🏆2024 World Backyard Ultra Champs
Plus your chance to win some free sh..
🏆2024 World Backyard Ultra Champs
On October 19th, the satellite Backyard Ultra World Team Championships are taking place. God, that's a mouthful😂. Think of this as the teams edition.
64 countries around the world will have their top 15 ranked BYU runners gathering on the flattest, easiest courses they can create to go toe to toe with each other for as long as possible. All locations will have live results with lap details being uploaded at the end of each lap.
This is a bit different from the standard individual format, where the last person standing is the overall winner. To keep everyone in the game as long as possible, every lap by every runner counts as a point. The country with the most points, wins.
I’ve probably confused things further🤔. Below is the official word from the great Laz himself
“Nearly a thousand athletes will participate all around the world, as 15 man teams in 64 countries will start simultaneously.”
“Scoring will be kept live over the internet.”
“The ultimate winner will be decided, not by speed, but by endurance and team spirit, as each of the 15 team members is of equal importance in team success.”
“The scoring is simple:”
“Each completed yard by a team member counts as 1 point.”
“The 15 team members are seeded according to their best previous results, so the race is really 15 separate races.”
“All the 15's are competing against each other.”
“All the 14's are competing against each other and so on up to the 1's.”
“And so in each individual seed, the ability of the team members to boost each other to optimum performances is the key to team success.”
Lazerus Lake
Now you’re up with the play on the format; you’re probably thinking, where in Auckland is the NZ team running?
Otahuhu Otematata. Ote where?
I’ll leave Steve Tripp to explain.
“Otematata is the middle of everywhere - smacked roughly halfway between Dunedin, Christchurch and Wanaka. In other words the only places that really matter. 9 members of the team come from those 3 centres (it was 10 until 1 of them got 2 old).”
“Inch Events (Crush the Cargill pretend organisers) were tasked with finding a course. Mt Cargill was too steep, Pigs was too muddy, everywhere else in Dunedin was too hilly and it was drizzling at the time. Otematata has a wetlands walkway which is not wet. It’s got almost no vert and covers an area between the pub and Lake Aviemore - both have scenic value.”
“There’s a day course (looping around the wetlands) and a night course (out and back towards Benmore Dam). Both courses have between 17 and 27m of vert (flatter but much prettier than Blue Lake).”
“The corral is right outside the pub which has kindly given us a couple of hotel rooms to use and a discount on lots more. In other words, within spitting distance we have electricity, flush toilets, heating, showers, a laundry, pub meals and very expensive pints. There’s a small supermarket across the road. Hopefully it sells beer.”
Now you know where it’s going down —Here’s the list of all the crazy bastards and bastettes that will representing NZ.
The NZ Team
Sam Harvey - PB 101 @ Dead Cow Gully
Sam needs no introduction. He has built his name in this format. He has the assist to the World Record at Dead Cow Gully where he infamously gutted it out with a chest infection so Phil Gore could get the record.
Sam's PB of 101 means nothing in this contest unless he can pull and push someone along with him. The next best is 52, which is almost closer to 0 than it is to 101. But that was in a win, so AKT was forced to stop.
Anthony Kerr-Taylor - PB 52 @ Kings Backyard
AKT is the current NZ venue record holder, working with Simon McLean at Kings Backyard up in Whangarei. It was amazing to see the record broken with such a small field, which shows you that the old saying is true, you only need two to tango run f🤬cking far.
Simon McLean - 51 PB @ Kings Backyard
If AKT is Batman, that makes Simon McLean Robin. He worked with AKT to bring up the NZ venue record before pulling the pin, comfortably qualifying for the NZ team.
The TRNZ tip line has had several messages from eyewitnesses telling me that Simon looked surprisingly fresh when he pulled the pin in Whangarei and that he could have potentially gone a lot longer. Watch this space.
John Bayne - PB 51 @ Dead Cow Gully
John Bayne, the king of Naseby and staunch Dunedin runner. Having previously performed well at Krayzies Midwinter Backyard Ultra, John went over with the NZ team to Dead Cow Gully and put everyone on notice, posting up a 51 banger, which, at the time, seemed like a near-impossible feat.
Jeremy Pelvin - PB 50 @ Arrowtown
Jeremy proves that if you just keep at it, you will get there. Check out his results.
19, 24, 27, 30, 37, 50, 45
He has learnt his craft, going from there or thereabouts to one of the top-ranked NZ backyard athletes. Does Jeremy have what it takes to push through the dreaded third night and head into the land of the ‘6’?
Glenn Sutton - PB 49 @ Arrowtown
Double ‘N’ Glenn is an out-and-out running addict. He’s run the Dunedin Marathon in a giant beer can, run from Milford Sounds to the Emerson's brewery in Dunedin, won or been there or thereabouts in several BYU, and this year he took out the Naseby 200 miler. Has the year taken its toll on Glenn, or is there plenty of Stout left in the can?
Caleb Pearson - PB 42 @ Riverhead Relaps
Best known as that young dude from The Block (as in the renovation show, not the dodgy guy on the corner selling drugs). He burst on the scene at Riverhead Relaps in 2023, ending up in the final 2 with Sam Harvey before freaking out that he was running against Sam Harvey and pulling the pin. Is Caleb ready to push through his ceiling in his biggest reno yet?
Shannon Rhodes - PB 42 @ Arrowtown
Shannon MF Rhodes. I’ve never met Shannon. But I like him. I like him a lot. It’s probably because he won Pigs Backyard in 2023, which I think was the 2nd ever edition of the newsletter. Like Jeremy, he’s worked hard to become top endurance athlete over the last couple of years. On top of all his BYU performances, he also pushed Brandon Purdue to the limit at Naseby 2023 in the 200-mile race. I think Shannon is due a big one. I’m picking he’s going 50 plus.
Brion Matthews - PB 41 @ Arrowtown
Brion might be the most understated man on this list. He just goes about his business, no big deal. But don’t be fooled, he’s a killer. I got a message from Brion earlier in the year “I’m up in Palmy for the weekend visiting family, you reckon I could fit in an SK Valleys?” He slapped together some kit, rocked up and got it done. About a month ago he also cranked out a double Heaphy track with Hannah Presswood.
Glenn Tomlinson - PB 41 @ Arrowtown
Doh, already used up Double ‘N’ Glenn. What are the chances? Glenn Tomlinson is a tough AF farmer with an even tougher wife (crew Chief) from good ol North Canterbury. He brushes his teeth with Ranfurly before heading out on his morning run at 3:30am each day.
Glenn’s trajectory is heading in the right direction. He’s run 3 back yards, posting 30 (KMBU 2023), 38 (Arrowtown 2023) and then 41 at KMBU this year to make the team. On a nice flat course in the middle of no where, he should feel right at home.
Johan Bergman - PB 40 @ Satellite World Champs 2022
Johan hasn’t run a BYU since the last Satellite World Champs back in 2022. He qualified that year coming off the bench as a reserve after posting 30 yds at Riverhead earlier in the year.
It will be interesting to see how he goes, his running has gone from strength to strength since linking up with Adam Keen from Aerobicedge. He’s got two sub 20hour, 100 mile finishes (Tarawera & Faultline) and recently took out the Naseby 100K. I’m 1/2 picking results for Johan, so I’ll have another crack. 64 yards!
Chris Taylor - PB 40 @ Arrowtown
He’s the Ying to Steve Tripps Yang. Co-founder of Inch Events. The only thing he loves more then doing laps at The Revenant is running around in circles at a BYU. He also seems to come up with crazy his best ideas over a pint of hazy.
Julia Chamberlain - PB 40 @ KMBU
After/during a night on the town she turned up to her first backyard at Scenic Circle 2023 and ran 29 laps before she sobered up and decided running with a hangover wasn’t fun. She was last women standing then and also at Krayzies Midwinter BYU 2024 where she spent much of the time jumping over logs and running backwards. She still looked fresh.
Carl Read - PB 40 @ Clint Eastwood
There is no doubting Carl Reads endurance pedigree. He is an absolute animal. Originally a Triathlon/Ironman competitor, he burst onto the ultra running scene with back to back wins at the Taupo 100km (he still holds the record).
In comparison to other team members, he is a relative newbie when it comes to the format. But there is no doubt he’s committed to the task at hand, having flown to Straya for the Clint Eastwood backyard in a last ditch effort to qualify for the team
Jane McAlpine - PB 39 @ Dead Cow Gully
Jane McAlpine has been floating in and out of the team over recent months. She qualified at Dead Cow Gully before being forced out a couple of times by other runners at other events. Fortunately for Jane, Steve Tripp has done himself a mischief, so she is back in the team alongside Julia, assuring that it’s not a complete sausage fest in the NZ team
Competition Alert
Now the TAB haven’t started taking bets on Backyard Ultras quite yet. But, to make things interesting I’ve come up with a little bit of a game.
List all 15 NZ athletes in order in which you think they’ll finish.
Sam Harvey - PB 101
Anthony Kerr-Taylor - PB 52
Simon McLean - 51 PB
John Bayne - PB 51
Jeremy Pelvin - PB 50
Glenn Sutton - PB 49
Caleb Pearson - PB 42
Shannon Rhodes - PB 42
Brion Matthews - PB 41
Glenn Tomlinson - PB 41
Johan Bergman - PB 40
Chris Taylor - PB 40
Julia Chamberlain - PB
Carl Read - PB 40
Jane McAlpine - PB 39
Send your list through to trailrunningnz@gmail.com or comment below.
Each correct position gets you one entry into the draw.
Paid Subscribers get DOUBLE POINTS
What do you win?
A free entry into Crush The Cargill Miler
A Mountain Skag Fashion Tee
All the best to our runners, hopefully it’s not worth tuning in to the 3rd day! If I got anything wrong/you didnt like something in your bio you can blame Steve Tripp
PS. 100 years ago I’m sure if you ran around in circles for over 4 days you would get locked up😝
Weirdly running/walking in circles was a popular sport in the 19th century … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrianism