Belgium have been crowned the Backyard Ultra World Team champions – and broken the world record in the process!
Backyard ultras are the brainchild of Barkley Marathons creator Laz Lake – and this bi-annual event underlines the surge in popularity of them.
The concept is relatively simple – run a 6.7km loops (a ‘yard’) on the hour, every hour, until one person is left standing.
The 6.7km distance equates to 4.167 miles and that times 24 equals 100 miles in 24 hours.
The team aspect adds another twist – each nation had 15 athletes competing and with double motivation; scoring points for their country and also trying to win the ‘local’ race themselves to be crowned national champion.
The scoring system for the team prize was each yard an individual completes, one point is awarded to their country’s score and the total sum of all yards run by all 15 athletes by the end of their event, equals the country’s overall score. The country with the highest number of yards wins the Championships.
So that’s the background and here’s how it all played out…
Belgium a class apart
The start list contained 63 countries worldwide – significantly up from 37 in 2022 and 21 for the inaugural competition in 2020.
Of course conditions can fluctuate from country to country – Storm Ashley scuppering Ireland’s hopes at the weekend being a prime example but whether it’s wind, rain or searing temperatures every athlete was challenged in a different way.
All, including this year’s competition, have been overseen by Laz and anyone watching the live coverage on YouTube will have seen plenty of him.
The standings spreadsheet is a joy to behold as he’s created various different categories to try and reflect the size and standing of the different teams and give a peer-to-peer comparison.
But on whatever criteria you look at, there’s no doubt that Belgium were a class apart.
The battle for the other podium places was a close one, with Australia overtaking Laz’s United States late on for second.
The Aussies racked up 971 yards to America’s 969 but way, way in the lead were the brilliant Belgians.
They were still going, or three of their 15 were – Merjin Geerts, Frank Gielen and Ivo Steyaert.
Their team tally had risen well over 1,100 yards and that trio had each passed the individual 100 mark, meaning that Harvey Lewis’ landmark 108 yards from the Big’s Backyard Ultra in 2023 (where this year’s Barkley Marathon’s first finisher Ihor Verys bagged the assist with 107) was under massive threat.
Lewis was part of the bronze medal winning US team, so on hand in Tennessee to observe the drama unfolding in Belgium.
World record mark
And in the early hours of Thursday morning Belgian time, having started on Saturday afternoon, that mark was surpassed.
They would go on to 110 yards each – four days and 14 hours of running and over 450 miles!
They’d run as a team and decided to stop as a team rather than continue until the point where we had the last person standing and an assist.
All of which meant Belgium were the winning team but there was no individual winner.
Or as Laz himself wrote on his Facebook page: “big dog’s backyard hour 111. it isnt going to happen. for the first time in almost 5 days no one is running in the satellite world championships! there is so much to say that i am going to wait until i finally get some sleep to even attempt to say it…
“merijn, ivo, and frank, on this night you are the best in the world!!!”
Eckert shatters previous women’s best
The women’s world record had been the first to go – in incredible fashion.
Megan Eckert of the United States completed a remarkable 87 yards to surge past the previous record of 74. The great Courtney Dauwalter is a previous record holder with 68 in 2020 to give that some sort of context.