrain. The vast majority of marathons happen in cities and towns on pavement, but the vast majority of ultramarathons happen in jungle. Well, let’s just say they’re mostly trail races that generally wind their way though big parks, remote rural areas, and bad footing. (Kind of like “jungle,” no?)

Another difference is how you get there and what you do before the big race starts and after it’s over. In cities and towns, there’s no problem. You book a room, or you stay with friends, or they farm you out to their friends, or you have no idea where you are or in whose crib you’re shacking. In the big woods, however, it’s different. There may still be rooms available, but you’re going to have to drive awhile. Nah, you don’t want to do that. The much better option is camping.

Camping doesn’t get much airplay in a magazine devoted to exertion (running), because the actual activity of camping involves no activity at all. (You generally just vegetate.) But camping is important nevertheless because you cannot be running all the time. You will stop. Trust me. And after you stop running, say, a hundred miles, you’re going to want to vegetate right there. So that’s why camping is perfect!

Certainly this is true for most ultras and many trail marathons that take place in national, state, and even local parks. For some ultras in such places, it’s a horrible inconvenience not to camp. In Danville, Illinois, for example, at the park where the annual Howl at the Moon 8-hour ultra takes place and in which camping is otherwise not allowed, exceptions are made and even encouraged. If you’re running (or crewing) the Howl, you can camp right there in Kennekuk Cove County Park for two nights (one before and one after the race) for free! Any kind of camping qualifies, too, from tents to vans to motor homes (but there aren’t any hookups). There are also two park buildings that are kept open those nights, so you can still camp even if all you have is a sleeping bag.

© Tom Marriage

▲ Runners and their crews can camp for free at Kennekuk Cove County Park in Danville, Illinois, before and after the annual Howl at the Moon 8-hour run.

A course surface for every taste By the way, the Howl makes a perfect race for your very first marathon or ultra, because you have eight hours in which to log as many miles as you can. Everyone proceeds around a three-plus-mile loop and all laps are counted and distances measured, so you can stop at the approximate marathon distance or continue on into ultra land. The terrain is many terrains—paved road, dirt path, trail, grass, gravel, even wood planking and straw!—so thus you can determine your preferred surface for exertion.

As you move “up” in your running life—or laterally, from marathon to ultramarathon—you might decide that, as the conventional wisdom goes, “trails are softer on your legs and feet.” I personally don’t believe that (there are desert “trails,” for example, harder than concrete, and rocky trails worse than urban renewal) but who am I to say? I just like to go where they tell me, start when they say so, run where they indicate, and stop before they make me (ideally after having first crossed some kind of finish line). So it was pretty natural for me to progress from 26.2 miles to 50K (31-plus miles) to 50 miles (and beyond), wherever such races are held. Most of the time this means woods and huge forests, and that of course means campgrounds.

It might be hard for most runners to fathom, but most of the waking world does not run its butt off every chance it gets. In fact, originally Teddy Roosevelt

and associates set aside big parks and forests for leisure-time activities—hunting and fishing, yes, but mostly just lounging around the campground grilling burgers and wishing your girl was with you instead of your fellow lodge members. This just in: women—normal “civilized” women—have traditionally not shown much interest in male lodge silliness. So over the years (since at least Roosevelt), hunting and fishing and “roughing it” has been the domain of men, to the chagrin of both sexes. In my experience, however, the toughest gals on earth are runners and ultrarunners, and so to them this paragraph does not apply—which is good, because they too can handle camping.

Nothing beats a folks’ wagon In moving from friendly miles on confident asphalt to outrageous distances on silly mud, rocks, and places where poisonous critters live, I myself first found trail marathons and ultras in Michigan and Wisconsin. Near Ann Arbor, for example, you can run a marathon or half-marathon in the mud inside the Pinckney Recreation Area where, in fact, you can also camp. There even used to be campground-type rituals before the race to, uh, get you in the mood, such as who can tell the scariest story, whether “ghost” or not, “running” or not, or anything relating to the nearby town of Hell, home of the Dancing With Dirt trail ultras. Naturally, any camp-town races are always more exciting to listen to around campfires than to actually go out and run.

In Wisconsin you have the gigantic Kettle Moraine State Forest. It is so vast, in fact, that it has been divided into two parts: the Northern Unit and the Southern Unit. Each of those units is huge enough to hold a hundred-mile race! And you can camp all over the place in the Kettle Moraine (but only in designated areas, of course). My first forest exposure was the annual Ice Age Trail 50-miler, and my mentor who dragged me there (kicking and screaming?) was a die-hard camper. He and his wife used to make it their vacation a couple of times a year. In spring was the Ice Age 50, a little later came the Kettle Moraine 100, and in the fall was always the Glacial Trail 50M and 50K. The first two are always held in the Southern Unit, while the latter event takes place in the Northern Unit with, of course, kampfung über alles.

Wisconsin is chock full of German immigrant history, and that has been proved by our own beloved ultrarunning German, Hans-Dieter Weisshaar, who has traveled around Wisconsin and indeed the entire United States in his very own “Hansmobile,” or “Weisshaar Wonder Wagon,” which is in fact an imported RV from Europe. The importance of traveling around in your own ideal camping van to all these far-flung racing venues where camping is encouraged cannot be overstressed. This is the most ideal mode of travel/lodging ever invented by running man (and woman). I myself have spent nights inside the Hansmobile before

Photo courtesy of Chuck Bundy

running 100-milers such as the Kettle Moraine. It was fabulous. Imagine camping without ever having to set up camp! Your little house comes with you—including your little icebox, propane stove, sofas, closets, toilet, shower, and bunk beds in the back. You cannot believe the monetary savings over motels that such conveyances can convey over some years of traveling around in order to run around.

Before Hans and his mobile, there was my mentor, Chuck Bundy, and his van. It quickly dawned on me that traveling to distant venues by airplane, then car renting, and then motel staying is the least preferred way to run long races. The best way is to camp, and the best way to do that is with your own camper. Chuck had his van (first one, then another to replace it after years of use), and it, too, was conveniently outfitted with bed, closets, icebox, space for additional sleepers, and a little portable stove. Many a night before an ultra I was privileged to spend inside that folks’ wagon.

In a pinch, of course, almost any van for camping will do. Before Hans-Dieter shipped his Italian Fiat Hobby RV over here (yes, on a ship from Germany to Baltimore), he took an interest in my old used Dodge Caravan and thought he

▲ Chuck Bundy sitting in his specially outfitted Dodge Maxi-Van somewhere out west. Inside are a large bed, an icebox, several closets, and a portable camping stove—perfect for traveling around the United States and running trail races and ultras.

might like to buy it. He liked how the back seats could be removed and the trucklike space made into a living area—well, sleeping area. I refused all offers, of course, because I seriously needed that sleeping area. I still do, although now I have a newer Grand Caravan in which the back seats all fold down into the floor. Perfect for camping!

Van modification is practically a given among runners who own such things. Ultrarunning mensch Mike Dobies, an automobile engineer from the Detroit area, has very effectively reengineered his van into a kind of double-decker bedroom. He built a convenient wooden shelf halfway up the space, upon which is a comfy mattress and under which is wonderful storage area. The beauty here is that, unlike most vans where you first need to rearrange all your gear to make room for your sleeping bag, in Mike’s van nothing has to move! You simply sleep on the bed above all your gear! Genius!

Anyone who has seen the inside of John DeWalt’s van might not, however, use the word “genius” or even “engineering.” No, John’s van is a hodgepodge. A very full hodgepodge, complete with every sort of apparel, accoutrement, nonrefrigerated foodstuffs, and dietary supplements ever conceived on the face of this earth. John’s a vegetarian and former owner, in fact, of a health food store. He knows everything there is to know about healthy eating. Let the facts state the proof: John’s now in his 70s, and he still finishes the annual megatough Hardrock 100-miler in Colorado, where you must climb 12 mountains over 13,000 feet, up and down, and 11,000 feet is about the average elevation. So, who am I to argue about John’s apparently unkempt van?

Not so easy, rider! In my wild and reckless youth, I figured that the best way to travel coast to coast was by motorcycle. (I think I was more than incidentally inspired by the movie Easy Rider.) My claim to fame as a kid was actually riding one all the way to Alaska—which, from Chicago, is a 6,000-mile ride one way. It was also my wild and stupid reckless youth: I had no tent with me! Many a night alongside the Alcan Highway, I snoozed with the moose in a bag under the stars or rain. I very quickly learned the value of shelter.

Imagine my surprise years later to witness another motorcycle camper. Yes, with my own disbelieving eyeballs I watched Tom Possert roll into the Big Cove Campground at Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park on a Harley! First of all, that’s the place where just about the toughest ultra on earth takes place, so to do this on a motorcycle with just a little tent and zero comforts of home, you’ve got to be about the toughest human on the planet (which, for my money, Tom is). I can’t imagine—couldn’t then, and still can’t now—desiring to risk riding through storms, packing next to nothing, to get to a place where you’ll probably

have to run through storms and have no comforts once you’re done. That must be the definition of “tough.” The main point of camping is to be so close to the start/finish that you don’t have to drive afterward, but the number two point is to have as much comfort as humanly possible (spacious tent, bulky bag, foam rubber, pillows, and all kinds of clothes, sandals, and clean underwear to change into afterward inside that tent). If you travel by motorcycle, you can kiss all that comfort good-bye!

But perhaps Tom himself was inspired by more than a movie. For years I have heard Chuck tell me about some old ultrarunner (nobody seems to remember his name) who always traveled by motorcycle and always rode with his dog. He apparently rode vast distances, using just that mode and accompanied by just that mutt, to run such races as the Leadville Trail 100 in Colorado. “It was a chow,” Chuck said, “and it sat right behind the guy on the seat with his snout on the guy’s shoulder, holding himself there without being strapped down or anything else.” I would have loved to witness that, but it was before my time.

I cannot leave the topic of motorcycle camping without bragging some more. It just so happened that my first cross-country (Canada) ride took place in the summer of 1974—the very year that Gordon Ainsleigh got off his horse and ran that erstwhile 100-mile horse-race distance from Squaw Valley to Auburn, California. I later met Gordon at the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run (in 1997) and told him about my motorcycling. In ’74, on my way back from Alaska, I happened to show up at Squaw Valley just two months after Gordy’s historic accomplishment. Little did I know!

But of course, I was really no kind of motorcycle rider compared with Gordy himself. He promptly revealed how during the ’70s he would ride a Kawasaki (I think) up Devil’s Thumb to cache water jugs near Michigan Bluff! I could not imagine this and (with jaw dropping to floor) told him so. Let me explain. Devil’s Thumb is a sheer canyon wall with a trail starting from some river and going straight-the-hell up for something like a mile. If anyone besides Gordy were to try riding a Kawasaki up the Thumb, that rider would fall over backward.

By the way, Squaw Valley is the start of probably one of the few 100-milers where you can’t camp. They want to rent or sell you time shares in all the Squaw’s condos. So, disregard the last paragraph.

A whole chapter ought to be devoted to Egor One slight step up from motorcycle camping is back-seat-of-car camping. I know of several ultrarunners who do this. One is David Hughes of Kokomo, Indiana. David likes to brag that, unlike me, he fits comfortably sprawled lengthwise on his car’s back seat. So, he can sleep there—and does!—and this allows him some terrific accommodational flexibility. He can—and does!—park almost anywhere

the night before a big race, which means he doesn’t even need to seek out a campground. But there are also some slight risks involved, such as the sheriff. Any car parked overnight by, say, a trailhead, side road, or Hardee’s parking lot is subject to the same window-knocking-and-flashlight-shining that many of us may have experienced as teenagers parked on lover’s lane. I myself have been awakened by just such a sheriff at just such a time on just such a lane in Walworth County, Wisconsin. No, not for “sucking face” but for trying to get some sleep before the Kettle Moraine 100. (Note to future runners there: you can park overnight in the Nordic Lot only after the race has started; not before, and not once it’s over. But there are bona fide state forest campgrounds within a few miles of Nordic.)

Other characters besides yours truly known to have camped inside cars and, yes, trucks (!) include Egor Egan and Lazarus Lake (aka Gary Cantrell). Egor, I’m told, was a pretty good ultrarunner “back in the day” who used to drive thousands of miles with his pet and camp in the back seat—which was all covered with newspapers and, some say, bear grease. According to ultra veteran Marv Skagerberg, “If I recall correctly, he covered his entire body with Vaseline against the cold and ran in shorts in all weather. His car, in which he slept, was filled with Vaseline-soaked newspapers. All in all, he looked a lot like a homeless guy with a beat-up old car. “

He also had a dog,” Marv continued, “I think a shepherd. No problem caring for the dog during a 50-miler or even a [New York City] multiday. He just turned it loose in Flushing Meadow Park and told it to forage in Queens for a few days, which it apparently did successfully, as it always returned when Egor was ready to leave.”

Gary (Laz) remembers Egor’s infamous lean when he ran. After each loop in a multiloop race, Egor would apparently run right into his car, fall down, crawl to the front of the aid-station table, and pour fluids down his throat while on his knees. “At the end of the table,” Gary says, “he would clamber to his feet and stagger back out onto the course, fully tilted and barely moving. Of course, by the end of the lap he was running like a maniac again. If I remember correctly, he got 50 miles in just over nine hours running that way.” Gary’s overall evaluation? “Egor’s greatest service to the ultra community,” he said, was “when he attended a race, just for a little while the rest of us got to feel like we were normal.”

Chuck Bundy also recalled the king of lean. “It was because he was so tall!” Chuck (perhaps kiddingly) exclaimed. “The man was huge! He had to lean all the time to keep from hitting his head!” DeWayne Satterfield remembers that particular nearly naked leaning, slamming, crawling, and drinking method of Egor’s and adds this about that same race in a different year: “The temps were in the upper teens. Egor blasted away from us for the first 400 meters before slowing. He was wearing shorts and a short-sleeve

shirt. As I passed him, he quipped, ‘Pray for shade; I’m going to die in the heat.’ I was bundled with two pairs of gloves and several layers of clothes.” DeWayne also recalled yet another possible hazard of back-seat camping: “After the race that day, Egor told me of once missing a race because he passed out from carbon monoxide leaking through the floorboards of his car.”

Your very own customized camper Don Adolf is an ultrarunning veteran who, I think, got started running whenever the first humanoid did. I know him fairly well because he’s a friend of Chuck’s and is now retired from the Chicago Park District. Don’s the guy who used to have the keys to the beach houses that used to serve as warming houses during lakefront ultramarathons during the winter. And they weren’t messing around. My very first ultra was a 50K in February during temps in the teens with a six-hour cutoff. I ran 6:09 and came back to the beach house to find the door locked and my runner’s bag tossed out in the snow.

Don has since become my hero because he travels the country going from race to race and ultra to ultra by camping inside his little red pickup truck. He doesn’t exactly have a truck only but a little camper unit that fits on top of the truck’s flatbed. He practically lives in the camper. No address, no telephone, monthly

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pension checks mailed to some PO box, and . . . need there be anything more? This is paradise, no? Certainly I know other ultrarunners who’ve thought so. One told me specifically that what she wanted to do most in life was finish her career, buy a little camper, and spend her retirement “just like Don Adolf.”

Our aforementioned running legend and present-day multiultras race director Gary (Laz) Cantrell’s ode to Don is his own flatbed truck—would you believe a Willys Jeep from World War II?—which Gary has outfitted even less comfortably than Don has. After first completely rebuilding and restoring the thing, Gary then invented a sleeping space in the back by fashioning plastic PVC plumber’s piping into a kind of cage over which a big, heavy tarpaulin can be secured. Gary then puts a nice comfy mattress inside that space and goes to sleep—generally as seldom as possible. The first any of us normal, happy campers saw this blue monstrosity was at Barkley a few years back. We were at once appalled and amazed. Laz, however, was unfazed. To your basic Tennessee redneck man of genius, a contraption like this for camping is nothing short of perfect.

And maybe Gary’s setting a trend. At the very latest edition of Virginia’s Massanutten Mountain Trails 100, where camping is allowed and encouraged, I personally witnessed yet another pickup truck outfitted like Lazarus’s with the box and

▲ The author’s (borrowed) tent set up next to another camper’s pickup truck specially outfitted with framework and tarp for sleeping—after the fashion “invented” by Gary Cantrell of Barkley fame.

the tarp under which the runner slept. Otherwise the ranch was surrounded by RVs and motor homes and quite a few tents, into one of which I myself crawled. For indeed, the mark of the true running camper is the tent.

Dim lights, no city At any big park or national forest or the like wherever there’s just naturally a campground, you can always pay the fee and pitch a tent. Some places are so backwoods, or “primitive” as they call it, that you couldn’t drag your house bus in there if they suddenly, instantly transformed the road into an interstate highway. Some areas where trail races are run are just so remote, so Jeep-road-ish and overwhelmingly muddy, that you don’t even want to drive your car there—in which case, you will be glad you flew into the nearest airport and rented one

The annual Carl Touchstone Mississippi 50M/50K/20K is just such an oftenmuddy place, happening during the spring monsoons in the DeSoto National Forest. I recall with fondness Carl himself and none other than the renowned Norm Klein helping to push my rental out of its parking place one year. In fact, that Mississlippery race is the one venue I know with this unique claim to fame: the forest rangers actually shut the race down—twice!—due to rain. So much rain came down that the creeks swelled to raging rivers with water depths well over

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most runners’ heads! The rangers figured they would be saving lives by stopping the race. I myself thought it had suddenly become a triathlon. Probably the race that most ought to be shut down (and indeed politicians have tried to do just that) is the infamous Barkley Marathons (plural because there are what amounts to five of them for the full race) at which you absolutely must camp in order to participate. The whole thing begins and ends at a small public campground inside Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park and Natural Area. The camp only has room for fewer than 50 campers (doubled and tripled up on sites), so that’s why the event can accommodate so few participants. Of course, if you’re in your right mind, you don’t want to do this anyway.

Despite whatever you may have heard or learned about this “race” (the term is used loosely), it’s the camping that makes it the most fun. It’s a relatively rustic campground (no electric hookups, for example, except for recharging laptops and cell phones in the bathhouse), so most folks sleep in their cars or vans or pitch tents. The other amazing fun part has to do with race headquarters (campsite number 12) and its ever-blazing campfire on which is cooked that other infamy: Barkley chicken. The reason for the chicken is a “scruffy, unkempt Tennessee chicken farmer” named Barry Barkley, after whom that race is named. Mr. Barkley annually donates about a ton of his fryer quarters, and most every runner there can eat such to his or her heart’s content—especially after he or she quits the race. And make no mistake: every runner (except eight) in the 20-plus-year history of

▲ Carl “Rawdog” Henn tends the 2008 Barkley Marathons’ campfire. Note the full rack of infamous frozen and uncooked Barkley chicken.

the race quits running the race. It may just have the greatest DNF percentage of any footrace in history! But, for sure, it’s got the most fun, the coolest camping, and the best chicken!

What Would a Camping Article Be Without Camping Tips? Here are a few things about camping that you don’t want to ignore, fail to prepare for, or forget: 1. Always check your intended race’s Web site or seek info about it in

magazines or elsewhere—especially if it’s touted to be a “trail” race. Note the location, environs, parks, available camping facilities, and fees. 2. Unless you’re backpacking along the trail itself (not recommended if

you intend to run a race, not always possible, and not always legal!), you would be best advised to contact the campground and make reservations well in advance. Realize that campgrounds are generally

fairly small and always limited in space. 3. If you’re flying and then car renting, be aware of exactly how much camping gear your airline will allow on the plane. And these days you may be charged extra no matter how little you bring.

4. Be aware of car-rental issues, like restrictions on who’s driving, where you can and cannot drive to, not running out of gas in the middle of the forest, and how much tent gear and other stuff will actually fit in

the car. Don’t rent the cheapest, tiniest go-kart available and expect to drive it over Ophir Pass on the Hardrock course, for example. You may very well need a Jeep, van, SUV, or Hummer! 5. If you are planning to camp, it’s almost always better not to rely on

public transportation; just drive your own Jeep, van, SUV, or Hummer. (Hey, if you own a gas hog in this day and age? Shame on ya!) 6. Know how to erect your tent before you get to the campground. You

might get there after dark, and you could seriously be in trouble if it’s a brand-new tent still in the box—especially if in addition to pitch dark it is also pouring rain. 7. Bring cash, and in denominations smaller than $20 bills. That way,

if you do arrive at the camp after dark or the office has closed, you

Rich Limacher photo

▲ This fairly massive temporary housing unit, complete with east and west wings, was set up on the lawn of the Skyline Ranch in Front Royal, Virginia, presumably to accommodate 2008 Massanutten Mountain Trails 100-mile runners.

can still claim a campsite (if available, or you’ve reserved one), but it will be on the honor system. Just about every park will have an unmanned drop station where you can fill out a site-claim form, put

cash for your first night into an envelope, and then deposit it through the slot in the station. Then, after you wake up the next day, be sure to check in at the office to pay for all additional nights’ stays. Other

wise, you will be approached by a ranger. Your camping experience will always be much more pleasant after you pay the man. 8. Bring a pen or pencil! The reason is obvious (reread number seven) because sometimes at those unmanned drop stations, there’s nothing to write with.

9. Don’t forget to bring your personal “stuff.” Campgrounds aren’t motels, so you will not find supplied towels or little shampoo bottles. You must bring your own towels, shampoo, toothpaste and brush,

shaving gear, and soap. 10. Don’t forget water, or empty jugs to fill with water, because you will need it at your site for stuff like cleaning up, brushing your teeth, washing all the plastic silverware you’ve stolen from McDonald’s,

and filling your water bottles or CamelBak bladder before you actually start running your race. 11. If you need any more hints or tips than these, you really shouldn’t be camping. Check into the nearest Motel 6 instead.