
BARKLEY
SADISTIC RACE, A New Trail Film By Linda Sanders
BARKLEY
SADISTIC RACE, No pain, no gain, no GPS.
YEAR
2020
LENGTH
1:47
LOCATIONS
Frozen Head State Park Tennessee
LANGUAGES
English
Producer & Director
Linda Sanders
Editor
William Gazecki
Music
Rok Mardin
Sound
Sam Aronson

Synopsis
It is one of the world’s most punishing races, fueled by extraordinary traditions that require letters of condolence and deep personal sacrifices. The Barkley Ultra-Marathon features 40 hand-picked athletes running 100 miles with the steepest vertical climb known in any race. Sometimes the race starts in the dark of night and nearly half the time, the race ends with no finishers. “Barkley, Sadistic Race” visits the different personalities that subject themselves into this suffering to try and explain why every March, they line up at the starting line and begin their adventure not with the firing of a pistol, but with a cigarette lit by the race’s controversial founder.
Lazarus Lake is the brilliant, eccentric and enigmatic founder of the Barkley Marathons. In 1977, James Earl Ray — the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. — escaped Tennessee’s Brushy Mountain State Prison and was caught within 6 miles. Laz, at the age of seventeen, dismissively remarked: “I could do at least 100 miles.” Now, every year dozens of runners navigate the woods of Tennessee attempting to do exactly that.
Trailer

LINDA SANDERS
Film Director
IRun4Ultra founder Linda Sanders is an awarded film-maker, philanthropist, athlete, advocate, and mother. Now, IRun4Ultra has produced four award-winning documentaries in only two years, with more on the way. They cover races and running events across the globe, release short-form video content on YouTube, and publish informative and inspirational content on their website.
Their aim is to cement their status as ultra-running’s most prominent film and media production group, and with Sanders leading the way, there’s little doubt that they’ll reach the finish line.

William Gazecki
Documentary Filmmaker
William Gazecki film producer/director documentarian earning an Academy Award nomination a second Emmy win and one nomination for an Oscar for his first feature documentary, WACO: The Rules of Engagement. William is also a recipient of the International Press Academy’s Golden Satellite Award for Outstanding Feature Documentary — an honor he received for his second feature documentary, Reckless Indifference.
With five completed feature length documentaries, several educational series and numerous awards under his belt, William Gazecki is showing no signs of slowing down. After completing his work as the Picture Editor for the feature-length documentary Vanishing of the Bees in September of 2009, he has relocated from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Just prior to leaving Los Angeles, William was invited into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He now sits on the judging committees for both the Oscars and the Directors Guild of America Best Documentary Director award.
