Next Friday I take on Herdy’s Frontyard Utra for the sixth time. ( https://www.herdysfrontyard.com.au/ ) . I ran an assist to the great Phile Gore (current World Champion and record holder) and at the time set an Australian record of 48 laps (I was the assist and ran 47 laps) Since then I’ve ran 33, 28, 24 and 19 laps.  I’d like to at least reverse this descending total, and I’ve put in a good six-week block of constant training to give myself half a chance.

I’ve written posts on each backyard ultra I’ve ran, twelve as of writing this post, so feel free to search on the term backyard ultra in the search bar to read a couple. The one below has links to a YouTube video on the 2021 event where Phil and I set an Australian record. Certainly worth a visit.

https://www.runbkrun.com/2024/10/27/backyard-ultra-satellite-championship-the-hardest-race-youve-never-heard-of/

Below is a post I wrote on Birdys Backyard Ultra in 2024 where I staggered to lap 22, the tu-tu lap. It explains the backyard ultra concept in more details. ( https://www.birdysbackyardultra.com.au/ )

So, what are my plans for Herdys in a weeks’ time. Truth be told going into a BYU is really the only time when you shouldn’t set yourself any goals because when you hit them the urge to continue disappears. To run long in a BYU you just need to keep going one lap at a time until you either time out or the urge to get up out of your comfortable chair isn’t there. Most people don’t time out, I’d say about 90% just stop and then regret it ten minutes later after the field has left and they’re sitting there in their chair. This is what keeps runners coming back for more because they always think they could have gone further, and they probably could have.  It’s similar to a marathon when you think I can go quicker but in a BYU it’s just a deeper regret post event that draws you back.

The format is another positive as everybody starts together on the hour, every hour.  So much more sociable than traditional races where you see everybody at the start and then that’s it until the coffee van post event.  In a BYU you could stand next to the World Champion every hour and have a chat, it’s that type of event. Everybody is pulling together, similar to an Ultra, it’s a ‘we’re all in this together’ feeling, unique in running.

Of course there is a downside to a backyard ultra. The nature of the event means it goes on for a long time, day rather than hours and it has the ability to make you push yourself further than you thought possible. This could be a positive as well as a negative I suppose.?

Birdy’s backyard Ultra would be my fourth time running this iconic BYU and my eleventh BYU event. A description of a BYU below for those who haven’t come across this format before , or alternatively read my last post which has the links to my previous ten events.  https://www.runbkrun.com/2024/07/24/backyard-ultra-number-11-why-wouldnt-you/

What is a Backyard Ultra?

A backyard ultra is a type of ultramarathon where runners must complete a 4.167-mile (6.7 km) loop every hour, on the hour, until only one runner remains.

This seemingly arbitrary distance is derived from the need to complete 100 miles in 24 hours. The race continues until only one runner is left who can complete a loop within the allotted time. This format, popularized by Lazarus Lake (also known as Gary Cantrell) of the Barkley Marathons fame, has a deceptively simple structure but requires immense physical and mental resilience.

The details of the race:

• Hourly Start: Every hour, runners start a new loop. If a runner fails to complete the loop within the hour, they are out of the race.
• Rest Periods: Any time remaining after a runner finishes a loop is their rest period. For example, if a runner completes a loop in 50 minutes, they have 10 minutes to rest, eat, or tend to any needs before starting again.
• No End in Sight: The race continues indefinitely until only one runner completes a loop within the hour. The last runner standing must complete one more loop than the second-to-last runner to be declared the winner.

The Appeal: Backyard ultras attract a wide range of participants, from seasoned ultramarathoners to those looking for a new kind of challenge. The format levels the playing field, as it’s not necessarily about who can run the fastest, but who can manage their time, energy, and strategy the best.

I had entered Birdy’s after running a disappointing total at Herdy’s Frontyard Ultra in March this year. (Herdy’s is called a Frontyard Ultra as it is the sister event of the Birdy’s backyard Ultra, it’s actually a BYU but Shaun Kaesler, the Race Director,  likes the unique naming convention for the country and the city BYU’s ?) Herdy’s was hot and humid and I overdosed on electrolytes effectively killing my appetite and in a BYU you need to keep on top of hydration and nutrition, as in any ultra. I managed 24 hours but it was a struggle early on and,  as is the norm with these events , I retired from the format immediately.  As brutal as a BYU is it is also addictive in its ability to push you to places normal racing events can’t. As the race with no finish it really is up to you when you decide to stop (unless you win of course?) . No other format gives you this ability as the finish is either determined by distance or time before hand. This is what makes a BYU so alluring but then also so brutal because, post event, every single runner, bar the winner, I guarantee sits down and  thinks to themselves I could have gone further. This is why it is so addictive, you are competing with yourself and after every event you know you can improve. With experience you tweak things and go further but you will always think there’s more in the tank, just one more lap.

Birdy’s backyard Ultra is held on a campsite beside Lake Towerrining and the Ultra Series WA ( https://ultraserieswa.com.au/ ) takes over the site for the weekend. This is a major appeal of the event, it is a weekend away with like minded people all doing what they love and all encouraging others to do the same, one lap at a time. Birdy’s is unique.

Mentally I wasn’t 100% for this one. I had run the Bibra Lake Marathon four weeks prior and the legs hadn’t recovered. Post marathon I ran a two week recovery straight into a two week taper, not ideal. Basically a month of very little running coming into an event involving lots of running. As my good friend Dave Kennedy says ‘You don’t need to taper for an Ultra’. Not sure if there is any science to Dave’s quote but I believe the more distance you have in your training the better prepared, for an ultra anyway. Different story for a marathon or a faster event but for an ultra you can get away with competing on tired legs and doing well. I put this down to an ultra relying on mental preparation as well as good hydration and nutrition; less so pure cardio fitness.

For the first five or so laps I ran quick to the three kilometre mark and then walked a kilometre , over the grass meadow section, before running the last kilometres to the finish, bar any large inclines of course, it is an ultra. Looking at my splits on Strava (You are on Strava right ? http://www.strava.com ) I managed to hold this up to around the 100km mark. I was lapping between forty and forty five minutes , giving me good time in my chair to relax before the next lap.

Post 100km my splits tell a different story as my time in the chair became more and more limited before it was hard to see on my splits where my ‘chair time’ was.  I was lapping in the late fifty minutes now and coming in with no time to rest, just enough time to grab a snack or hydration.  This is the BYU death spiral and it is hard to get out of, fatigue just eventually grinds you down until you can’t make the hour and you time out. Gotta’ love a BYU.

One of the major draws of Birdy’s is the course itself. The Lake is stunning at sunrise and sunset and also pretty good during the rest of the day as well. Highlight though is the bridge installed for the event. You’re never sure if it is going to survive and in past years it has had some critical maintenance during the event. This year there was no issue albeit the water did seem to rise in the evening, or maybe that was my mind playing tricks on me ? In the evening it was good to take a few moments on the bridge and just appreciate your surroundings, the serenity setting was high.

The course can be divided into three sections and I do this with every BYU I enter.  At Birdy’s the first three kilometres to the bridge is good for running and banking time. The next two kilometres or so from the bridge to the ‘swamp area’ is green paddocks and the hardest section so I would normally walk large chunks of this. From swamp area, past the beach,  to the finish is again good for running.  Once I got to the swamp I was starting to think about what I needed to achieve back at camp, I would know by then what was required to get me onto the next lap.  If you take nothing from this post but this paragraph it’s worth the read. Don’t think of a lap as one start and one finish, break it down into smaller manageable and achievable smaller sections.  This is the way to run any race truth be told, this way you are achieving goals quicker and then onto the next one rather than waiting for the finish.

Running a BYU is as much mental as physical and as I mentioned earlier I was not where I needed to be mentally for this event. My lowest ever BYU result was 24 hours , my first ever BYU and my last (10th), but I was struggling after seven or eight laps and started to set increasingly lower goals. It started at 24 laps, then 22 laps (tutu lap) , 120km for AURA points, then 15 laps for 100km and even ten laps for double figures. I started to work my way though the list hoping to reach 24 as minimum.

Birdy’s starts at 10am so you have seven laps before it gets dark. You then have ten or eleven hours running in the dark and at Birdy’s its very dark bar the event village, which is very loud and light. For the first few hours there is a procession of headtorches but as the night wears on this number gradually falls each lap as runners DNF.  At each major milestone a number of runners leave the event for the warmth of their van or a hot shower. These milestones would be an ultra (lap 7), double figures (lap 10), 50 miles (12 laps) ,  100km, (lap 15) , tutu lap (lap 22) and then 100 miles (24 laps).

 

There was nearly 200 starters at 10am Friday morning but by sunrise Saturday  we were down to around thirty runners. A mixture of fatigue and freezing weather conditions made surviving the night challenging. Things got even harder with a morning mist that gave us virtually zero visibility. At one point I was totally lost as the head torch reflected off the mist and blinded me. I had ran the course nineteen times before but was very close to going  completely in the wrong direction. Funnily enough I could see a headtorch in the distance, way of course, and the runner called my name. I grunted back and carried on ‘swimming in a pea soup’. The runner eventually caught me up but if I’d been a few minutes earlier or later there’s no knowing where he would have ended up, certainly out of the race as I was lapping last at that point.

Once the mist cleared it turned into another sharp, crisp, beautiful morning.  The photos , as always don’t do it justice but  it was just so quiet and peaceful bar the odd frog calling for their mates. I was now heading towards the 22 lap target, the tutu lap. I was cutting it very close now , lapping around 55-58 minutes, straight from the finish line to the start line. I’d learnt from Herdy’s earlier in the year you can rack up quite a few laps doing this and sometimes its better to keep moving.  I know Harvey Lewis, the current World Champion with a 108 laps to his name, laps in the middle fifties and spends little time sitting in his chair.  It’s all about not expending too many energy, keeping in the low gears and just continually moving through the laps.

I was lapping last now and bar a miracle was never going to recover from my running fatigue and mental hole I had been digging myself the last few hours. I made it in on lap 21 by a minute and was handed a tutu and pushed back out again. Making the tutu lap was my second last goal but it was to be my last one. Luckily Astrid was there to get the photo which summed up the event really, hands on knees totally beaten. I had been feeling that way for many hours and the urge to continue to lap 24 was gone.  Could I have gone on and made 24 laps ? 100% yes, did I want to, 100% no. That’s a BYU.

One thing that is guaranteed after a BYU is you double guess yourself on why you finished and convince yourself you can go further next time. That’s the addictive nature of the event. It’s similar to chasing a time in shorter events. During the event I retired so many times and even until the following day I convinced myself I would never run another BYU, eleven was enough,  but then you start to remember the good things about the race itself and block out all the negatives.  Similar to never asking a Woman straight after child birth if she wants another child, you need time to digest what has just happened albeit for a BYU 24 hours is probably enough (not sure that is long enough for post child birth?)  Also I have already entered Herdy’s 2025 so it’d be a shame to give the entry away and it would be closure if I could finally find lap 48 at the event where really it all started with a 47 assist to Phil Gore.

I think the tutu lap was a tradition started by Phil Gore and is now taking off around the world in BYU’s. It was certainly ‘a thing‘ at the World Championships last year and would have been adopted since then. I wonder when we’ll see a 122 tutu lap ? Next year, the following year ? Soon I think.

The race for top honours came down to three runners by lap 36. Charles , Chris and a Japanese import with a very good racing pedigree, Kyohei Yoshizawa. Unfortunately Kyohei  could not complete lap 36 and was taken to hospital, which is a pretty good excuse not to go on. He is fine now. Chris had been nursing a foot injury the whole event and had let Charles know. Charles had to stop at lap 38 due to religious reasons (no exercising on a Sunday) and did the right thing by allowing Chris to take the win a lap or two early to save any further discomfort.  So on lap 37 Chris ran alone for the win and a silver ticket , which is entry into the Australian team for the satellite Championship’s to be held in October in Perth, actually at the Herdy’s loop.

I love the image above of me and one of the race directors, Felix, after he presented me with my DNF spoon and the Birdy’s five year anniversary medallion, that look on my face is pure joy at finishing the event. These are the moments you run these events for, the roar emotions, BYU’S only really the only event where you decide how deep into the pain cave you go and how long you stay there. The ability to push yourself harder and longer than you think you can possibly go. As brutal as they are beautiful.  This is why runners come back for more.

So what did I learn form BYU number eleven. I learnt I can do better and need to be more mentally switched on.  My goal is still 48 laps at Herdy’s in 2025 which would be a great way to complete my BYU career, coming full circle from my 47 laps in 2021 when I was so, so close. To do this I need to make Herdy’s one of my A races and get physically and mentally ready. I have the experience now and understand what it takes, it will happen.

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Big shout out to fisiocrem , this product is just incredible for tired and aching legs. I use it daily and have noticed a vast improvement in recovery.

Bix hydration is just ace, a product brought to life by Vlad Ixel a professional ultra runner who knows a thing or two about hydration. ( https://www.bixvitamins.com/ )  The best thing about Bix is it tastes good with many different flavours and you never get sick of drinking it, this is a big plus as Maurten and Tailwind (both great products)  can be difficult to digest later in the event.  From the website :-

As an Australian elite multiple trail running champion, with wins in over 40 ultra-marathon races across Asia, recovery from training and races has always been my top priority. 

In searching for a solid recovery and hydration supplement, I recognized that critical vitamins and minerals – both in diversity and quantity – were missing from almost all supplements on the market. I had the feeling that in an effort to maximize their bottom-lines, companies in the hydration space, failed to deliver a product that could meaningfully assist athlete performance. 

In order to address this, I began the development of a hydration product. After two and a half years of development alongside a leading German sports scientist, BIX Recovery, an advanced, high-quality recovery drink was born. 

BIX boosts 12 active ingredients scientifically balanced to replace lost electrolytes and assist in immune function. It’s designed with quality vitamins and minerals, in quantities that work! 

BIX is a recovery solution for everyone, that will get you to the top of your game!

What can I say about HumanTecar,  ( https://athleticus.com.au/ ) it looks great, smells great and is awesome for recovery or even pre-run/workout. Read about the science behind it first and then try the products. The compression bandages are just magical after a long event. Put these on and the next day you are recovered, I have used them on a number of occasions and they never fail to astound me albeit the family poke fun at me as I look like a ‘mummy and smell funny’ !

Fractel ( https://fractel.com.au/ ) have your performance headgear covered. I love the colours and the functionality of these hats, I guarantee there is one model you’ll fall in love with.

Shokz headphones, let you keep in touch with the world around while losing yourself in quality tunes or podcasts. ( https://shokz.com.au/ )

T8 running apparel is the best you can get, second to none. Designed for the ultra humid Hong Kong conditions the owners live in.  It is light and does away with any chaffing worries. T8 is the name given to the highest typhoon warning in Honk Kong,  storms and typhoons with gusts exceeding 180kph, which explains the branding. ( https://t8.run/)

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