She tried to cross a freeway in an ultramarathon. She did not succeed.

Thomas Grinovich does it. Participating in the race, he was attempting to cross Route 72 with McCoy. For a moment, he said, McCoy was near his left shoulder, halfway down the wide dark road. Next, a lighthouse, the roar of an engine, then a horrible thud.

“When I get the flashbacks,” he said, “that sound is what I hear.

On June 18, McCoy and Grinovich were among 66 runners who set off from West Memphis, Ark., For the inaugural Heart of the South Road Race, the brainchild of Gary Cantrell, known to the world of ultrarunning under the name Lazarus Lake.

Since the mid-1980s Cantrell, a bearded ultrarunner smoking camels from Tennessee, has created some of the toughest events in the world. Its competitions are more journeys than races, the ones many runners never complete. In the past three decades, only 15 people have completed the Cantrell Barkley Marathons, a 160 km adventure over unmarked terrain in the Cumberland Mountains in eastern Tennessee.

As ultrarunning – any race longer than a 26.2 mile marathon – has become more popular, die-hard sportsmen have pushed the boundaries of sport and human endurance. Races that stretch over 200 miles over several days are no longer rare.

Catastrophic injuries and collisions with cars are rare in ultra-racing, although the feeling of dodging death – from exposure, exhaustion, dehydration or even an encounter with a bear, a mountain lion , a rattlesnake or the speed of traffic – could be part of the call. . But McCoy’s accident, crossing a highway after five endless days of racing, begs the question of whether this race was a test of rigor or recklessness.