Jan Vandekerckhove ran 771 kilometres in five days to break the record of one of the most unique and challenging footraces in the world – but his competitor broke the record again
Running 6.7 kilometres in an hour might not sound very challenging. But the Backyard Ultra requires you to do it over and over and over until you are the last one standing. Should you finish your 6.7 kilometres in less than an hour, you can use the time until the next hour comes around to drink, eat and sleep.
Backyard Ultras take place all over the world, with the top performers being invited to the individual world championship in Tennessee in the autumn. The Backyard record was broken last year at the team championship by three Belgians, who all completed 110 laps.
Jan Vandekerckhove, by day a financial planner at KU Leuven, is no stranger to the race. He has taken part in the local edition in Retie, Antwerp province, three times. His best performance was 86 laps.
Brain fog
This week, of 98 runners, he and Lukasz Wrobel of Poland were the only ones left following 59 laps. Neither wanted to give up, with both completing 115 laps – a new world record being celebrated in the Backyard Ultra community around the world. Only 12 people in the world have broke the 100-lap barrier.
During the 116th lap, five days of this exhausting physical exertion took its toll, leading Vandekerckhove to get confused and lose his way on the course. He completed the lap – but not within the hour, leaving Wrobel to run away with the new world record of 116 laps.
“That fact that I didn’t win is really just a detail for me,” said Vandekerckhove. “It was mostly just fun, and I maybe I did learn more about myself, but it’s the same routine: A hour block where you run, rest a little, and then repeat it – a whole lot of times in this case.”
With a few dozen others, Vanderkerkhove wife, Sofie Vandoninck was cheering him on after every round. “Physically, he did surprisingly well for so long of a time,” she said. “It was only the last day that he began to lose concentration and clarity.”
Competitors don’t have time for more than a few minutes of sleep during each round. Vanderkerkhove got about two hours of sleep over the five days.
“The final afternoon I was for sure less alert, and talking got harder,” confirms Vandekerckhove. “I couldn’t always find my words. And then I ran the wrong way in the forest. That decided the race right there. Sooner or later, something was going to stop both of us, and it happened to me first.”
The men’s performances surprised even the originators of the race in the US, who note that usually records are broken during the world championships, not at national events. Whether Vandekerckhove will be invited to the individual championship in the US remains to be seen: While Wrobel technically won, there’s a good chance that Vandekerckhove will be chosen with one of the event’s wild cards.