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Backyard Ultra Team World Championship - Team Canada, 8th place team
PRE-RACE
My main takeaway from the Backyard Ultra Team Championship is that you can't half-ass a backyard. If you can't make it your main race for that part of the year, then you don't have much chance of succeeding. It is definitely not a good idea to run a backyard a month after a 6-day race. Not that I didn't know this before the race, but I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to run for Team Canada in this worldwide event where 63 countries competed simultenously. I expected that it could go either way, it could turn out really well, building on the fitness I gained in my 6-day, or it could backfire that the two races are too close together and they are both monsters - this was the more likely scenario.
The set up was incredible, the organizers and the city of Edmunston in New Brunswick, Canada, gave us little cabins next to the corral where we could stay, we had professional chefs cooking for us and the race director was also a physiotherapist by trade which was extremely helpful for treating the little injuries that inevitably show up in a race of this length.
Team Canada: the top 15 backyard runners of the country (who accepted the invitation to the team)
I was seeded No. 9 of the 15-member Team Canada with my 49 laps that I did in May of 2023 at the Capital Backyard Ultra. There were 3 women in our team, Amanda Nelson who holds the Canadian women's backyard record (with 57 loops pre-race and 60 loops now) and Stephanie Simpson who qualified with 47 loops but she also won the Canadian team championship in the first edition in 2020 with 43 loops. Men and women don't have their own divisions in the backyard format, they all compete against each other, but of course, most women follow where they stand against other women.
I expect that anybody reading this recap is familiar with the format but I will mention it anyway: we had to run a 6.7 km / 4.1 mile loop (also called "yard") every hour on the hour until there is just one last person standing. The countries were competing against each other: every lap of every runner was worth 1 point for the country, but the races were also each intended to crown a national champion, who can then travel to Tennessee the following year to compete against all the other national champions on the same course. For this year's team championship, each country's runners were competing in their own country, on their own course. There was no other requirement for the course but to cover the required distance.
Some courses had a separate day and night time loop, usually the day loop being on trail and the night loop being on road. Other countries, like us, ran the same course day and night.
The cabins surrounding the start / finish and the corral
DAY 1, DAYTIME: Loops 1-9
So on October the 19th, Saturday morning at 9 am New Brunswick time we started our first loop. The trail was very nice and flat, I believe the city even did some work to make sure the little forest part doesn't have hazardous roots and rocks and the asphalt path was also patched up so we don't trip and fall after a few sleepless nights. We left Artisans' Square on a paved path and turned onto the wide gravel path of the Fraser Golf Club's golf course - the owners gave the race special permission to go through the course. Then we went into a forest and out to a subdivision on the other end where the residents had a bonfire and party going all night to cheer us on. After the turn around back into the forest, through the golf course, along the Madawaska River and via the paved path right back to Artisan's Square. It was a beautiful, flat course with varied, easy footing.
I was feeling mentally and physicall fine and was planning on running 50-52-min loops during daytime. I had a good time catching up with old team members and getting to know new ones so my loops were a bit slower, between 53-55 minutes while hanging out with them, and that was fine. We got extremely lucky with the weather for October. There was no rain at all and the temperatures were very mild, even hot during the day (20C / 68F) and cool but not too bad at night (2C / 35F). It was a large range so we kept putting layers on and then taking them off but it was all very pleasant day and night. After the first, chillier night the second night only went down to 8C / 46F which was even better.
Basically, everything was set up for us to all have an amazing race. I personally find that I can't do that well in the fall season because there are so many fewer daylight hours than in the spring. In May the sun goes down at 9pm and the sky already breaks at 5am. That means we have 8 dark hours versus a 7pm sunset and an 8am sunrise in October with its 13 hours of darkness. That is a difference of 5 hours!!! So for that reason alone, I will always do better in the spring than in the fall in any race that includes night time running. But this is a race that is run simultanously in all countries, some have spring, some have fall, some have 40C / 100F heat, some have snow, some start in the middle of the day and some in the middle of the night. The date is set by the creator of the format, Laz, and it is what it is, the same time every year.
The start of Lap 1 with RD, Yvan
I really love the team event because unlike in any other backyard race, where you try to hide your weaknesses from the other competitors and their crews, here you can ask for help from the organizers and also fellow competitors, be open about your struggles so they can help. It is uplifting to know that you are not the only one struggling and that together we can get through it and come out victorious on the other end. In 2020, the first team event was my 2nd ever ultra run, after I ran a 24-hour race a month prior. I had no idea what I was doing, yet, the team helped with knowledge and anything I needed, and Team Canada finished in 3rd place back then.
Laz, the inventor of the format, decided that the team championship, which was a product of the COVID-19 restrictions worldwide, was so successful, that it would be held every two years going forward. In 2022 another big dream of mine came true and I qualified for the Kona Ironman World Championship which was a week before the backyard team event. My qualification for the backyard wasn't certain (I was an alternate and the slot would have rolled down to me), and by the time the backyard slots were decided, I had already accepted my slot for the Ironman World Championship. I was contemplating doing both, but eventually made the sensible decision not to do that. Funny that the realization came during a Silver Ticket race that would have qualified me for the championship.
This time around I knew that I didn't want to go to the Ironman World Championship which was in Nice, France for the ladies this year. That course doesn't suit me and I was more excited to participate in the backyard championship. However, if I want to do well in 2026, when the next team championship is organized, then I will have to clear my fall calendar of other multiday races and concentrate on this one, which I'm seriously thinking of doing.
The first day went smoothly during daytime. Luckily, I didn't feel the same way as I did back in March at Ohio's Backyard Ultra , when I felt horrible from the start (it later turned out that I was fighting an infection that time).
Day 1, daytime, still happy. Beautiful course.
DAY 1, NIGHTTIME: Loops 10-23
The night time however, wasn't as smooth as I had hoped it would be. It started out well, I threw down a 47:30 lap to get some sleep but of course, for me it was too early to sleep. I did get some good rest though. Realizing that I wouldn't be able to sleep yet, I did the next lap in 49 minutes and again, got some great shut eye but no sleep.
Even relatively early in the night, 10-11pm, I just wasn't feeling great. I started the race with my right ankle taped with KT tape because it was painful after my 6-day race but I didn't tape the left ankle pre-race which was a mistake. Historically, my left ankle has given me more trouble than the right. Around 11pm the pain in the left ankle got bad enough that I wanted to tape it. We had a hard time getting the tape stick (because of a stupid mistake by me, spraying the area with slippery TriSlide just before trying to apply the tape), so I showed up in the corral for the starting bell with my left shoe and some KT tape in my hand, my sock half on. The bell rang, signaling the start of the lap, at which time we need to leave the corral and get on the course. So I took a few steps and then sat down outside of the corral to get the tape on and my socks and shoes back on. All in all I spent 4 minutes with this, which wasn't too bad, so I still had enough time to get around the course and be back with a few minutes to spare.
The original plan was to take naps at night for the first two nights and not during the day but since I wasn't doing too well, I ended up taking some caffeine in the middle of the night, knowing that it means no sleep for the rest of the night. My hope was that come daytime, since I run on solar power, I would be getting in earlier without taking any caffeine and would be able to sleep during the day instead of at night, completely flipping the race plan upside down.
Going into the first night
I was once again worried not to make it to the tutu lap which was at 6 am for us! The Aussies came up with this idea and I love it, for lap 22 = two-two -> tutu. So at 6 am many of us in Canada, and I believe everyone in the Aussie team went out in a tutu which is a great pick-me-up in the middle of the night!
In fact, when Stephanie, who just finished the Tor de Geants a week after I did my 6-day race (she was probably even more fatigued at the start of the race already than I was) mentioned to me that she was finding it hard already, I told her this: we have one more lap, then the tutu lap, then only one more and then the sun comes up! I was struggling just as much as she was and this was how I kept myself motivated so it was easy to share it with her and hope that it works for her as well as it did for me. This happened as we were just going out on the lap, so only a few minutes after we left the corral. Here is the funny part! By the end of the loop, as we were coming back I heard my own motivational talk back from another member of the team, haha... Isn't that super cool? So Steph shared it with someone, who shared it with someone who shared it with someone and it got back to me, someone telling me: guess what, Viktoria, we only have one more lap until the tutu lap, then one more lap and then we have daylight! That's the power of the team championship!
It got cooler at night and my mood wasn't the greatest either
DAY 2, DAYTIME: Loops 24-34
Even after taking the caffeine around 2 am, I had a few laps that were very slow at the end of the night, 56, 57 minutes and I couldn't wait for the sun to finally come up. Once it did, my lap times suddenly went back down to 51-52 minutes, I was able to get some naps in since the caffeine already went out of my system and all was fine again. I knew I wasn't having a great race, but I was also feeling perfectly fine physically and mentally, and didn't see any reason why I couldn't go even another full day and night or potentially longer. I wasn't struggling mentally, I was just feeling tired, but that is nothing unexpected. I'm perfectly comfortable coming in at 57-58, turning around and going back out, and doing that for a long period of time. We don't stop every hour in our timed races so I'm used to going for long periods of time with no break, I've done a 48-hour race with zero breaks other than washroom and very quick changes of shorts or socks (and covered 25% more distance than what is needed in a backyard).
I started experiencing some foot pain the first night and I only realized it was probably plantar fasciatiis days after the race. I don't even remember how it came to me, suddenly it just dawned on me that what I experienced during my 6-day race wasn't just some random foot pain, it was probably PF and that is what I was dealing with in this race as well. So now I will have all winter to rehab it, and rehab my shoulder and also the ankles. If I can get the shoulders healthy, I might do a "short" half-Ironman triathlon next year just for fun! But at this time, I can't go down to aero position on my bike, my shoulders are painful and lost the mobility too. And swimming is a no-go right now.
Day 2 with Steph
Unfortunately a few hours after sunrise Steph started to have breathing issues. I know those all too well. I gave her a few tips on how to mitigate the symptoms but at one point it started getting bad and she had a bad cough. It was just a matter of time how long she could handle the lung pain before it was too much. She dropped out after lap 30 at 3pm so we were down to 14 runners.
I still thought that even though I was having some issues, my ankle was hurting a bit and I was way more fatigued than I should have been at this point in the race, I could still last potentially through the whole night and maybe most of the following day. It was just a question of handling what the race threw at me, one lap at a time.
Even when Steph dropped out, I was already struggling myself. I didn't share it with anybody but Steph, just to encourage her. And while I knew I wasn't having the race that I was hoping for, I didn't think it would necessarily have to end that early. I was coming in around 55-56 past the hour, but I was fine with it and just kept at it. During lap 30, though, my left arch collapsed and became very painful. Yvan, the RD, who was also helping out as PT, told my crew that if I could come in early enough, with 5 minutes to spare, he could treat it and all would be fine. So the goal was to find a loop where I could come in with enough time to spare. Now, the hard part about it in a backyard is always this exact situation, a complete catch 22. You can't come in fast enough to take care of the issue because you are in pain. You don't come in early enough so you go back out with the same pain and then you can't come in early enough because you are in pain.
Justin Wright (left) and Cédric Chavanne (middle) were two runners I spent a little time talking to. Two incredible athletes.
The situation got a bit more complicated. Unfortunately at the worst possible time, I needed a bathroom break which took 5 minutes during lap 31. I managed to make up for it, but not enough to come in with enough time to spare for taking care of the foot. Lap 32, I was a bit exhausted from pushing myself harder during the previous lap so I took it easier, thinking that I can push again during lap 33 and we can take care of the foot. However, as luck would have it, I had to spend another 5 minutes in the bathroom during lap 33. This isn't unusual, these were my first No. 2 bathroom breaks during the race, and I tend to go twice normally during my morning routines anyway. This time, it was inconvenient. So the situation repeated itself, I was a bit exhausted from making up the lost time and had to take lap 34 easier. That was around the time when the nausea hit and also when the sun went down.
I don't know what to make of the nausea, to be honest. I don't normally get nauseous or throw up in races (barring food poisioning) so I'm not well equipped to handle it. I took Gravol twice but it didn't help. Maybe people just make themselves throw up and then get relief and can continue? Also the week after the race I kept getting nauseous all the time, I still don't know what it was. (I'm definitely NOT pregnant, haha...) I came down with a painful lung (hello, asthma) and later some cold symptoms plus general weakness and nausea, showing that my immune system was trashed, which is not surprising at all. It could be that it was all just a bit too much for my poor body to handle.
I also wasn't drinking enough during those 4 laps and didn't really eat much either, because of the nausea from about lap 32. And that was the perfect storm unfortunately, not in a positive sense.
By the end of day 2, I wasn't this happy any more
THE END
With being dehydrated and underfueled for the past few hours, the pain in my arch getting stronger, as well as the plantar fasciatiis along the whole foot on both feet, combine that with the nausea and it got to be too much to make it back on time. I got to the halfway point in 34:46 - 46 seconds longer than ever before. I stopped for a moment and thanked all the cheering squad, I told them how awesome they were and that if I didn't see them again, I wanted to let them know that they made a huge difference to my race. I kept "running" as much as my depleted body, painful feet and nausea allowed but they didn't. I walked a lot. I still had a little hope and kept at it, until about 1.5 km (1 mile) from the finish, when it was clear that I wasn't going to make it back on time. I was going to be about 2 minutes too late.
Is it still mental at this point? Yes. Could I have pushed that 1 mile just 2 minutes harder? Or the last 2 miles a minute harder each? Almost certainly yes, but there was no way back from the death spiral any more. I did want lap 35 badly, because in my first ever backyard, the 2020 Team Championship, I finished with the exact same 34 yards. I wanted one more. But the pain was just too much. And I would have almost certainly timed out on the next lap even if I made this one. It was going to be over anyway, within an hour.
I stayed back at the start of the laps knowing that I was going to come in later than most
Once I realized that I wouldn't make it back on time, I just walked the last mile back to camp, not even trying to jog. The remaining 13 runners started lap 36 and passed me, I cheered them on, they all said something nice and that was it. Death march back to the finish line.
Of course, I was disappointed with only making it to 34 laps when I have done 49 hours last year. And being the second one to drop is also not the result I was hoping for. But if I look at it from another angle, there were only 3 women that qualified for Team Canada, and I was one of those. I finished the race as the second strongest female runner in the BYU format in Canada. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?
Team Canada finished in 8th place (after two of Spain's runners were disqualified), Lee Alonso Murphy took the win with 68 laps with Eric Deshaies claiming the assist with 67. Amanda broke the Canadian Women's record with 60 laps which ties her for 5th place on the all-time list for women. Very impressive and of course a new mark for me to aim for in the future!
The team competition was won by Belgium, with 3 of their runners setting a new World Record of 110 laps and then stopping together. Australia finished 2nd and the USA 3rd, with Meg Eckert, my Mount To Coast team mate setting a new women's WR of 87 hours.
The race staff were always ready to cheer us up! Unfortunately, by this point, I wasn't very receptive of their efforts
My positive take-away (because I always have a positive takeaway, that is just the way I am) was how surprisingly well my mind cooperated with me to get the most out of my body. After the 6-day Worlds a month ago, I was more worried about not being able to hold it together mentally than my body falling apart. It all worked out the exact opposite way: my body let me down but my mind didn't. I was proud of my mind and the work I did on my mental toughness the past few years. It seems to be paying off.
I originally penciled in a few more things for the year including qualifying races for other events and maybe a 10-hour rogaine, but having experienced the condition my body is in right now, even a "short" rogaine seems like a bad idea. I will just chill for the rest of the year, spend more time with my family, get the taxes filed (way overdue!), get the house organized (well, that is even more overdue!) and make big plans for 2025.
I will also put together a summary blog post of 2024 with all the learnings of a rather big year.
My incredible crew members: Bela Vados (left), Rhonda Cole (right). Thank you so much, you were amazing!