What an epic race that was! But to properly tell the story we need to go back more than a year to June 2023 and as it was then called, the Lionsgate Backyard Ultra. I had gone there as part of Team Scotland, with high expectations after winning God’s Own Backyard Ultra 2022 and made an early exit with my tail firmly between my legs. Yes it was (very) hot, yes I had a spot of tibial tendonitis but ultimately I didn’t manage myself properly and quit after 10 yards. I didn’t even hang around long enough to support the rest of the team, or eventual winner Mike Raffan (sorry Mike)! Before I even got home I knew I would have to come back for a crack at redemption.
Fast-forward to the start of 2024 and I was planning to secure my place on the UK national Backyard Team with a big run at the Cowshed in April. The weather washed out that event and I was sidelined by a torn labrum (that’s the cartilege in your hip socket, in case you were wondering) for nearly 3 months. As the spring went on, I watched as the fitness from my Spring training block slipped away and gradually I dropped down off the bottom of the UK “at large” list as my 37 yards from GOBYU 2022 was surpassed (including by Julie at Rasselbock BYU). Fortunately, a plan came together in my head to make a last ditch attempt to qualify at Pig on the Hill BYU, the final Silver Ticket race. With a course record of “only” 27 yards, it seemed unlikely that the event would go on long enough to reach the 39 yards needed to qualify for the team, so it was simply a case of win or bust! The only question was – could I do it?
After missing several months of training and two planned races I had at least managed to string together a couple of 50 mile weeks followed by two weeks on holiday in Spain – good for heat acclimatision, even if there was more sitting around a pool eating and drinking than there was running 🤣 At least I would make it to the race well rested! Unfortunately the longest run I had been able to do since February was 15 miles, so even though my hip seemed to be almost completely recovered I really had no idea how it would hold up to anything like the 100+ miles that would likely be needed. Some nervous study of the start list also revealed there were two other people competing with higher Backyard PBs than me, as well as several others with plenty of experience, not to mention some good ultra runners taking part in their first Backyard. I would say I had high hopes for the race, but was managing my own expectations, I just planned to turn up, run sensibly and see what my body was capable of on the day.
Originally we had planned to go down to the Wales for the race as a family and have Julie crew me throughout. Unfortunately we discovered late on that no dogs were allowed as the race is based on a working farm, so at the last minute plans changed to a solo mission! Fortunately Julie kept me organised and I had all my clothing, food and gear sorted, bagged and packed into easy to access boxes. Combined with new gazebo, I was as well prepared as possible, and planned to be self-sufficient although I had offers of help from both Vic Owens (and crew) and Darren Clarkson if needed.
I took Friday off work, with the intention of getting to the site by mid-afternoon to get a good camp spot near the corral. As it turned out, the traffic was horrendous all the way from the M6, along the M56 and all the way to Pwllheli and by the time I arrived in early evening I had to settle for a spot maybe 50m away from the start line. It was a rainy and misty evening, so I was grateful for Andy Imms taking pity on me and helping me get the gazebo up 🙏 I registered, got off to bed early and slept well in the back of the van with my alarm set for 5am ready for the race to start at 7am.
Sadly, Backyard Ultras are a bit boring to write about, so let’s take a brief diversion with a description of the route – hopefully it will give you some idea of what to expect if you fancy giving it a shot in future!
Mile 1: Starting from the corral in the camping field, you head out of the bottom corner of the field and turn sharp right onto a gravel lane. The lane gradually improves into a tarmac road, heading uphill past a farm for roughly half a mile. Cows can been seen at milking in the morning, evening (and morning again!) Turning sharp right again, the road levels out and passes several more cottages before petering out into a grassy lane, headed downhill towards a junction with the Wales Coast Path. Turning left through the gate (a bottleneck on the first few loops), the mile finishes with on a wide, level grassy meadow facing heading towards the sea. Wild ponies can be found in this area!
Mile 2: This section is largely an out-and-back along the coast path, with a small turnaround loop around a ruined cottage. While there are no big climbs like miles 1 and 3, the route is constantly undulating and often hard to run on. The path is mostly a mix of grassy and sandy rutted path, but there are many rocks and off-camber sections. There are a few small climbs that are short and sharp! The start and end of the mile passes through wide swathes of purple flowering heather and yellow gorse, while the turnaround passes through thick bracken – head-high in places and disguising lots of rocks and very easy to trip up!
Mile 3: The first third of a mile takes you back to the gate you passed through earlier. This time, turn left and head further down the grassy lane, through another gate, past a small water treatment plant (watch out for concrete trip hazards here) and through another gate onto the open hillside of the Mynydd Penarfynydd. The second big climb of the course is here. Shorter and steeper than the road climb, this one takes a narrow path through a gorse thicket – impossible to avoid getting scratched! Before too long you pass another gate and are rewarded with views back down to the camp, a long way below. The trig point marks the highest point of the course and the start of a long gentle downhill towards the headland. Mostly wide and grassy but with a few narrow rutted parts between the heather, with rocks to keep you on your toes.
Mile 4 (and .167): Shortly after completing mile 3, the coast path makes a double-back to the right, and you continue straight on for a short out-and-back to see the pig! This section was another definite bottleneck near the start of the race, but it also makes it easy to judge where you are relative to others. After rounding the pig and heading back along to join the coast path, the route makes a short climb before another long, runnable descent down to the farm. The wild ponies made an appearance here too, fortunately they were willing to be moved on as there is no real way around them. Through, there is a steep grassy bank down into the farmyard before rejoining the lane you started on at the beginning of the loop. Still a little way to go though, as the route passes by the first entrance into the camping field and enters instead at the far corner. Turn right into the field and make a clockwise half-circuit to finish back where you started… hopefully ready to go again!
Strava link to the route is at the bottom of the post (no spoilers 😉). Hopefully the photos gave you a good idea what to expect. Check out this video from Andy Imms (4x speed, so just under 15 mins for the whole loop):
Right, now you have a good picture of the course, let’s get back to the story! The first few yards were really busy, lots of tailbacks and the gates and congo trains through the narrow parts. My legs were feeling fresh so able to walk almost the whole loop, and it was just great to be back racing again after so long. Had a few chats with various people and took a few photos. By yard 4 I had figured out how to avoid the worst of the traffic jams and settled in to “my pace”. As the sun came overhead it got hotter and I switched into a vest and sunglasses and just kept knocking out consistent yards. Through the afternoon the field started to thin out a bit. Darren Clarkson dropped after coming in with a few seconds to spare on yard 5, so now I had a crew (although I was still planning to be self-sufficient). All afternoon I was just in my groove, lap after lap, drinking plenty and eating well. I was very pleased when it got to 7pm and as well passing the 50 mile mark, it was starting to cool down again. I changed back into a short for the evening and only a few hours later it was head-torch time!
The heat of the day and the difficulty of the course were taking their toll and I counted 14 runners left in on the 14th yard. There was still a long way to go but I was feeling good, still keeping to my pace and just starting to think I could go all the way… although most of the people I’d spotted as pre-race favourites were still in.
Once it got truly dark the difficulty stepped up a notch as I simply had to go a bit slower on the toughest parts, which meant less walking and more running overall. I think everyone was finding the same though and as the night wore on runners continued to drop. As usual my stomach decided it didn’t want to accept any more solid food and from 9pm onwards I was running solely on gels and KMC NRG drink. At 11pm my stomach rebelled entirely and I had a bit of a chunder outside my gazebo between yards… as usual felt much better afterwards 🤣 By 1am I was still moving fine but starting to develop a bit of a sense-of-humour failure about the whole thing. The hours between midnight and dawn are always the worst for me. This time I wasn’t particularly sleepy, just suffering a motivational low, so I decided to put my music on for the next lap. This gave me a huge boost and knocked a 30s off the first climb 😮 I had a specially selected playlist (Spotify link) with backyard-specific tracks including “The one and only” by Chesney Hawks and Bon Jovi’s “Last Man Standing” as well as a good mix of general hype tracks and some chosen by Julie which I knew would give me motiviation. I was singing quite a bit out loud too, so apologies to the guy who was just behind me when I did my best Fred Durst “Your best bet is to stay away motherf**cker, it’s just one of those days” 🤘
Powered on by the tunes I stuck to my pace as others (including George Parkin and Vic Owens) dropped and eventually there were four left by yard 21. On the way round Andy Imms announced he was stopping, and another runner was already on his last lap too. Finally we were down to the final two and the fight for the win was on!
It didn’t start too well for me as at the start of yard 23 I immediately puked on the way out of the corral! Paul Fenn, who was the other remaining runner told me afterwards that he put in a fast lap to try and discourage me into quitting, but it would take more that a little sick to stop me! On the 24th yard (100 miles) I pushed a bit harder and came in well ahead of him. I had spoken to Paul earlier in the race and while he had done several ultras he was not as used to trails and elevation, so I hoped this would prove the difference between us. At the start of each yard he would run up the first hill (I was calling him Kate Bush in my head) and would be a minute or more ahead of me, but somewhere in mile two I would usually catch him and end up finishing the loop two or three minutes in front.
In total we ran 5 yards (I think) just the two of us. I was just starting to think we were in for a very long day, and working of getting some more solid food in to me, when Paul shook hands in the corral and RTC’d on the 28th yard. In the end he said that while he had one or two more yards in him, he could see I had more than that. Obviously I was relieved that our suffering would end early and headed out solo on to the 28th yard. I left a voice message for Julie to tell her the news and then just started running! In the end I finished the loop in about 45 mins, by far my fastest loop of the whole race. It was a great feeling just to be able to empty the tanks and not to have to keep saving energy for an unknown number more loops.
Running round the field it just felt such a relief that firstly I’d been able to run at all, second that I had been able to pace myself and not do any further injury, and to finally secure the Silver Ticket and the place on Team UK I had been chasing for the last two years, and a new Course Record of 28 yards was just icing on the cake. Job well done 👍
It was also very cool to pick up the triple whammy of the 100 mile buckle (Paul also earned one) as well as a model pig and a huge axe! Definitely the best prize I’ve ever won. Huge thanks go to Huw and his team for putting on such an outrageous but stunning event. It really fits the “beautifully brutal” tagline! I totally encourage everyone to give it a shot, especially as I do not plan to come back ever again if I can avoid it 🤣 Even if you don’t plan to run 100+ miles, where else can you get a weekend’s camping for £36 quid?
Of course, a huge thanks go to Julie for allowing me to go and do crazy things like run in circles chasing my goals. Even though she couldn’t come in person, she was with me throughout the whole race, sending messages of support and of course via the music in my headphones too!
Looking back after a week’s recovery there is not much I can pick up on that went wrong, and a lot that went right 😁
- Pacing. I stuck to 13 mins per mile throughout, even splits for each mile and it worked really well. Generally I finished with roughly 6 minutes left and because the last mile is the easiest, I was able to push a bit harder if I needed an extra minute to go to the loo etc. That was plenty of time, and with only one night of racing, I didn’t need to sleep at all.
- Walking lots! Lots of people commented during the race, especially early on about my walking pace. It’s something I picked up on from Julie and have practiced… in fact on easier terrain I can walk and entire yard in under an hour. To begin with I was walking maybe 80-90% of the loop and it just kept my legs fresh for later when I really needed them. As more running was needed during the night and later in the race, according to Strava’s cadence analysis, overall I walked 60% of the distance and ran 40%
- Organised kit. Another one that is thanks to Julie. I had all my food, gear etc. bagged and sorted. Even though in the end I had Darren to crew me for most of the race, I didn’t need him except to make up extra bottles of KMC – and that was a nice-to-have, if I’d been completely uncrewed I’d still have had time to do it.
- Stomach. I think I managed to eat and hydrate well in the hot weather. A couple of vomit stops was unfortunate but not a showstopper. Something to try for next time is having some small portions of food bagged so I can carry them and nibble on the lap if my stomach is going South?
- Music. I haven’t run with music for years, but I was struck by Eleanor Gallon’s comment at GOBYU that putting music on was so good it felt like cheating. I thought I would try it if the going got tough – and she was right! The only issue was that after getting through the night I stuck with the headphones on until the end. Worth trying going a few laps without music again and seeing if the boost is repeatable, or if you get “withdrawal symptoms” when you turn it off.
Anyway, that’s all for now! Not too shabby for a guy with a knackered hip 🤣 Hope you enjoyed reading it and I can’t wait to tell everyone all about the World Team Championship race in October 🤩
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