Lazarus Lake, the ‘Leonardo da Vinci of pain’ behind the world’s cruelest race

In an extract from his new book, Jared Beasley introduces the eccentric figure behind the Barkley Marathons, where runners are terrified and tested in equal measure

For over a century, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary was the end of the line. Built in the shape of a Greek cross, the pale limestone structure had housed the worst of the worst - murderers, madmen, monsters - its bulk hunched beneath a crown of scarred mountains the guards called the fifth wall.

Now it sits empty - cracking and molding and dying. But each spring around April Fool's, on a cold, crisp day like today, a retired accountant appears at its gate. He carries a book with an ominous title and plants it against the back wall. Then sometime between midnight and noon the next day, he lights a cigarette, and the world's most grueling footrace begins.