I love how the leaderboard has everyone in 1st Place ... so far, anyway - later it will be 1st or DNF

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Thanks for the link, Anna!!!

As I posted not long ago on my Screaming Tortise group page

"It's funny - when we started the Black Fridays, everyone was 'Four 5Ks in one day? Six hours apart? Why would anyone do that? That's CRAZY!!!' Now, with the popularity of Back Yard Ultras [4.166 mile loops on the top of the hour & go as far as you can] Black Fridays almost seen a little --- SOFT?"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I know that when Maggie won she was bummed that it was over; she still felt good and really wanted to get to 72 hours. I’ve no doubt that some of the people there are hoping (and capable) to go past 81 yards and claim the record.

Laz’s hourly reports and musings are consolidated on the Bigs Backyard website, definitely worth reading.

https://www.bigsbackyardultra.com/stories/

From talking with Dave, this race has been one a lot of people in the ultra community are watching. With such a stacked field it has been highly anticipated. So far so good! I am guess for the people who make the night they will be pushing towards that 70+ range.

Big surprise with Courtney and Maggie DNFing so early.

Courtney was over 24 hours/100 miles short of her previous efforts at Big's. I'm curious to know the conversations they were having in their final laps.

"This is dumb"
"I agree"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I'm tipping Terumichi Morishita of Japan to do well. I like his pedigree and he has posted some encouraging race results over the last couple of years.

Still going :-)

Terumichi is still 4 hours/27km/16 miles off what he ran when finishing second in the Last Samurai Standing in Tokyo last year, so he's not into uncharted territory just yet.

I agree with you about the mental aspects of digging deep. I'd imagine the backyard format is particularly challenging in that regard.

If a runner is struggling late in ultra of set distance, they can always grind it out knowing there's "only" another 30 or 40 miles or whatever. The ultimate goal and focus doesn't really shift from finish line. Same for running a set time such as 24 or 48 hours, just suck it up and finish the hours.

But the backyard format relentlessly asks the big questions every hour, and every hour those questions must get harder to answer. "How much longer can really I stay out here?" "I have stopped now, do I really want to continue?"

It's an intriguing game.

Another DNF.

Now down to 7 runners with 51 hours/212 miles completed.

Go Jon!!

Down to 4 runners. Piotr Chadovich DNF in the 61st hour. 250 miles, 400km completed.

Yes, it was essentially a continuous run for Yoshida-san over those final hours. I was also hoping he'd make just one more lap. With 54 hours/225miles/362km he equaled his best backyard result from when he won the Last Samurai Standing in Tokyo.