Greenvale Backyard Ultra Marathon

For those not familiar with the concept, the Backyard Ultra is a 6.71k loop that must be completed within the hour. Then, at the beginning of the next hour you start all over again. You keep running/walking until you time out (you don’t make it back before the hour is up), you decide that you’re not up to starting the next loop, or the medical officer pulls you out. The odd distance of each loop gives you a total of 100 miles in 24 hours—for those who get that far. The world record stands at 110 yards/hours for 458.33 miles/737.61 kilometres!

This year hasn’t gone as I had hoped. I didn’t do either the Scottsdale Rail Trail or the Bruny Island Ultra. So many things got in the way of enabling me to attend these events—though I did manage to complete my virtual run around New Zealand with Run the World. Over the last couple of months, I have also had hip and leg issues. I finally went to the physio about 2½ weeks prior to Greenvale, telling him of my plans and that I needed to keep on training. He tested me out and gave me four exercises to do daily—along with saying that I could still run, but that I should avoid hills for the following week.

With these various ups and downs, I found myself eagerly anticipating the event but then dreading it the following day. The last few days have been spent resting or just walking, and I felt much better for the reduced load. I spent time researching the internet for ideas on nutrition and hydration for ultra marathon events and made a stockpile of drinks and eats for the big day. I’m think that I was even better prepared in that area than when I did Bruny in 2018 as a solo runner.

The day before the event, the farm was open for people to set up and check out the course. We had a short walk on the first part of the course and decided that we needed to get ourselves a gazebo. We called in to Anaconda on the way home and bought one as well as some screwed tent pegs as it was quite windy out there in the middle of the day. We also got a new camp chair for Val. After a late lunch I returned to set up our gazebo beside the Bosveld family, who helped me erect it. Back home, I made up my peanut butter and honey sandwiches and jam sandwiches, as well as slicing up some of my oranges.

This morning, I was up before the alarm and made us our pot of tea after having breakfast of yoghurt and banana and two slices of white bread toast with peanut butter and honey. I then packed the BT50 and we left home at 7:30 am to continue getting everything set up for the day.

After an 8:45 am briefing, which included an inspirational speech by Tim Blair from the Tim Blair Run for Kids Foundation Inc., it was almost time to start our first yard. Not only did the 3-minute, 2-minute and 1-minute whistles sound, but Tye Binns also walked between the gazebos to warn us. I started at the back of the pack, which is my preferred place, as I knew that I was planning to run slowly but aiming at around 7:45-8:00/k pace. The first kilometre, some of which was on road, was mainly an uphill slog that meant I had time to make up for the rest of the loop. The fully exposed course was on a farm, which meant that the mown “grass” (perhaps that should read clover/crop) needed to be treated with respect. I wondered if there would be rolled ankles because of the terrain we were traversing. The course had its undulations in which I basically walked the uphill sections. I finished the first yard with about 6 minutes to spare, which enabled me to grab something to drink and some nibbles (chips, jellies and jam sandwich quarters). The second loop was similar in time to the first, though my first kilometre was slower (in fact, each of my first kilometres were progressively slower than the previous one). It was sunny and warming up, though intermittent cloud cover meant that we had some cooler times. By the time we were part way through the third loop the wind began and it grew in intensity from there on. Thus, it became, for me at least, a real struggle running into the wind and up the hills/inclines at the same time. It was in the third loop that I began to feel the challenge of this course. I did complete the loop, but it was getting harder to keep going. In the fourth loop I was running like the Old Man that I am frequently called while running. In this loop, with about 1.5k to go, I had my head down watching the ground when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw safety tape fluttering in the wind. I kept it on my left when there was a whack on my head as I hit the nozzle part of an irrigation sprayer. Looking back, I saw my mistake. I opted to climb over the tape rather than do the extra to get to the start of the tape. I safely stepped over with my right leg, but my left leg cramped, and my foot became caught on the tape as I attempted to lift it over. As a result, I tumbled to the ground. A young lady stooped to ensure that I was OK, before I rolled over and stood up to continue. We ran together for a little while before I drew ahead of her. I still managed to complete that loop in under the hour, but I didn’t have as much time to spare. Then it was onto the fifth lap and I could feel the difficulty in continuing to run—and I really thought that I was going to time out on this one. As I came into the tented area I cramped in my left leg and had to stop to rub it. However, I was able to run to the finish line reasonably well but, having crossed it with only a couple of minutes to spare, I cramped quite badly. The medical officer came over and told me that she was pulling me out of the event because the cramp was so bad.

Anyway, that was the end of my day, but I did complete 5 yards with several people behind me failing to finish that loop. We stayed around for a while as Val took more photos and I ate and drank. At home, I had a bath but cramped badly again—much worse this time. Val brought me some salt to help ease it but I threw up in the bath. I’ve never done that before at the end of any run.

I certainly fulfilled my first goal of not being the first person to not finish and I made my second goal of 5 yards. However, I had higher hopes of making it to 10 yards for my longest ever run (Bruny in 2018) and then maybe going on the run 100 kilometres or even 100 miles. However, my old legs have been failing me over the latter part of this year as they have lost a lot of their strength. I also had some left hip soreness which affected the IT Band. Would I do it again? At the moment, I’m not sure though I do have the 50k run at Gone Nuts in March. During the run I questioned myself as to whether I should stick to something shorter—like parkrun! I suppose I am a bit disappointed that I couldn’t go further—but I still did 5 yards on a tough course!

One thing I did find strange was the number of people talking about the fact that I am 76 years old.

Even though I was always at the rear of the field, I stopped/paused on a few occasions to checked on other participants who seemed to or were having troubles. I even ran with some of them for short distances.