Big’s Backyard Ultra update: 2 Canadians still going strong after 330 km
Canada's Ihor Verys and Amanda Nelson have been running for almost 50 hours and 200 miles straight, and they show no signs of stopping
Photo by:
courtesy of Amanda Nelson
In Bell Buckle, Tennessee, Big’s Backyard Ultra World Championship continues as runners head out on the loop course hour after hour. After 49 yards, 49 hours and 330 kilometres (200 miles), Canada’s Ihor Verys and Amanda Nelson are still running well. “Running well” seems like a strange phrase to use when describing athletes who have been running for two days in a row without rest, but both runners are moving without the stiffness one would expect after two days of continuous effort. At the time of publication, 46 participants (out of 75 who started) remain on course on their 50th yard.
Big’s Backyard Ultra World Championships start Saturday in Tennessee
The backyard ultra format requires participants to start one 6.706-km “yard” (loop) every hour on the hour until all runners but one either voluntarily drop out or fail to complete a loop. (Backyard racing is designed so that theoretically, runners can complete the 100-mile distance in 24 hours.) Once all other competitors are out of the race, the remaining runner must complete one final lap, making any record attempt both a team effort and an individual one.
Two Canadians still running
Quebec’s Eric Deshaies, who holds the second-highest number of backyard yards in Canada at 66, tapped out after returning to the start on the 37th yard, running nearly 215 kilometres. Deshaies, 50, is a veteran ultrarunner from Gatineau, and racked up his personal best of 66 yards—just over 442 km—while giving Verys the crucial assist at last year’s Backyard Ultra World Team Championships. He was the last Canadian standing at the 2021 individual world championships in Tennessee, where he finished 50 yards (335 km).
Current national champion, Chilliwack’s Verys, and Woodstock, Ont.’s Nelson, may be running for days to come. Originally from Ukraine and now based in Chilliwack, B.C., Verys ran a backyard-ultra personal best of 67 loops, or just under 450 kilometres, while competing for Canada at the Backyard Ultra World Team Championships in Summerland, B.C., last October. In May, Nelson broke her Canadian women’s backyard ultra record by running 375.51 km over 56 hours at the Race of Champions-Backyard Masters in Rettert, Germany. She was the last woman standing (in the world) at the satellite world championships in 2022.
World Backyard Ultra Champs: Ontario’s Amanda Nelson is the final woman runner
Top contenders to watch
Many of the names familiar to fans of the backyard format are still holding steady in the competition. Australia’s Phil Gore, who holds the world record of an astounding 102 yards, and New Zealand’s Sam Harvey, who assisted him at the Austrailian Dead Cow Gully Backyard Ultra, are both still pushing forward. Belgian athletes Merijn Geerts and Ivo Steyaert, who completed 101 laps at the Backyard Ultra World Championships last October in an unprecedented tie finish, are also still battling on. Countries compete on teams across the world every other year in a satellite version of the event.)
Other runners still in contention include Americans Harvey Lewis and John Noll and France’s Claire Bannwarth, who has had a mind-blowing season this year, with a long list of top finishes at races as well as an FKT on the Colorado Trail. She enters the race with a personal record of 60 yards, from Suffolk Backyard Ultra in May of 2023. She followed that race with two wins at races in Europe, a 110-kilometre and a 305-kilometre event, in that month alone.
This year’s event had only four women in the 75 athletes who started. Nelson and Bannwarth join Australia’s Angelika Huemer and women’s world record holder Jennifer Russo of the U.S. All four women are still running. Athletes at Big’s Backyard switch from a daytime time trail course with close to 150 metres of elevation gain to a flat road section at night. Fans can expect to see runners competing through at least one more full day and night.
Following Big’s Backyard this weekend? You need to check out this new film
How to follow
For the official site, click here. There are several ways to follow the action, which begins Saturday at 8 a.m. ET (7 a.m. local time): there’s a public Facebook group (click here), a livestream (click here, and keep watching past the preview), and you can follow Canadian Running on X (formerly Twitter)–click here.
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