As we sit down to start writing this, we’ve now had two full night’s sleep and been home for over a couple of days, while three Belgians have only just finished setting a new World Record of 110 yards – inspiring stuff! In the end it took us another week to finish writing 😴 Even given a few days to chew over our own personal performances everything is still a big mixture of emotions. Hopefully it will all settle down over the next few days and weeks and we’ll be left with a sense of achievement and pride at having run for team UK but right now things are still feeling quite raw. Julie is of course delighted to have completed 48 yards, which has been one of her goals for some time now, but Iain DNF’ed without being able to extend his PB of 37 yards on what should have been an easier course. Perhaps the worst part which might not have been apparent to anyone else, was that our planned strategy of working together failed for the first time and that hurts. Nevertheless, there are lots of positives, learning experiences, and plain old funny stories from the race, so here’s how it all panned out from our point of view…
After a long and nailbiting wait we finally got confirmation in August that both of us had made it on to the UK Team for the 2024 Backyard Ultra World Team Championships, Iain by virtue of winning a Silver Ticket at Pig on the Hill and Julie via her 38 yards from Rasselbock earlier in the year. Of course we were honoured and excited to have been selected, and we quickly worked out a plan. Due to the October holidays and various other reasons our usual friends and family were unavailable but in the end we had a combination of Auntie Fiona and Uncle John, followed by Nanny Robertson looking after the kids at home, while Christine Caldwell travelled with us to support during the race as our crew. We (well Julie mainly) planned the logistics and packed enough food and gear to support us for 5 days of backyard racing and on Friday morning we set off for journey down to Suffolk, picking up Christine on the way. It was great to be able to fit everything in the van without needing to take a trailer! After a good day’s travel, stopping for dinner somewhere near Rugby, we stayed overnight in Brandon, a town right next to Thetford Forest, where the race was to be held.
The BYU Team championship consists of a single race taking place simultaneously in each country, all starting at midday UTC on 19th October. In the UK that translated to a very civilised 1pm start, so we had a good full night’s sleep on the Friday night, a full cooked breakfast at the hotel and plenty of time to make the short drive to Thetford Forest to set up for the race. Christine even had time for a bit of Parkrun tourism, taking in the local Brandon Country Park Parkrun between breakfast and camp setup!
The race was hosted at Forestry England’s High Lodge site in Thetford Forest – this is a new venue which is planned to be used for future runnings of the Suffolk Backyard Ultra, but Challenge Running RD Lindley (also UK team manager) was using this race as a bit of a test event prior to running a BYU with up to 500 runners on the course next year. The start/finish area is in the middle of a large open clearing – big enough to fit 500 runners and their tents, but with only 15 of us we used a small area marked out by temporary fencing containing the corral, gantry, timing tent, race HQ and space for the runners and support crews. We arrived around 10am and set up our gazebo in a good spot not more than 10m away from the corral. A few of the team were there already but most arrived over the next hour or so and we tried to say hello to everyone and figure out who was who! Many of the team we had never met, only exchanged messages with on social media, or recognised them only from their official team bios. The time passed quite quickly, and we had a short briefing from Lindley and received our official team kit (race shirts and hoodies). We got our gazebo well organised, prepped all of our supplies and made sure Christine knew where everything was and what we were likely to need. Before long it was time to get changed and join the team on the start line for the official photo-shoot. At 12:57pm the first of many three-whistle blows was made and at 1pm on Saturday we all set off (along with runners in 60 other countries), the 2024 Backyard Ultra Team World Championship race had begun!
A bit about the course – the new course was expected to be even “faster” than the original Suffolk course at Knettishall Heath, with less elevation and generally better terrain. Leaving the corral, the route cuts across the grassy meadow and joins the Accessible Heritage Trail which it follows gradually downhill for the first mile. This is a very smooth and runnable trail, but the surface is made of very fine gravel which inevitably gets into your shoes and had to be emptied regularly. The second mile started with a short run along a gravel road to reach the bottom of the only real climb on the route. Named “The Beast” by Lindley, it really wasn’t that beastly (even after many, many repeats) it was just a gentle rise of about 20m over a third of a mile on a grassy path. Reaching the top the rest of the second mile was good grassy/earth paths, with only a small knobbly / rooty section. The rest of the loop consisted of three sections of gravel road, broken up by grassy forest rides which were mainly dry and runnable. At the end of mile four you passed a statue of the Gruffalo’s Child (pretty much every Forestry park has one these days!), and back out into the meadow for a short run to the finish. Overall a very runnable course, plenty to keep you interested without having to concentrate on navigation. Being in the forest was very sheltered, we had a little bit of wind and rain over the weekend but it was never extremely wet, blowy or cold in the trees. The camp on the other hand was noticeably colder, with cold fog settling over it during the night and a chilly breeze blowing across at times. Basically, it was a pretty much ideal setup for anyone planning a long Backyard Run.
How did the race go? We’ll spare you a yard-by-yard account, firstly it’s really boring, and secondly they all blur into one and we really can’t remember it all that well 🤣 To begin with we settled in to our planned pace of 12:30 per mile, walking large parts of the course and taking it easy. That pace works out at 52-53 minutes for the whole loop, with about seven minutes rest before starting the next one. We were spending most of our time at the back of the pack along with Luke Carter who generally started out ahead of us and finished the loop a few minutes behind us. Although the majority were in front of us, the field was never very widely spread barring Mike Raffan and Andrew Jackson who were well below 50 minutes per loop. We got a few chats here and there with others as our paces converged briefly, and spent one entire yard with John Stocker which was nice as Iain had never met him before. As the afternoon went on we were both eating well, moving well and feeling good. There was a little bit of rain and wind around, but nothing to cause any issues. After a few yards of even splits, we decided to go a little faster on the downhill first mile, banking time for the second (uphill) mile which was naturally a bit slower.
With the relatively late start we had only completed five yards when it was time for head torches. We carried on into the night with the same plan and ticked the hours off one-by-one. We had agreed there should be no negative chat between us on the course, but at some point it became clear that we were both starting to feel it. Julie’s knees began to hurt around yard 13 (2am), and Iain was starting to get a bit dozy. The positive chat that had made the first afternoon fly by dried up and we did several loops mostly in silence. We still had the possibility to put on some music, but planned to keep that to the second night. Iain’s singing kept Julie (and everyone else within earshot) entertained. At 5am we both started on the paracetamol, which helped a bit and after 14 hours of darkness dawn broke and it was time to take head torches back off again for the 8am yard.
Morning was a nice boost as always, Iain’s stomach came back to life after the usual night done mainly on gels and energy drink, Julie had been eating well throughout. Luke dropped out after yard 19, but apart from that the day passed largely uneventfully. We stuck to our pacing, and before we knew it we were approaching nightfall again. The downside of having started on the paracetamol was that every 6 hours you’d have a cycle of the pain being dulled for a few hours, then gradually ramping up again until it was time to take some more. A few people had started to slow, including Karen Nicol, who was now running at the back of the pack with John Stocker for company.
As we started on the second night, Iain started to really struggle to stay awake. He hadn’t been able to sleep at all between loops during the first night and the sleep demons came back pretty much as soon as the sun went down. We put our headphones in and had a good lap, motivated by the music but unfortunately it didn’t last. Julie wasn’t enjoying feeling isolated – although we were running together we were in our own individual bubbles. We compromised on having one earphone in and the other out so that we could still talk to each other, but since Iain was by this point barely awake it wasn’t much of a help. Julie was taking more and more of the lead, deciding where and when to run, and for how long – basically managing the race for the both of us. Iain could still run at a decent pace, but every time we slowed to a walk he would stagger from side to side like a drunk, eyes shutting involuntarily. Pretty much his only contributions were describing some of the hallucinations which were starting to appear – an ornamental rockery (complete with water feature) in the middle of the path, a random giant Toblerone, big metal barriers across the path, and a large farm outbuilding that mysteriously appeared ahead!
On yard 34 he had a major wobble… just mentally beaten down and wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep. Julie and Karen were keeping up a good stride ahead but he just kept dropping off the pace. At the top of the climb he decided he was done and planned to walk it back to the finish and time out. Julie of course was having none of this, but he wasn’t listening so she decided to rope in John Stocker to deal out a dose of advice, maybe he could “fix” Iain. She waited for him (he was starting the loop slowly as he had been doing for many hours) and left Iain to dawdle on but before the two of them could catch up something clicked in Iain’s head – if sleep was what was needed, the only way to get it was to run full pelt back to the finish and get 15 minutes of shut-eye! He started running flat out, finishing the last two miles at under 8 minutes per mile, arriving back at 43:30. The rest of the team were very confused (and worried there was an emergency) as he dashed past. Unfortunately, even with more than 16 minutes under a sleeping bag, sleep still eluded him. But on the plus side, he knew that he could still run!
We set out together again on yard 35 with a few more issues to contend with – the hard running meant that Iain was now being sick whenever he tried to eat and drink, and Julie’s knees were now being made worse by running down the first mile. We agreed to go a bit slower on the downhill, even walking sections of it, and accept that our overall time for the loop would be a bit slower. It was actually a good plan and did give her knees a respite, but it also meant putting more walk breaks into the runnable sections on the gravel roads in the second half of the loop. Overall we dropped a couple of minutes, finishing the yards in 54 minutes rather than 52. Still enough time to rest and refuel, so that was a worthwhile trade-off. Unfortunately it didn’t take long for the negative voices to creep back into Iain’s head and after a few yards of puking in the corral and “dead-man-walking” around the yard, he decided it was time for him to quit. At the end of loop 37, he rang the DNF bell and was out of the race.
Julie wasn’t ready to stop yet but was aware Iain stopping could have a negative affect on her race if she went into a negative mental spiral. With that in mind as she entered the corral for lap 38 she asked Andy Imms if she could tag along with him for the lap if she could keep to his pacings! It turned into a great lap enjoying the company of Andy (and also Damian and Wayne who Andy had been running with for several laps). It was great to hear how others were getting on and also made sure Julie wasn’t inside her own head too much! Knee pain was still a problem, the general fatigue of hours on the feet and it being night time.
Julie’s laps slowed over the next few hours to coming in with about 5 minutes to spare – still plenty of time but it was making Julie feel quite stressed. Daylight didn’t give much of a boost and laps were spent trying to stick to a pacing and chatting with different people that were running at similar pace. Julie discovered running up some of the one and only hill was a lovely relief on the legs and also banked some time as her walk up the hill was getting slower and slower. Thomas, Wayne, Damian and Andy (before he stopped) were all great company and helped pass some of the miles.
Each lap seemed to get harder and harder and Iain (who had had four hours sleep and was now wide awake again!) and Christine moved her chair and a box of food and gear down to the edge of the corral to save a bit of time between loops. On yard 46 she had a wobble of her own and came in looking distraught – not just by the amount of effort it was taking to get round the loop, but also by the possibility that she might fail just short of the 48 yard mark. Yard 47 was even slower, and it was an anxious wait at the finish, but with less than 90 seconds on the clock she made it over the line and we quickly turned her around for one more lap. This lap had been a massive mental challenge as 2 and a half miles in Julie’s pacing was slower than what was needed to get round in the hour. A good cry and talking to herself and Julie upped the running to just get back in the hour. She knew that the 48hours was doable and set out on the 48th loop with determined focus.
The 48th loop Julie went round the loop with Thomas and Wayne (thanks guys 🙏) but by this time she was not about to quit. In under 55 minutes, she completed her 200th mile, becoming one of only 8 people in the UK to do so 🎉 Having pushed so hard to reach a milestone, she was absolutely done, but Iain, Christine and various onlookers twisted her arm to get her back in the corral for yet one more lap! She made it about half a mile into the course before having another good cry and a sleep on a bench. After about half an hour she was found by a pair of dog walkers and brought back to the camp. Fortunately they were aware the race was on so weren’t too perturbed to find someone in running gear asleep on a bench in a forestry park! They were a lovely mum and daughter (the daughter is running Suffolk next year) and Julie enjoyed a great chat with them walking back to camp.
And with that our races were over. We stayed around for a few hours, Julie mainly sleeping while Iain packed up the gazebo and all the gear around her. It was mid afternoon by this point, so we made a last-minute booking at a some local accommodation (The Annexe, Mildenhall) and by 6pm we were showered and scoffing takeaway pizza while following the end of the race via the live stream like everyone else! We all slept for 11+ hours and then headed out for a much-needed breakfast at Angel’s Cafe – the breakfast burrito is highly recommended (and probably contains about 2000 calories). After a day on the road we were back in Scotland and back to the real world. The Belgians of course, were still running!
As we said at the outset, there are a huge mix of emotions still swirling around. Absolutely, it was a huge privilege to be invited to run for our national team, and spend a weekend in the company of some of the the best Backyard Ultra running in the UK. There were lots of positives to take from the race too:
- Logistics, organisation and crewing was top notch (thanks Christine 🙏). We had everything we needed, and plenty of time between loops to do everything, including emptying lots and lots of gravel from our shoes!
- Footcare was great – Julie pre-taped some of her toes and changed shoes at one point, and Iain just swapped socks but by the end of the race neither of us had any significant blisters, certainly none that would have stopped us continuing.
- Food and hydration went pretty much to plan, we both had a good variety of food and managed to keep eating at roughly the right rate throughout the event. Later on, Julie took a race pack with some food and energy drink out on the course which worked well when the time between yards was getting tight.
- Julie absolutely smashed her PB by 10 yards, and is in rarified company now having completed 200 miles in 48 hours, as well as finishing 10th woman worldwide in this year’s championship 🎉
But also lots of points of improvement:
- Iain definitely felt that he underperformed – he matched his PB, but that was set on a more difficult course (God’s Own Backyard) and he had much higher goals for this one. The main cause of him quitting was sleep deprivation, and that is something that needs to be managed better in future but both of us struggled with the fact that the race felt a lot harder (and was a lot less fun) than we expected. Running a race with only 15 runners, all of whom are capable of huge distances is a very different experience to a normal backyard. Not only are there fewer people around to talk to to pass the time and provide a welcome distraction, you do not get the constant reinforcement from other people DNF’ing that you’re doing well!
- Somehow, we didn’t manage to work that well together at this race. We both were struggling with either pain or tiredness but since we had agreed not to bring any negativity on to the course, that just meant that conversation almost dried up between us. When we put headphones in that made things even worse and we ended up with the worst of both worlds – running to each other’s pace but stuck inside our own little bubbles. Towards the end of the race Julie’s knees meant she couldn’t run for as long or as fast as Iain, and Iain couldn’t walk as fast (or in as straight a line!) as Julie. We definitely needed to have a more flexible strategy to allow us to work to our own strengths as the race went on.
- Stomach issues affected Iain a bit towards the end of the race, caused by two things. Firstly was wearing a waist pack (to carry a phone and gels during the second night), which was uncomfortably tight. In the end he took it off and just carried a few gels. After the fast loop on yard 34 he started also being actually sick. Most likely that would not have been a reason to quit by itself but it certainly didn’t help.
In the end the UK race was won by Sarah Perry with a fantastic 59 yards, with Alex Sweet providing the assist – huge congratulations to them both 👏👏👏 As for us, it’s time to fully recover and get stuck back into a big winter training block to be ready to bring extra motivation, fitness and mental strength to Rasselbock BYU 2025 and see how far we can go! And Julie has already signed up for Suffolk BYU too, so we’ll be back at Thetford before too long 😵💫