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Who is the real Lazarus Lake?
1 Plays3 seconds ago
For most runners, Lazarus "Laz" Lake is the creator of the Barkley Marathons and the inventor of the Backyard Ultra. But after spending a year filming the first authorised documentary about him, filmmaker Paul Mellor has discovered there's much more to the man than his legendary races.
Paul takes us behind the scenes of the documentary and shares what it's like spending hundreds of hours with one of endurance sport's most fascinating characters.
We explore why Laz finally agreed to tell his own story, how his unconventional approach to race directing has influenced the running world, and why he believes running isn't about finding the fastest athlete.
Along the way, Paul reveals the experiences that shaped Laz's outlook on life, from childhood adversity to walking across America in his seventies, and explains why he believes Laz's influence on running will only continue to grow.
In this episode we discuss:
- Why Laz finally agreed to an authorised documentary
- The man behind the Barkley Marathons
- The philosophy behind Backyard Ultras
- Why Laz believes your mind quits before your body
- The real purpose of failure in endurance sport
- The surprising warmth behind Laz's public persona
- What shaped his outlook on life
- Why challenge means more than winning
- The future of the documentary
Enjoy!
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Transcript
Introduction to Paul Mellor and Documentary on Lazarus Lake
00:00:01
UKRunChat
Welcome to the UK Run Chat podcast. Now, today's guest is filmmaker Paul Mellor. Now, Paul's a runner and he's also directing and filming a brand new documentary about one of the most influential figures in endurance sport, Lazarus Lake. Now, to many runners, Laz is known as the creator of the Barclay Marathons, and but Paul's been discovering a very different side to the man behind the myth.
00:00:27
UKRunChat
So in this first of two conversations, We're going beyond the yellow gate at Frozen Head to explore who Laz really is and why he finally agreed to an authorised documentary
The Making of the Lazarus Lake Documentary
00:00:39
UKRunChat
about him. Paul, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us today.
00:00:42
Paul Mellor
Cheers. Thanks for having me.
00:00:44
UKRunChat
yeah really good to have you on and really intrigued to learn all about Laz actually. We've we've seen him in a few documentaries as kind of, you know, being interviewed about his infamous races, but and you've you've spent a whole year following him. so Just tell us a little bit about about who who he is really, and then we can dive deeper during this episode. What what have you learned?
00:01:07
Paul Mellor
Well, crikey, where to start? So, i mean i've been I mean, I've been filming, I've been following him around like in a non-creepy way for from getting on for a year now.
00:01:19
Paul Mellor
um And we've got a little bit of filming left to do. And then the film the filming will be wrapped. ah What did, i mean, that's the thing, isn't it? Is that he's he's been him he's been filmed and interviewed before, but he's never...
00:01:35
Paul Mellor
It's always been around his races or kind of race recaps or kind of athlete stories in particular races. And he's never actually been the hero himself. He's never been the hero of a film or a documentary.
00:01:50
Paul Mellor
um You know, there have been, i mean, for example, there was the the Netflix documentary that was, you know, the Barclay Marathons, the race that eats its young. What was that? 2012.
00:02:00
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:02:01
Paul Mellor
But that he wasn't the hero of that. The race was the hero. And obviously the the story of the race as it unfolds. So, he deserved He deserved to have his story told.
00:02:13
Paul Mellor
that was That was the sort of the the starting premise. It's a story that deserves to be told. It's ah it's an incredibly ah interesting and vibrant story.
00:02:25
Paul Mellor
um it's full of It's full of ebbs and flows. He's not regular, you know, he's not a regular guy. So he's, you know, he's he's got so many stories um ah in anecdotes and and thoughts as well, you know, and sort of opinions on certain things. um And he's not afraid to share them.
00:02:47
UKRunChat
Yeah, and there's a lot of mystery around him, isn't there? I mean, Lazarus Lake is obviously a a stage name, really, isn't it, that he kind of plays to. um Why did he agree to this project, do you think?
00:03:00
UKRunChat
Have you that conversation with him?
00:03:01
Paul Mellor
I mean, you have to ask him that. um But ah why did he agree to it? Well, ah in some ways, I don't think he ever really did. i just like forced myself on him in in kind of one sense. um But we were put together by a ah mutual friend.
00:03:21
Paul Mellor
um So David Callaghan, who's the CEO of um Ultra Sign Up in the US, you know, the big sort of trail running a website forum.
00:03:32
Paul Mellor
And he's a friend of Laz and I'm friends with David. And so we were in Chamonix, we were in the pub in Chamonix, me and David at UTMB 2025. And um he said, I think someone needs to tell this story. Someone needs to tell Laz's story. um And David very...
00:03:53
Paul Mellor
graciously said, I think you're the guy that should do it. um So I was like, yeah, let's have a pint and I'll, you know, another pint and I'll, you know, we'll kind of work it out. And within, within like 20 minutes, I'd kind of in my mind kind of sketched out what a film about Laz could be.
00:04:12
Paul Mellor
And then two days later, I was on a Zoom call with Laz. And classic, you know, Laz, yeah you know, I mean the guy's in his 70s. He's not sort of, he's quite technically proficient, but he's not, you know, he's not that.
00:04:25
Paul Mellor
So I'm on a Zoom call and he can't turn on the camera, you know, like, so you know, stuff like that.
00:04:28
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:04:30
Paul Mellor
And like the microphone don't work and and all this kind of stuff, you know, like they're kind of like the the usual things that kind of come with Laz. accepting technology into your life. um And so that's how it started, really.
00:04:41
Paul Mellor
um Why he said yes, I mean, the thing about it was that he... he couldn't understand why anybody would want to watch a film about him. You know, he was quite self-deprecating and and and pretty humble about it. You know, he did go, oh I want to have a documentary made about me. It was the complete opposite of that. It was like, why would someone... But it was David's sort of the catalyst. And then I kind of pitched this idea to Laz. And I think he kind of reluctantly agreed...
00:05:15
Paul Mellor
you know But at the same time, you know he yeah i think he quite, he knew he had a story to tell. um So, yeah, and I just started showing up.
00:05:22
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:05:26
Paul Mellor
I just kind of forced myself on him. And and then sort of from there, ah you know ah um ah yeah, relationship has has sort of grown from
Paul Mellor's Running Background and Filmmaking
00:05:35
Paul Mellor
there.
00:05:35
UKRunChat
so So how do you get to that to the point where you kind of know the running community well enough to be able to get in touch with Laz? So maybe take us back and just tell us a bit about your, how you got into running and filmmaking and how all those pieces fit together.
00:05:51
Paul Mellor
yeah um well I'm currently talking to you from uh the French Alps so I live I live in Annecy which is in the French Alps like about 45 minutes drive an hour's drive from Chamonix so I'm in kind of like the the certainly the European mecca of of trail running and and trail running particularly but running more broadly has been part of my life since pretty much since I can remember really my dad was a a sub three hour marathon runner during the eighties and nineties, you know, he was, his running career, he was pretty handy and, and sort of life for me and my brother growing up. And and my mom kind of was like a willing supporter on the sides, you know, cheerleader, but it was,
00:06:39
Paul Mellor
A lot of ah lot of kind of childhood was based around running. Dad was part of running club. Of course, there were no kind of running crew there were no run crews in those days. It wasn't not nearly cool enough for things like that.
00:06:49
Paul Mellor
um But was part of cross-country teams and then you know the hash harriers and things like that. And so I just kind of got involved in it sort of by osmosis.
00:07:00
Paul Mellor
I basically just dragged along and and then you running a few kids' races running the school cross country.
00:07:01
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:07:06
Paul Mellor
This is all in the UK. And we traveled around a bit because my dad was in the military. um And so it kind of started from there. And and then it grew a bit further. You know, i ran at school. I ran for the school in the county and things like that. And then went to university.
00:07:23
Paul Mellor
and um found you know booze basically and quickly got rid of running running like went second best very you know like i was like ah freedom and like the pub it's brilliant i'm gonna do that um but after i finished university or kind of towards the end university i kind of got involved in mountain marathons since i ran in like what was the Kim, so the Carremore International Mountain Marathon has now become the OM and other ones as well.
00:07:54
Paul Mellor
and then um And then I had had kids and ah I was living it. So I'd started my agency by that point. I ah run an advertising agency that's focused on sport brands.
00:08:05
Paul Mellor
Running has been a big part of that.
00:08:07
UKRunChat
Yep.
00:08:07
Paul Mellor
And kind of like running kind of went by the wayside as we had kids during my sort of late twenty s um and um And then um I sort of I had to get out lunch.
00:08:19
Paul Mellor
I mean, I was, you know, life was kind of grabbing me. I needed to kind of change. And and um I'd met my wife in the French Alps. wed That's where we'd originally met. And so I said, right, come on, let's go.
00:08:31
Paul Mellor
We just got to like roll the dice, like sell the house in the UK. Let's just go take the kids. And so we moved move to Annecy. And then like my... I suppose my running career had a bit of a renaissance at that point, and I got back into predominantly trail running.
00:08:46
Paul Mellor
I've run a couple of marathons road marathons and the like, but it's probably more so on the trail side. And so we've been here about eight years, nearly nine years now.
00:08:54
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:08:56
Paul Mellor
And, um yeah, I'm i'm ah sort of running as often as I possibly can, you know, sort of maybe four or five times a week. um I run in a few, like, organized events, whether they be like races or whatever, but I'm not...
00:09:13
Paul Mellor
too attracted by those you know like i mean i go to utmb in chamonix because i go there for work um like so a number of our clients uh um have uh you know sort of a presence at utmb um but i'm more interested in like sort of personal challenges and things like that so i'll like kind of set myself challenges like maybe like two or three day challenges where I'll come and run and the lucky thing that you have here in the Alps is there's there's you know there's refuges you know huts that are manned so they're not bothies like they are in the UK but they're manned and so I can you can link up routes
00:09:41
UKRunChat
Yeah.
The Unique Nature of Lazarus Lake's Races
00:09:50
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:09:50
Paul Mellor
without you know you can take minimal kit um and you can know you can cross glaciers and and things like so I'm more interested into that kind of stuff rather than like the big events per se
00:10:01
UKRunChat
Yeah. So, so running's always been there kind of, it ebbs and flows, doesn't it? As we, as we move through life. And I think sometimes it becomes a bit more important and other times less so, but yeah.
00:10:10
Paul Mellor
Yeah, definitely.
00:10:12
UKRunChat
yeah so Yeah, so you've clearly got a ah big love of running there then. So have you ever, like as as a trail runner, have you ever been kind of attracted by Barclay or Backyard Ultras or the the kinds of things that Laz does?
00:10:28
Paul Mellor
um yeah so yes and no i was always attracted to the the sort of mythical nature of the backyard um i was always attracted to that and have been ever since i heard about it you know years and years ago um and i'll be honest i never really understood
00:10:39
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:10:52
Paul Mellor
I always had that in my mind, it's actually quite, it's a bigger event than it than it is. You know maybe it's maybe's just some sort of bias in me or misunderstanding. But when I was there this year in February, watching it live and filming Laz and filming some of the athletes and things for the documentary,
00:11:10
Paul Mellor
It's really small. It is totally my kind of race.
00:11:11
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:11:15
Paul Mellor
You know, I'm not really into, you know, a race where there's like a couple of thousand people on the start line. I'm not interested in that. And there's, you know, there's 40 people at Barclay. That's way more my kind of thing.
00:11:26
Paul Mellor
You know, it feels so, you feel so much more connected. feels so much more balanced. It feels... feels real.
00:11:36
Paul Mellor
It doesn't feel manufactured at all. And that really appealed to me when I was there. um And I have to say that's probably something similar to what Laz's original thoughts were around the backyard as well, when he invented the backyard format.
00:11:50
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:11:53
Paul Mellor
Again, there's ah there's a simplicity to it. there's a There's a connection to it that you just don't get with with these larger events. The fact that, you know, with the backyard, people, you know, after a couple of loops, a couple of yards, like, they...
00:12:11
Paul Mellor
everyone kind of knows everyone. um and And it sort of goes from being a race to people kind of egging each other on and actually wanting to get the best out of each other.
00:12:13
UKRunChat
yet
00:12:20
Paul Mellor
um So, yeah, those are the types of things that really attract me. ah within the the types of races that he's done. And um he's ah he's a race director of, you know, 40 years, maybe 30 years, 40 years, I should think.
00:12:33
UKRunChat
I
00:12:36
Paul Mellor
um You know, his first race that he put on ah was a complete disaster. You know?
00:12:43
UKRunChat
was saying, yeah.
00:12:43
Paul Mellor
um It was, um I think there were seven of them. The seven of them in the race. Laz raced in his own race. Classic. Of course, you want the race director to not be like organising the race, but actually be in the race. um There was no way marking. There was no signage. It was, I think it was a 35, 40 mile race in Tennessee and everyone got lost.
00:13:11
Paul Mellor
Of course they did because there was no way marking.
00:13:12
UKRunChat
yeah
00:13:14
Paul Mellor
And so no one actually knew who'd won because no one, ah no one had run the same route. like and And eventually like a few days later, everyone kind of realized, oh, well we all got lost, you know?
00:13:27
Paul Mellor
like um So he's had, he's had an alternative view to, to to running and to racing you know from from the start so it's it's no coincidence that his races that he has put on over the years are um alternative ways to look at running like he from the very start he had a a different view to the norm as it were
00:13:53
UKRunChat
Yeah, because I think what one reason people are fascinated by Barclay and the Backyard Ultras is that most people fail, don't they? So, like, what's Laz's view of failure? I'm assuming you've talked quite a lot about that in the in the documentary.
00:14:07
Paul Mellor
Yeah. Yeah, we have. um um It's something that we've dug into quite a lot. um He has a number of sort of different views when it comes to to failure.
00:14:18
Paul Mellor
um The first thing that I think he would he would say is that quitting is is so much easier than carrying on.
00:14:28
UKRunChat
Mm-hmm.
00:14:28
Paul Mellor
um and you ah and your mind quits way before your body quits. um and you can be in the most pain you possibly think you are in you could possibly be in you you've been in, you're in the most pain that you could possibly imagine.
00:14:48
Paul Mellor
and then the minute you quit, like all that pain disappears. And that, I think that shows that actually the mind, you know, is, you know, quits way before the body actually quits. You can go much further than you think.
00:15:06
Paul Mellor
um And the other thing that he would probably say, and he said a number of times, is that
00:15:15
Paul Mellor
we can't all be the fastest. We can't all be the fastest on a course. So historically and sort of majority of race formats are designed to test who's the quickest, who's the quickest at getting from A to B.
00:15:27
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:15:30
Paul Mellor
um And that's all well and good. But there are a whole bunch of other people that have got wonderful attributes that are not tested by being the fastest. And he wants to test those. And those if you're the fastest in, a you know, let's choose a few of the fastest over ten k you're probably never going to, you know, if you're a really top runner at 5K, 10K, whatever, you know you're going to finish.
00:15:58
Paul Mellor
You might not finish where you want to finish.
00:15:58
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:16:00
Paul Mellor
You may not finish as fast as you would like, but you're never not going to finish. like that That threat, that jeopardy is never there. And so having ah having a layer of threat or jeopardy to a race where you just don't know whether you're goingnna finish or not,
00:16:17
Paul Mellor
adds a whole other sort of side to the test. And now I think that's what he's trying to get at, is trying to get people to discover new or sort of unearth things about themselves that's ultimately what i think he's trying to do he's trying to get you to discover something new about yourself that you didn't know before that that could be a hidden resilience it could be some you know sort of hidden depths it could be a fortitude it could be ah a strength that you you didn't know you had it could be you know the backyard tests whether you can get out of a chair or not that's essentially what it tests like everyone can run everyone who enters a backyard can run 4.1667 miles like they can all do that like what it tests is i'm sat down in a chair
00:16:59
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:17:12
Paul Mellor
can I get out of the chair again? Not physically, but mentally to like go again. That's not a tech that isn't tested in any other way. It's not tested in any other kind of race format, but that's a that's a wonderful skill to have. That's a wonderful skill to discover that you have, or it's a wonderful resilience to discover that you have that you would never otherwise have discovered. And that's what he's trying to,
00:17:38
Paul Mellor
to discover and and and by putting yourself in those situations and those challenges you you know some people quit some people don't and that's what you know that that that kind of that sort of um swirling element of it and that's what it really is i think when someone's about to quit i mean i've quit races and i quit events myself so i can self-reflect on you know what what was it like and it was almost like a bit of a bit of a whirlpool that you're in. Like you you almost kind of can't see the wood for the trees, you know, and you're kind of like your own worst enemy.
00:18:15
Paul Mellor
But, you know, his races, the people that succeed at them, they have the clarity to pull themselves out of that. You know, they have the clarity or the this the self-reflection to kind of see that in themselves and and and mitigate it and and be able to rectify it.
00:18:33
UKRunChat
Yeah, wow. Yeah, Laz is a visionary, isn't he? Like, it's, it's incredible what he can draw out of people. Like, I guess a lot of, a lot of runners, like you say, have never really tested themselves like that. And would, would they even want to?
00:18:50
UKRunChat
and
00:18:51
Paul Mellor
Yeah.
00:18:51
UKRunChat
But I guess you can learn a lot from doing that about yourself, can't you?
00:18:55
Paul Mellor
Yeah. And I think that's one of the other things.
Inclusivity and Philosophy of Laz's Races
00:18:59
Paul Mellor
So he's he's certainly, you know, the Barclay is the more famous, is probably his most famous race. And it's, I mean, it's mental.
00:19:09
Paul Mellor
i mean, like it's, it is a ridiculous test of ah of a runner's capabilities, but not everyone can do that. I mean, the the the the distance of it, so supposedly a hundred mile race, but probably with the extensions this year, you're getting on to like 125, 130 miles.
00:19:31
Paul Mellor
An insane level of elevation gain and elevation loss. You know, you' got to go up and down all of those things. Almost no footpaths. You know, you're you're almost almost always bushwhacking.
00:19:45
Paul Mellor
um and the the weather that comes with it, the fact that you haven't slept the night before because you don't know when it's going start, the fact that you you have to mark out your own map. you know There's loads of tests, and that is not for that is not for everybody. i mean, like...
00:20:01
Paul Mellor
It's like Disneyland to some people. And like, I probably put myself in that category now, having been now im like, yes, mate, fancy a bit of that. But um that's not for everybody. Whereas the backyard is far more accessible. And that's one of the things that he the he wanted to sort of create with the backyard was a a far more inclusive or accessible format that tests, that anyone can kind of,
00:20:30
Paul Mellor
get to and and can be attracted by it. um And then it does give you, it gives people a canvas to, you know, to paint their picture. And ah and another example of that would be his um Race for the Ages, which is one that he's been putting on for quite a long time, maybe 15, 20 years, I think, where you you get the number of hours of your age. So it's a looped event.
00:20:58
Paul Mellor
have to run as far as you possibly can in the allotted time that you have. So if you're 40 years old, you have 40 hours. If you're 60 years old, you have 60 hours. If you're 80 years old, you've got 80 hours.
00:21:10
Paul Mellor
um And of course, the leveller is that, you know, the the longer, you know, the older you are, the... the the the longer time you have.
00:21:17
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:21:19
Paul Mellor
um But of course, you're going to be slower. You would expect to be slower. So it's a great leveler. That that gives somebody who's 80 years old a chance to compete in a way where they like they're almost like the handicap system has ah has leveled the playing field.
00:21:35
Paul Mellor
um And that's a brilliant concept.
00:21:38
UKRunChat
Brilliant, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing. So, I mean, what what do you think fascinates him the most? Is it the people who kind of grind down and and finish and get it done or the people who fail and keep coming
00:21:56
Paul Mellor
I think he would probably say it's it's both. I don't think he's he's binary in that respect. I don't think he's like, well, I'm only interested in one type of um person or athlete.
00:22:10
Paul Mellor
He is definitely fascinated by the front of the pack, the people who are you know agitating the race and and pushing to to compete.
00:22:20
Paul Mellor
he's He is fascinated by those people. And he has had ah the way that he describes it, he's he's had a front row seat to some of the most incredible athletic feats. You know, we think about Jasmine Paris and ah being the first woman to complete the Barclay, all of the Barclay finishers, the multi finishers, you know, the John Kellys of this world and the light people who have finished multiple times. um And then he would talk about the backyard and sort of Harvey Lewis and how Harvey and now Phil Gore from Australia,
00:22:54
Paul Mellor
um have have have pushed the boundaries. you know when When he started the backyard, the idea that somebody would go over 60 hours was just like crazy. 60 hours. and There's no way someone can go beyond 60 hours. And now we've got a world record at 119
00:23:11
Paul Mellor
um And, you know, that's Phil Gores. You know, look at Harvey Lewis, he was the i think he was the first person to go over 100 hours. He's just a high school teacher from the US.
00:23:20
UKRunChat
Yes.
00:23:20
Paul Mellor
s Like, he's not a pro athlete. I mean, he's ah he's a handy runner, but he's a high school teacher, you know. um So he's very interested in that front of pack and, like, the people that are pushing the boundaries and really trying to compete.
00:23:35
Paul Mellor
But he's, I think, as equally interested in the person that... their goal at the Barclay is to complete one one loop. um Or the person at the backyard whose goal is to run 24 hours, so run a loop, you know, one an hour for 24 hours, therefore 100 um he's as interested in those um and he will he will give people opportunities to to kind of you know to find the best in themselves whether they be a front of pack or a mid pack runner yeah I don't think he's binary and only interested in in kind of one type I think he sees himself as somebody that
00:24:19
Paul Mellor
gives people a chance. you know He's very um inclusive in that way. And and I have to say, It's almost, he has this sort of myth that he's, you know, he's been described as like the Leonardo da Vinci of pain and all of these things, which is a complete mischaracterization.
00:24:40
Paul Mellor
He is not this kind of callous, um unforgiving guy that only wants to hurt you. He's actually the most warm and generous and kind and charming guy that you could meet. The the the connection he has with the runners that are competing, the connection he has with the the crews that are crewing those athletes, it's wonderful to see. And that's something that we've captured in the film.
00:25:11
Paul Mellor
um i hope we we have. We certainly have tried to. He's, yeah, has this wonderful connection. um and And they also have a connection with him.
00:25:23
Paul Mellor
And there's this there's this bond.
00:25:23
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:25:26
Paul Mellor
And you probably see it mor so you probably see it more so when someone fails, where someone one doesn't achieve the goal that they set out to achieve, where they're they're disappointed, that you know they're kind of chewing themselves up a little bit. He's...
00:25:46
Paul Mellor
so warm and engaging at that point. um And there's a genuine bond that is formed between him and, you know, that athlete.
00:25:56
UKRunChat
Yeah, it's how how much of the, you said he's he's not kind of a callous person and he's really warm and genuine. He he still keeps that Barclay mythology though, doesn't he? Like is is that deliberate or is that just us watching via X posts and projecting that onto him? Because it's because it's very secretive, isn't it? Like and he he does cherry pick the people who are going to run it as well, doesn't he, from applications.
00:26:26
Paul Mellor
Yes. So, yes, very much so.
00:26:27
UKRunChat
Is that intentional?
00:26:31
Paul Mellor
It's ah it's ah an intentional process. The one thing I would say about Laz is he does nothing by accident or nothing by, you know, sort of a a lucky moment. Everything is considered.
00:26:47
Paul Mellor
um i mean, the guy sleeps four hours a night, you know, and, you know, when he talks to him, when talks about that, he'll say, well, that gives me you know, another four hours more than anybody else to think, you know, he thinks about everything.
00:27:00
Paul Mellor
Everything is deliberate. Everything has a reason and a rationale and there's a strategy to everything he does. um he He, he's very, i think he's at someone that believes in like the the loudest way to shout is to whisper.
00:27:17
Paul Mellor
And, and in that, what I think he wants, what he, what he's trying to do is if he is, If he has a compelling proposition to an athlete such as the Barkley, then they will find out about it and they will want to be part of it. He doesn't need to be banging the drum, getting out in front of people and like really trying to hype it up. He is the complete opposite of that.
00:27:43
Paul Mellor
And everything about the Barkley in that instance is from that mindset. Everything is wrong. Well, it's possibly the most frugal way that you could put on a race. I think the i think the entire race probably costs less than $1,000 to put on.
00:28:01
Paul Mellor
And it's one of the most famous trail races in the world. You compare that to, don't know, UTMB, it costs a lot more than $1,000 put UTMB on. You know,
00:28:10
UKRunChat
yeah
00:28:12
Paul Mellor
it's it's so It's so low key and it comes from that mindset of ah all I'm interested in, in his mindset is creating the best possible experiment or the best possible canvas for people to put themselves into, you know ah people to test themselves in. And therefore he doesn't need all the bells and whistles. He doesn't need all the the hype. just it's a it's an it's a There's an honesty to it.
00:28:42
Paul Mellor
there's a um and There's a deliberate nature to everything that he's trying to do. He does that in all of his races, but I think the Barclays probably the sort of the purest form of that, I would say, certainly from what I've seen.
00:28:56
UKRunChat
Yeah, it's it's so pure, isn't
Lazarus Lake's Influence on Running Culture
00:28:58
UKRunChat
it? ah did Did Laz ever imagine the impact that he'd have on the sport?
00:29:07
Paul Mellor
and No, I don't think he ever did. No. um And when you talk to him about the impact that he's had, he's like, no, no, shut up. shall he like you You know, you're talking crazy. Like he's he doesn't he doesn't believe he's had that much of an impact. You know, like how can one person and.
00:29:25
Paul Mellor
you know I have to disagree that I think he has had a huge impact. I think there are people, well, there's ah there's a thousand backyards, authorised backyards all over the world now, whereas 10 years ago, there was one.
00:29:40
Paul Mellor
And there's a lot of kind of copycat backyards as well that aren't in the sort of Lazzies, sort of um within his framework.
00:29:40
UKRunChat
yeah
00:29:50
Paul Mellor
you know There's a thousand that are authorised within his network. um And that's a wonderful, that look at that. I mean, who has created something that's spread to a thousand different events a year? Like there's very few people that have done that. So that emoji elevates him to a ah very sort of yeah pretty unique position. um And then with it with sort of the, if you look at his sort of his impact as a whole, yeah, I think he's had a a profound impact.
00:30:21
UKRunChat
Thank you.
00:30:21
Paul Mellor
And I think, I actually think that his impact is is only going to become greater as as more people come into running and as more people turn away from the daily grind and the technology in their lives and they want a closer connection to nature a closer connection to themselves uh they want uh and and comradeship and the like much more so than you know essentially sort of like turning away from you know, the AI and technology and all and the phones in your pockets and all these things.
00:30:55
Paul Mellor
Running is going to be one of the things that people tend. It's not going to be the only thing, but a connection to nature and all of these things. I think his impact will be ever greater still at that point. I think his impact will will only increase as more people kind of see that and and and become attracted to it and and understand what he's been trying to say for the last 40 years.
00:31:18
UKRunChat
young
00:31:18
Paul Mellor
and what he's been trying to do with his races for the last 40 years.
00:31:22
UKRunChat
have Have you talked to Laz about how he views the commercialisation ultra running now? Because we you know we've just talked about how expensive UTMB is and all the you know even for an athlete to do it, you've got to qualify and spend a lot of money doing qualification races and then pay for ballot.
00:31:39
UKRunChat
and it's It's very expensive, isn't it? there's There's a lot into it. Have you spoke to Laz about how he feels about that?
00:31:48
Paul Mellor
um
00:31:48
UKRunChat
Because his is a very different sort of running, isn't it?
00:31:51
Paul Mellor
Yeah, I would say that his so first of all, he um doesn't divide between trail running, ultra running, road running.
00:32:00
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:32:02
Paul Mellor
It's just like you're running. like You just happen to be on a different surface.
00:32:04
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:32:06
Paul Mellor
You know, but that's there's there's no difference between a runner and a trail runner in his mind.
00:32:07
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:32:11
Paul Mellor
You know, you are just a runner. um The. there he He doesn't have, he certainly hasn't explained to me or demonstrated to me that he has any kind of problem with people um charging lots of money or, you know, races being put on that are expensive or or these types of things. I think everything everything has a place, right? um And, you know, it's easy to...
00:32:39
Paul Mellor
bang sort of UTMB over the head. I mean, I sat down with the um the marketing team at UTMB because their office is in Annecy where I live. Sat down with them and they're wonderful people. They're, you know, they are wonderful. They're committed to trying to make the best possible event they can. Now, we made people may disagree about the the the some of the finer details, but they have have been a wonderful impact on, it has had a wonderful impact on trail running.
00:33:08
Paul Mellor
um you know But we can all disagree on certain aspects of it. And I do. you know i disagree on some of the things that they've done. But I think broadly speaking, it's very much been part of the growth of trail running.
00:33:19
Paul Mellor
um And so Lars doesn't kind of see this as kind of like you know David and Goliath or good and bad or anything like that. Everything has its place. um He's always...
00:33:27
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:33:31
Paul Mellor
I think he he's always going to be someone that's true to himself. He's always going to be somebody that sets courses and events or formats that are true to him and his beliefs. So it's, you know, he's never going to create a big expensive race that's full of hype. he's He's far more interested in the the the the athlete first. Like what is it I can do that gives somebody a chance to find something out about themselves that they can test themselves that they that they can look back on with pride you know that um and something that they may fail at
00:34:13
Paul Mellor
I mean, one of the things that he has a particularly strong opinion on is um mid-race drops. So if you enter the 100K, but there's a 50K going on at the same time, the fact that you get to the aid station where you can turn left or right and you can drop from the 100K to the 50K, he's a very hard opinion on that. He's like, that should not be allowed. If you set out to one hundred k run the bloody 100k and if you fail you fail don't drop to the 50k because you're having a bad day or it's harder than you thought or whatever like no that's if you set out to do something you know bloody well go and do it you know and try your best to go and do that thing don't find the easier option and and and try to sort of sugarcoat it somehow um you know and i think
00:34:42
UKRunChat
yeah
00:35:05
Paul Mellor
there there's an There's an honest difficulty to every race that he puts on.
00:35:09
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:35:09
Paul Mellor
it There's a, there's ah yeah, he if you look at in a world that is like,
00:35:17
Paul Mellor
curated you look at people's instagrams and the like you know everyone's lives or not everyone's the vast majority of people's lives they're curated there're at they they're they're they're like the the veneer version of their lives and it's everything is got a sheen and a polish and i think he's the antidote to that he's like no let's let's have some honest difficulty let's have some grit let's have some resilience let's have something that just looks ugly and dirty and it's difficult But the other side of that is wonderful. You know, but you have to get through that. You have to get through that challenge in order to find, to discover that thing about you, to get that, you know, to taste that wonderful feeling.
00:36:01
Paul Mellor
and And that's, I think, ultimately what differentiates him from from the vast majority of the running world.
00:36:09
UKRunChat
So you've spent a lot of time with Laz over the last year.
Filmmaking Process and Challenges
00:36:14
UKRunChat
So you but you we were just chatting before we started recording that you've hundreds of hours filmed.
00:36:20
Paul Mellor
Yeah.
00:36:20
UKRunChat
but How do you decide what's going to make it into the documentary? It's going to be a feature length film. Yeah.
00:36:26
Paul Mellor
ah Yes, it will be. So it will be a feature length. So it will be somewhere between an hour and an hour and 15 as a documentary, which is a feature length doc.
00:36:37
Paul Mellor
i mean i could I mean, he's obsessed with geology, like completely obsessed with geology. ah And i mean, i could I could probably release a geology documentary with the amount of stuff that I've got from him around geology. Like he would be a wonderful um a visiting professor on geology. Like he just knows so much stuff and he's so enthusiastic about He's almost as enthusiastic about that as he is about running. He...
00:37:05
Paul Mellor
he um How do I decide? There's what we have to what we have to do with a documentary. It's the easy thing to do is to um make it sort of flabby and fluffy and a bit bloated. And actually, the really hard thing to do is to sharpen it and make it really um watchable.
00:37:33
Paul Mellor
that's the skill. I mean, I've got hundreds, we've got hundreds of hours and how to decide. I mean, a lot of it is geology. So a bunch of that just immediately goes to the, I'm just going to go to like, try and sell it to, I don't know, the geology society. I don't know. Like, I don't know if that even exists, but you know what i mean? Like um the, I think the,
00:37:52
Paul Mellor
the The skill is in the sharpening. And it's what I do. It's what we do for a living. I run ah ah run an advertising agency that now makes films as well as ads. So our whole life is is about making stories and creating stories that have ah that pull somebody in and and and take them on a journey.
00:38:16
Paul Mellor
um And you only do that by... you know, deliberating and sharpening and being really purposeful about the decisions that you um that you have. And, and you know, there's a...
00:38:28
Paul Mellor
um a wonderful lady, advertising lady called Cindy Gallop. And I know her kind of arms, you know, we we know each other.
00:38:40
Paul Mellor
and she has a saying, you got to save your darlings and you got to kill your darlings. And, you know, you might have the absolute zinger of a ah of a sentence or a paragraph from Laz, but But if it doesn't fit with everything else, then you've got to kill it.
00:38:57
Paul Mellor
You know, it may be your darling. It might be the best thing he said, but if it doesn't fit into everything else, then you've got to kill it. You've got to save your darlings. You've got to kill you. Save them and kill your darlings.
00:39:08
UKRunChat
Yeah, it's ah it's a tough call that for a filmmaker, isn't it?
00:39:11
Paul Mellor
Yeah.
00:39:11
UKRunChat
And a storyteller. So what what story are ah you trying to get across about Laz then in this film without giving too much away?
00:39:19
Paul Mellor
Without giving too much away. So. so He's never been the hero before. And the thing that people have seen of him and know of him is either in his writing. So when he's written for like ultra running magazine and and the like, or when he's had articles written about him. So the New York times and the guardian and the times and various newspapers have written about him. Um,
00:39:47
Paul Mellor
But from ah from a visual point of view, he's never been the hero. He's always been in race recaps or athlete stories and these types of things. And so we wanted to discover what it is that makes Laz Laz and how that impacts the things that he's brought out to the world.
00:40:09
Paul Mellor
you know If we're able to understand what makes Laz Laz, then you can understand why he created the Barclay and why he created the Backyard and why he created the Volstate and the Strolling Gym and the Race for the Ages and all of these things that he's created over the years. And then you'll understand why he walks across America or used to run across America and now walks across America. I mean, I was with him earlier on about, yeah, start May, it's about four weeks ago in the middle of the Nevada desert as he was finishing his latest Transcon where he'd walked from Washington, D.C.
00:40:49
Paul Mellor
to San Francisco. And so I was with him for about a week in the middle of the Nevada desert as he crossed the state of Nevada, which was it's insane. The...
00:41:01
Paul Mellor
the You'll understand if we're able to understand him and his motivations and his philosophies and his and his mindset, then you're able to understand why he does crazy things like at the age of 75, 74.
00:41:17
Paul Mellor
seventy four walks thousands of miles. with no but then Nobody knows. you know It's not like he's got, ah he's not like Forrest Gump where Forrest Gump's running and he's got a crew behind, you know a bunch of people following him behind him. He's got none of that. Just one guy out on the road.
00:41:35
Paul Mellor
And the bit that I was, the section I was with him on for a week or so was Highway 50, which is the nickname is America's Loneliest Highway. There are literally, there are no cars.
00:41:45
UKRunChat
Right.
00:41:47
Paul Mellor
There is nothing. I mean, I think I, countless number of days that we we're walking together and I walked with him, we get passed by one car and we're on a highway. You know, like nobody knows he's out there.
00:41:59
Paul Mellor
Nobody, if he fails or succeeds, he's, It has no bearing on the rest of the world, but it matters to him. And he sets himself the challenges and you get to understand that mindset. and and And I hope that people can take something from that and they can bring it into their own lives. They can take some of that, ah some of those things that he instinctively has understood and has honed and developed and then maybe they can bring them into their own lives and maybe they can make some changes in their own lives or maybe they can it can influence them in a whole bunch of different ways whether that be running or or or sort of anything else.
Impact of the Documentary on Mellor's Life
00:42:44
UKRunChat
Has making this film changed your own approach to running or or life or the challenges that you set for yourself?
00:42:51
Paul Mellor
ah Yeah, I mean, I want to run across the US now.
00:42:57
Paul Mellor
um and Maybe I'll get Laz to crew me. hey ah I mean, I've crewed him. so Yeah, it it has. i mean, I've always been somebody that, as I said, I've kind of certainly over the last 15 to 20 years, I've shied away from larger races and they're kind of the the hype. And I've been somebody that's far more interested in the local aspect and keeping something either localized so you know running in really small local races you know like the kind of thing that you would see it in the lake district in the you know fell race where there's like 50 people turn up in you know the like a ah farmer's gate you know and then they run up a hill and back down again you know um i've always been more drawn or certainly been more drawn to that over the last 15 20 years um and i think he's
00:43:42
UKRunChat
yeah
00:43:51
Paul Mellor
And that's the reason why i moved to the Alps. um And I think that's, he's he's kind of maybe um honed that a little bit or like ah ah maybe shaped that a little bit in my mind over the last year or so, um that it can be it can be personal challenges. It can be local events. It can be ah essentially a connection to either yourself or your local community, your local running community or whatever it is. And I think he's, for me, he's he's sort of shaped, was going to hone that in in in me. And um I think I'm even more interested in that than I than i was.
00:44:31
UKRunChat
yeah So what what have you been talking to him about over these, like so you were with him a whole week, were you kind of delving into his past and things as well?
00:44:39
Paul Mellor
Yeah. Yeah. um We, we've kind of covered everything that you could possibly think of. I think um his, his views on on, running and racing and events and what people do and all the things I've been talking about, but far, far more than that, we've gone back into his family history. You know what ah some of the traumas that he had as a, as a child, he had some,
00:45:09
Paul Mellor
some incredible experiences as a kid where he essentially nearly died um and he had a lot of operations to i think he had nine opera he had nine operations on his face to keep him alive i think it was nine might be seven um And um that had a profound effect on him. um And the way that he talks about it is, you know, he essentially sort should have died, as as it were.
00:45:38
Paul Mellor
And so he's lived every day since maybe the age of 10 or 12. He's lived every day what he calls as a bonus day.
00:45:47
UKRunChat
Thank you.
00:45:47
Paul Mellor
It's like every day is is ah is a gift. And so what are you going to do with that day? That's essentially the mindset that he's that he's had. you know, over the last 60 years, you know, since then, he's now in his seventies. He, we've dug into what he was like as a teenager and he was rebellious.
00:46:09
Paul Mellor
know, he was, he was a pain in, he was a pain to, to parent, you know, he was not an easy, an easy teenager. um He left home. He had a disagreement with his dad and,
00:46:23
Paul Mellor
you know I would probably put it as like he ran away from home, but he kind of frames it as, you know, it's maybe just better if he left home. um And how he,
00:46:36
Paul Mellor
um ah you know, how he essentially was sort of living almost not maybe not quite as a homeless person, but pretty close to being, you know, living,
00:46:47
Paul Mellor
in in housing that just wasn't, not even close to being suitable. He got himself into college. He was studying nursing. He was, um and he was a kitchen porter, and not kitchen, um a hospital porter, not kitchen porter, you know, taking people around on, you know, wheelchairs and and trolleys and things.
00:46:56
UKRunChat
Right.
00:47:09
Paul Mellor
um And then he discovered accountancy by accident, um because he was allowed extra credit while he was studying for nursing. And because he's so frugal, um he was given, he's, you know, he was maybe 20 hours of worth of teaching a week and nursing was only 15.
00:47:32
Paul Mellor
so there was five that could be used for something.
00:47:34
UKRunChat
Yeah,
00:47:35
Paul Mellor
And so he was like, right, well, accountancy, I'll learn about that. And, you know, and and eventually then became an accountant. and He sort of stopped the nursing. um We dug into his, he tells some wonderful stories about his dad.
00:47:48
Paul Mellor
And his granddad, so his granddad was, um they were incredibly poor. um And his granddad taught himself ah maths and sort of advanced maths on the back of a shovel with a charcoal. That was how he taught himself. And then his dad was... um an engineer and like a airplane engineer was actually eventually was part of the space program was part of the space landing. um He was an engineer within the space program. um
00:48:24
Paul Mellor
And then Laz, ah you know, they had a wonderful checkered, obviously he's met Sandra and they his wife and um they three children.
00:48:35
Paul Mellor
They've lived you know this kind of like life full of stories which we cover. um he yeah yeah that In the first years of Barclay, he actually competed. He started Barclay and then was was actually one of the competitors.
00:48:54
Paul Mellor
um the The adventures he would go on with Raw Dog, one of his mates, Actually, War Dog and him, with eat so it was the original idea of Barclay was between the two of them.
00:49:06
Paul Mellor
um The trans cons that he's done. So he's gone yeah across the US a bunch of times. and He's actually gone north to south as well. So from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
00:49:18
Paul Mellor
um And then you know the the the things that he's learned along the way. like we've we've We've covered a lot of things and ah a number of things that he's learned. i mean, one of the things that he did Throughout his sort of kids growing while his kids were growing up, he was a basketball coach for a number of different basketball teams.
00:49:35
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:49:38
Paul Mellor
And one of the things that he he touches on is, and I think this this maybe kind of leans into how the backyard or certainly some of the thinking around the backyard,
00:49:50
Paul Mellor
um Every team needs a
Laz's Philosophy and Documentary Premiere
00:49:53
Paul Mellor
Danny. He calls it his name for it is a Danny. Every team, every team within basketball has has the superstar, the one that you go to to score the winning point, the one that takes the the free throw um when the pressure's on, you know, the the the superstar, the LeBron James, the Michael Jordan.
00:50:14
Paul Mellor
But everyone needs a Danny. Every team needs a Danny. That nuggety, gritty, always turns up on time, always motivated, holds the team to account, often has an outsized impact for the skill level or technical a technical level that they have.
00:50:31
Paul Mellor
But... in order to build you know ah really successful teams, you can't just have a team of superstars. You need that nuggety, gritty Danny. And essentially, that's what the backyard is is testing. It's testing that person that isn't the superstar, but is really good at getting out of a chair when nobody else will get out of a chair and they will go again.
00:50:54
UKRunChat
Yeah, that's brilliant. Well, yeah, I can't wait to to hear more about the documentary once it's made because you're you're still in the process of putting it all together. You've got another filming date to do, haven't you?
00:51:07
UKRunChat
and then tell us about when it's going to launch and where people might be able to see it.
00:51:13
Paul Mellor
um so we yeah we we've started the editing process and then we've got um so what are we like we're start of june now um uh we've got we're going to go back out again to the us uh we've got a bit more filming with him and we've got a couple of interviews with other people that are going to slot into the into the documentary um the The premise of this film, or certainly the the audience of this film, is I want this to be as wide as possible.
00:51:21
UKRunChat
Yeah.
00:51:40
Paul Mellor
It needs to be the widest possible audience. So it needs to, I i think... it needs to go beyond runners. I think, you know, trail running community particularly, but running more broadly, they will they will probably watch the film because it's about Laz and because he has, and that's maybe me being a bit big headed, but, you know, assuming that people will watch my film, but, you know, I think he has, that people have a natural affinity to him, and but we want to go wider than that.
00:51:48
UKRunChat
Thank you.
00:52:06
Paul Mellor
So we're going to, um first of all, we're going to launch it at UTMB in Chamonix in August, later this summer. that's going to be the launch. We've we've hired the the cinema in Chamonix and people will be able to, if they are at UTMB, I understand not everyone is, um but it's around the corner from me. So it's easy for me. um And there's, you know, there's thousands and thousands of runners in Chamonix that week. um and the world's media the world's running media and the like um so we're going to launch it there and then the plan is to take it out on the road and take it out to um you know uh marathons or uh running events um uh it's like sort of city marathons maybe take it to cities more generally and kind of take it out on the road um
00:52:58
Paul Mellor
And then if we can if we can do a deal with with a distributor, then of course we will. If we can if we can do a deal with a ah you know either a cable channel or a streaming platform or something like that, then we will. We're having conversations with those at the moment.
00:53:14
UKRunChat
Yeah, well, I for one certainly hope that happens and that we can all watch it. and Paul, thank you so much for joining us. We're going to get you back on around the launch, aren't we, to chat about perhaps some of the stories that haven't made the final cut and we'll know a bit more then.
00:53:24
Paul Mellor
Yeah.
00:53:28
UKRunChat
but
00:53:29
Paul Mellor
Yeah.
00:53:30
UKRunChat
and's yeah, it's been really fascinating getting a glimpse behind the public image of Lazarus Lake and hearing about how he's challenged generations of runners. I mean, yeah, what a visionary. Wow. and So keep an eye out for episode two with Paul and we hope that you've enjoyed listening to this episode. You've been listening to the UK Rune Chat podcast and we'll see you next time.