I'm thinking somewhere between 7 and 10 times right now. If I trained for it, maybe 15.

wow 54 vs 55 - tight race really - inspiring

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Love this idea for a race. They've done something similar in Australia with an elimination mile (albeit a slightly shorter race) to try and make running more spectator friendly.

'until Lewis was the only person left without a DNF next to his name'. That's brutal, it seems like the 2nd place ran 54 laps and still got a DNF!

Once the second last one drops, the last one has to complete one more lap and then wins. So always tight.

Works out to about 14:40/mile (if you went back-to-back). Be interesting to know the strategy, and if the run/walk/rest balance changes throughout the event (ex. go a bit faster for a lap so you can take a quick catnap, run 1/2 the lap at 10:00 pace then walk the rest, etc.).

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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Interesting. I wonder what my limiter would be...without knowing the terrain, it seems like a 2 to 1 run to rest ratio would be sustainable, and some 1:1 possible if I pushed it. If you can sit, eat, change socks, etc. it seems like you should be able to go further than you can at one time. I’ve never done more than 15 miles straight or 5.5 hours of anything, but I bet I could do more with this.

I’m with JaretJ. 7-10, but really sore the next day.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Looks similar to Big’s Backyard ultra that Laz puts off, I believe somewhat inspired by The Long Walk (Stephen King). Marathon Investigation did a great write up on it

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

This race was a qualifier for Big's.

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I will let you know in about 3 weeks from today. I'll be doing this race format starting at 10am of Friday April 30 until.....?

And I will say that I am open to any advise anyone might have from any experience with these races. Trying to plan for this thing is really becoming difficult for me as I have no idea how long I'll be out there.

5-7 if my life depended on it. Assuming my foot didn't re-break. Big assumption.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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I thought about the same thing: how would I run it?

Walk as much as possible, and do back to back laps probably to maximize rest in the middle?

MI_Mumps wrote:

Interesting. I wonder what my limiter would be....

I'm really interested to see the upper limits of elite performance in this format of racing. I think ultra runners are still only learning how to win this type of race.

Last October, two Belgians pushed the event into a fourth day of racing with Karel Sabbe running 502 km/312 miles over the 75 laps/hours.

Karel Sabbe runs 500K to win Big's Backyard Ultra, Dauwalter takes U.S. crown - Canadian Running Magazine

While the exact format is new, we can glean insights on performance from events of similar distances (>200 miles), similar duration (48 hour or 6 day races) or even similar format (1000 hour completing a set distance every hour).

The 6.7km/hour isn't a random number. It's average pace required to cover 100 miles in 24 hours. That's not a huge deal in the ultra world, even on some gnarly trails.

200 miles in 48 hours isn't exactly world class, (at least not for men on a flat course). We've even seen top runners topping 1000km/621 miles in 6 days as far back as the 1880s.

Where the backyard concept gets particularly tricky for those setting records is:

• the consistency required (a runner can't afford to have a bad hour),
• the inability for even the best runners to sleep more much than 20 minutes at any one time.
• the necessity for two athletes to perform at an exceptionally high standard to progress the record.

So at what distance/time will we really see the limiting factors biting hard as the Backyard format record progresses beyond Sabbe's 75 hours/506km?


Perhaps surprisingly, the sleep deprivation aspect mightn't hamper runners as much as one might imagine. The human body is amazingly resilient. Back in 1809, Scotsman Captain Robert Barclay walked a mile every hour for 1000 hours. That's nearly 42 days of stringently restricted sleep patterns. In the late 1980s/early '90s, several Aussie runners took to pushing the 1000 Hour Challenge record, culminating in Craig Rowe running around 3.2km every hour throughout the six weeks.

Provided the Backyard format can attract elite depth in a post-covid world to allow 2 or more runners to push each other to big numbers, I'm pretty sure we'll see the top men taking the race into the fifth day (ie over 96 hours/643km/400 miles) in the not too distant future.

You have to be at the start line at the top of the hour, every hour. DNF otherwise.

So my WAG was 7-10. You are both a better athlete than me and smarter about this kind of stuff. Why only 5-7? Is it about your current physical condition or are there things about the event I’m overlooking?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

I'm sure that I'm not a better runner than you unless it's under 800m. Certainly better at sprinting less than 50m than you, since that's what I did as a bobsledder. I think I've run a total of <200 miles since quitting bobsled in December 2017. 90% of my training is on the bike. 2% pool. 8% running. Precisely of course.

I'm 212 pounds of breakable, heavy, muscle, that's not conditioned for high volume pounding. :)

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
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Gotcha! Yes, I would be better suited. Is your wife a triathlete, or am I completely off base?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Yes, she can beat me at every discipline, for anything that is longer than 30 seconds in duration. She was also a former sprinter, but has a much more developed aerobic engine than me. She's racing a crit in Los Angeles today though, and his her team's sprinter. Deceptive to have a triathlete as your sprinter on a good cycling team :)

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

Take care of your feet.
Speed isn’t important. It is almost like a fast walk pace.
To really go the distance you have to deal with no sleep for and extended period

Awesome! Best of luck to you. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear about it afterward. Post a race report to this thread, perhaps?

I did a 12 hour, 50 mile rehearsal day today and everything went well. The breaks seemed a little odd at first, but it was nice to eat some actual solid food, like pizza as I am usually a liquids only guy. I learned that I will need to walk a little more early on during the race than I did today. Sleep will help, even just 5 minutes. All in all, it was a good day.

So I was able to get in 28 loops for 116 miles before ringing the bell. That got me a 3rd place finish, or Loser #2 The #2 finisher didn’t make it back in time to start loop # 39. He and the woman who won are both animals!
My take-aways:
550’ gain per loop on trails is no joke
what goes up also goes down and the downs are killers
camp placement near start corral is important
have a long game mindset
should have never run loop faster than 55-57 minutes=walk it when you can
take water with you as 50 minutes is too long to be without
take food with you as 50 minutes is too long to be without
the rest gained from a sub 50’ lap is not worth it=too many matches burned
you can use the toilet during your loop
I think looking back, I should have not run as fast as I did. My quads were trashed. I was actually wanting to continue to climb hills just so I didn’t have to run anymore. The loop we were on could not be walked in 60’. My head lamp was subpar for technical rocky and rooted trails at night so I used a flashlight as well. That left me leaving my hand bottle behind during the dark. Looking back, that got me behind on fluids. I should have used a vest. The unraveling came not that long after that once the sun came out and the temp went to 80*F.
I will say, I have done a lot of races, the crew of Race Directors that are WausaUltra are top notch! I would recommend anyone to join them in the future for any type of event they might put on.
That’s my Backyard Ultra experience

As Laz would say "There's just the winner; everyone else is a DNF"

116 Mile DNF

Excellent!!!

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
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CONGRATULATIONS!

So glad that you did so well and reported back. It sounds like you learned a lot, should you ever take on the challenge again. Among the things you learned are several that I would not have thought of either. It's funny, an event like this seems pretty straightforward, I think, until you are doing it and realize that beyond the fitness requirements, the devil is in the details.

One thing that I wondered about; how many drop out (choose to not start a next lap) as compared to DNF because they did not complete a lap fast enough? Did you start lap 29 and not get around, or did you do 28 and say, "That's it for me,"?

Once you were on a lap it sounds like it was self-supported? (There were no hydration stations out on "the yard.")

Way to go!