Barkley Marathons Runner Wonders if Girls Softly Singing Nursery Rhymes Are Part of Whole Barkley Thing, or What
/
depositphotos.com
A runner participating in the notoriously tough Barkley Marathons who encountered two young girls “in the middle of nowhere” was left wondering whether the children were part of the whole Barkley experience, or what, Dumb Runner has learned.
The runner, Daniel Torrance, reported seeing the girls around 14 hours into the 100+ mile race in Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park, which began Wednesday at 5:17 a.m. Eastern.
“At first, I assumed I was hallucinating,” said Torrance, 32, an ultra runner from Boulder, Colorado. “But no—there they were, just standing together, holding hands.”
“They were also singing, softly,” he said. “I believe it was ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’”
The girls appeared to be six to eight years old, Torrance said, and seemed clean and well cared for. It was unclear who they were or how they got there.
“It was super weird,” he said, adding that the girls didn’t respond when he called to them.
“Their backs were to me the whole time, so I never saw their faces,” he said. “Which was probably for the best.”
A shaken Torrance said he’s still puzzling over the experience.
“I mean, what the hell?” he said. “Were these girls lost? Were they camping nearby with their parents? Or were they part of, you know, the whole Barkley thing?”
Reached for comment by phone, a Barkley Marathons spokesperson whispered the lyrics to “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” laughed, and hung up.
