How to Run 314 Miles After a Traumatic Brain Injury

Maggie Gigandet | The Atavist Magazine | June 2024 | 1,712 words (6 minutes)

This is an excerpt from issue no. 152, “The Extra Mile.”

One hundred and twenty runners stood in a clearing overlooking the Mississippi River, listening as a man with a curly gray beard needled them. He checked his watch; an unlit cigarette dangled from his fingers. “Thirty seconds,” he announced to the crowd. “You’re running out of time to change your mind.”

Over the next ten days, these ultramarathoners hoped to cover 314 miles on foot. From the clearing in southeastern Missouri, they’d board a ferry to cross the river, disembark in Kentucky, traverse a narrow corner of the state, then cross Tennessee to finish at the Rock, a cliff on a ranch in northern Georgia. “Remember, the earliest quit was at the Tennessee state line,” the man with the beard said. Someone in the crowd yelled out, “I can beat that.” Everyone laughed. Tennessee’s border with Kentucky was less than ten miles away.

Other than the ferry ride, the participants would have to run or walk every inch of the course. Most wore a hat to protect their face from the July sun and carried a small backpack with water and other essentials. Some stood with a crew, people who would supply them with necessities along the course. Runners without crews were called “screwed” runners. Among them were the Barcelonas.

Todd and Allison Barcelona, 57 and 55, respectively, had completed 20 ultramarathons together. Allison stood with her hands clasped in front of her polka-dot running skirt. Todd’s nerves had kept him awake for most of the previous night, and he felt a little sick to his stomach. But evidence of his grit and the battles he’d already waged in his life was etched into his skin: a jagged-edged divot in his lower left shin.

“Five seconds,” the bearded man warned. A dark wall of clouds encroached on the pale peach sunrise behind him.

At 7:30 a.m. exactly, the man transferred his cigarette to his mouth and lit it, cupping his left hand around the flame to shield it from the wind. He tilted his head back and exhaled a puff of smoke.

“You’re off!” he announced.

Whooping, the throng surged forward. The 2023 Last Annual Volunteer State Road Race was under way.

The beginning of Todd and Allison’s story is the stuff of a sweet country song. They attended the same elementary and high schools in Memphis, where Allison was a year behind Todd. When their friendship turned romantic, Todd asked Allison if she would go with him. Allison asked him where he wanted to go. He still teases her about that.

When they were dating, they mainly stayed home, preferring to save money for their future. Allison’s parents joked that they were “16 going on 30.” Allison finished school a year early to be with Todd; they graduated together in 1984. Three years later they were married—Allison was 19 and Todd was 21.

The Barcelonas welcomed a daughter in 1988, another about a year later, and a son in 1991. After they moved to Atoka, a small community about 40 miles north of Memphis, Allison gave birth to their youngest child, Ashleigh. Allison worked full-time as a paralegal, and Todd as a line mechanic at a Cadillac dealership.

In his mid-forties, Todd was diagnosed with high cholesterol. To avoid medication, he changed his lifestyle. He bought a treadmill and began running. He didn’t enjoy it at first, but it grew on him, and after a while he began jogging outdoors.

Eventually, Todd graduated to races. He enjoyed the camaraderie he felt with other runners. Each finisher medal he received was a point of pride. On August 31, 2014, Todd ran a marathon in Tupelo, Mississippi. His goal was to finish in under five hours; he did that with about ten minutes to spare. Allison ran a half-marathon at the same time.

Whether racing or training, the Barcelonas usually ran separately. Allison liked to run with friends, while Todd kept to himself. It might have stayed that way if not for what happened on September 29, 2014.

During their workdays, Todd and Allison stayed in touch. That afternoon, Allison called Todd to let him know that Ashleigh, the only Barcelona child still living at home, wasn’t going to her guitar lesson as planned. When Todd didn’t pick up, Allison assumed that he was still working. But when she looked at the clock a little while later and saw that it was almost 6:30, she got worried. Todd always called her by six.

With Ashleigh standing next to her at the kitchen table, Allison called her husband again. A male voice she didn’t recognize answered. She still recalls how it felt hearing a stranger on her husband’s phone: “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”

The man asked her who she was, but she didn’t respond and repeated the question to him. The man said that he was with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and that Todd had been in an accident. He was at a hospital in downtown Memphis. Allison felt sick.

Allison hung up the phone and turned to Ashleigh. “Dad’s been in an accident,” she said. “We have to go.” Ashleigh said nothing, and mother and daughter got in the car and left.

As Allison drove, she and Ashleigh were both crying. They began pleading with God aloud. “Lord, please, please keep him here,” Allison prayed. “Please don’t let this be his time.” Later she recalled, “I told Him I couldn’t do life by myself.… We still needed Todd.”

En route to the hospital, Allison tried to take the Austin Peay Highway into Memphis, but it was closed. She didn’t know that it was because of what had happened to Todd.

After getting off the ferry, the Barcelonas climbed a ramp to a two-lane road and strolled past a blue “Welcome to Kentucky” sign. Rounding a curve, they passed a cornfield, ears heavy on the stalks. Vol State, or LAVS, as this ultramarathon is sometimes called, winds through urban and rural communities. The course’s terrain is also varied—sometimes flat, sometimes steep.

The Barcelonas, like most of the other race participants, walked to start with, because speed isn’t the most important factor for a successful finish in Vol State. With such a sizable distance to cover, most racers gain little by bolting ahead and tiring themselves out. The key to Vol State is the ability to put one foot in front of the other, hour after hour, day after day. “Many will fail,” a website advertising the race explains. “But, for those who find the steely will and muster the sheer dogged tenacity to overcome the impossible obstacles … [it] can be a transcendental experience.”

Nonetheless, participants would need to manage their pace, because per the race’s rules, Vol State must be finished within ten days. At 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. every day, runners are required to check in via their phones to report mileage. A spreadsheet tracks their progress, and among the names in the document, one always stands out: Oprah. That is the moniker given to the minimum pace—15.7 miles every 12 hours—runners must maintain to stay in the race. Every morning and evening, Oprah advances up the spreadsheet, and any participant whose name falls below hers risks disqualification if they don’t hustle.

Quirks like Oprah are one of many attributable to Vol State’s founder, the man with the beard at the starting line. Even the full name of the ultra—the Last Annual Volunteer State Road Race—is an inside joke. Amused by race directors who, confident about the long-term prospects, declare an inaugural event the “first annual,” Vol State’s founder decided to dub his the last. (It’s now been run for more than forty years.) The founder once explained his choice to call the minimum pace Oprah: “She is real life. A world of celebrities and politics and ‘luxury.’ ” In other words, she represents the world the runners had left behind when they entered Vol State.

Even the founder’s name has a peculiar backstory. Born Gary Cantrell, he began using Lazarus Lake online years ago for privacy reasons. Now he’s equally well-known by his self-anointed nickname, or Laz for short. In the ultra world he’s a legend: a showman whose long, grueling races, designed with signature flair, have attracted a devoted following.

As the Barcelonas and other runners headed toward Hickman, Kentucky, the first town on the Vol State route, a boxy van approached. This was the meat wagon—another race fixture, driven by a woman named Jan. When runners fell too far behind Oprah, or if their willpower was simply crushed, they’d call Jan and wait for her to deliver them from the course. For now she drove alongside the crowd, a harbinger of what would be the runners’ greatest obstacle: the temptation to quit. Then she honked and drove on.

Chatting with two other runners, the Barcelonas entered Hickman. Todd stopped to take a photo of a black-and-white mural of Mark Twain. The author had once described Hickman as “a pretty town perched on a handsome hill.” Touches of Twain’s pretty town were still visible in the decorative brickwork and keyhole doorways of buildings along Hickman’s main drag, but few places seemed to be occupied. One structure, a popular hotel of yore, stood out with its horseshoe-shaped entryway and windows running the length of its facade. “LaClede,” the name of the shuttered hotel, was painted above the door.

Time and creativity were invested in building Hickman. Now it was a shell of its former self.

On the afternoon that changed his life, Todd was driving home from work in his sky blue 1994 GMC Sierra truck. He had purchased it used and lowered the suspension so it sat closer to the ground. It did not have airbags.

Todd approached the intersection of Austin Peay Highway and Old Brownsville Road heading north. A Shell gas station, fields of crops, and stands of trees filled his view. The light ahead turned yellow, and he continued through the intersection. A gray Honda Accord driving south made a left at the light at the same time, failing to yield the right of way. It smashed into Todd’s truck almost head-on.