{"id":39820,"date":"2018-10-25T14:56:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T21:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=39820"},"modified":"2020-05-22T13:05:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:05:04","slug":"the-most-punishing-running-race-youve-never-heard-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/run\/the-most-punishing-running-race-youve-never-heard-of","title":{"rendered":"The Most Punishing Running Race You\u2019ve Never Heard Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johan Steene, a 44-year-old ultrarunner from Stockholm, Sweden, was lounging in his motel room outside of Nashville, Tennessee, watching TV on Wednesday evening. Every muscle in his legs ached. \u201cIt will take a couple of weeks to recover,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just a day earlier, Steene had been the lone runner\u2014and therefore, the winner\u2014across the finish line at a quirky, brutal race known as Big\u2019s Backyard Ultra, the brainchild of <\/span>Gary Cantrell<\/span>, better known as Lazarus Lake or Laz, the founder of the equally challenging yet slightly more well-known <\/span>Barkley Marathons<\/span><\/a>. Laz hosts Big\u2019s Backyard Ultra in his own backyard in <\/span>Bell Buckle, Tennessee.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always surprises,\u201d Laz posted on Facebook before this year\u2019s Big\u2019s Backyard Ultra. \u201cThe race has been won by some of the preeminent multiday runners of our time and it has been won by the total unknown. Because, it only requires one thing \u2026 the willingness to keep stepping to the line, until no one else is left.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The race involves repeating a 4-mile loop trail over and over again until only one runner remains. (Photo Courtesy: Gavin Woody)<\/p><\/div>\n

This year, Steene and 69 other runners started the race early on October 20, a Saturday morning. The rules are straightforward: Participants run a 4.166667-mile loop on a rocky trail every hour for as long as they humanly can. (At night, they switch to a more basic out-and-back road run.) If it takes them, say, 50 minutes to run the loop, then they have 10 minutes to rest before the next lap starts. Runners gradually dropped out throughout the first two days and by sunrise on Monday, 48 hours into the race, just five remained.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the early hours of Tuesday morning, the race was down to three runners: Steene, Courtney Dauwalter, a 33-year-old Golden, Colorado, ultrarunner who\u2019s been dominating races in recent years, and Gavin Woody, a 41-year-old ultrarunner from Bellevue, Washington, who has run the 200-mile distance about 10 times and works a day job as an operations executive for a home-improvement marketplace.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Third-place finisher Gavin Woody takes a short break in between laps. (Photo Courtesy: Gavin Woody)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s trail running. Then there\u2019s ultrarunning. Then there\u2019s this weird stuff. This race definitely fits into the weird category,\u201d said Woody. \u201cThe clock never stops. You can\u2019t hit snooze or say, \u2018I need another five minutes.\u2019 That constant ticking is really what makes this race so awesome. When else do you get to experience that? It\u2019s such a unique format.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After 65 laps\u2014equaling 270 miles\u2014Woody was done. \u201cI didn\u2019t decide to stop. It was more my legs. They wouldn\u2019t run anymore,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Steene and Dauwalter continued on. \u201cAfter more than two and a half days of running, our brains are mushy. We are not the cleverest animals in the forest anymore,\u201d said Steene. \u201cOnce it was down to just Courtney and me, I thought, who will be the weak link here? The whole race, she seemed unstoppable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, Dauwalter had to call it quits first. <\/span>She logged 67 laps\u2014279 miles\u2014the farthest any woman has made it in Big\u2019s Backyard Ultra’s six-year history. (Last year\u2019s winner ran 245 miles and no woman has surpassed 120 miles before.) But she could go no father. <\/span>\u201cIt was death by one zillion paper cuts,\u201d Dauwalter said. \u201cI\u2019d finally broken and that was all there was for that day. I was so bummed that that was my limit, but I was also excited to have been able to compete with Johan and to send him on that last lap. I was like, \u2018Go get those last four miles.\u2019\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Dauwalter shook Steene\u2019s hand as he set out on his final lap. \u201cAs I counted down the last 10 seconds, I saw Courtney turn to Johan, and say something \u2026 and I knew instantly what had just happened,\u201d Laz said in a Facebook post after the race. \u201cOnly one runner remained in Big\u2019s Backyard. I watched Johan\u2019s slender figure disappear into the darkness \u2026 [Courtney] had run 279 miles in less than three days and broken every man in the field, save one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Courtney Dauwalter (back) and Andy Emerson spin a lap earlier in the race. (Photo Credit: John Price)<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s been quite a couple of years for Dauwalter. In September, she set a new women\u2019s course record on the Tahoe 200 and took second place overall. In June, she was the fastest woman at the 100-mile Western States. Last year, she won the Moab 240 Endurance run overall, beating the second-place finisher by nearly 10 hours. \u201cI tried to do my very best,\u201d Dauwalter said about her finish at Big\u2019s Backyard Ultra. \u201cI would have loved to take home the win and be the first woman to do so at this race. But I\u2019ll be back to do it again for sure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Steene said his last lap was the hardest. \u201cThat last loop feels like a long, lonesome loop with no purpose. You feel all your pains,\u201d said Steene. \u201cYou also start to fall into real thinking: You understand you achieved your goal and you will get back and finish and win, but there\u2019s also some sadness because when it\u2019s over, everyone packs up and goes home. Somehow it\u2019s just an illusion. It\u2019s like the magic of the race is broken.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When he finally crossed that elusive finish line, Steene said simply: \u201c<\/span>No more loops.\u201d <\/span>Steene ran 68 laps\u2014283 miles\u2014in 55 hours and 22 minutes. There\u2019s no prize money for the winner. Just bragging rights and a dog tag that says, \u201cI survived.\u201d Everyone else? They get a dog tag, too, but theirs says instead, \u201cI gave my all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johan Steene, a 44-year-old ultrarunner from Stockholm, Sweden, was lounging in his motel room outside of Nashville, Tennessee, watching TV on Wednesday evening. Every muscle in his legs ached. \u201cIt will take a couple of weeks to recover,\u201d he said. Just a day earlier, Steene had been the lone runner\u2014and therefore, the winner\u2014across the finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":39832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1478,727,1376,1542],"internal-tag":[1682],"class_list":["post-39820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-run","tag-co-op-journal","tag-latest-posts","tag-running","tag-south","internal-tag-pre-redirect-running"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/run\/the-most-punishing-running-race-youve-never-heard-of","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"The Most Punishing Running Race You\u2019ve Never Heard Of","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/run\/the-most-punishing-running-race-youve-never-heard-of","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/run\/the-most-punishing-running-race-youve-never-heard-of"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/10\/IMG_0478.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/10\/IMG_0478.jpg?fit=1500%2C909"},"articleSection":"Run","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["co-op journal","latest posts","running","south"],"dateCreated":"2018-10-25T21:56:20Z","datePublished":"2018-10-25T21:56:20Z","dateModified":"2020-05-22T20:05:04Z"},"rendered":"