Recalibration

If you surround yourself with folks with a higher endurance score it must be something great going on. If them happen to be your friends – even better. If you end up in the middle of the night at Baraque Michel: perfection. Admittedly, we asked ourselves for a brick of a second: are we really standing up from that comfy table in the warm indoors and drive all the way up there to end up in the wet and cold marshes? Well – it was worth the decision. As always. 50 miles in the Ardennes in cool but calm conditions. The iceberg. Le basin. The most amazing café break close to dusk. The full-adrenaline first daylight hours. The relentless-endless Fagnes. We did not miss those conditions at all and yet we missed it immensely.

Fagne de Malchamps

The rest of the weekend was well spent with the one runner I shared the most km with. After years we finally had the chance to enjoy some recovery running together which for that matter never happened before in the last decade. Time to enjoy „our“ forest while discussing ultra. Guess we never came so close to expressing what ultra ultimately means for us and about the various paths to get there. And if it’s worth the suffering along those lines. And what suffering means. And if the ultimate state of mind while running can be reached, or not. And what we would want to await us there. And if it’s wise to aim for that after all.

Thanks all – lets keep adding such weekends to our agenda!

2024

End of October is the usual time to draw the line. To sum it up.

Although the year is not over yet the yearly circle is closed for me. Starting November it usually is the time to start the preparation for the Legends Trail happening late February the following year.

The new circle starts right now.

Numbers:
In 2024 I ran 38 Marathons+ distances so far. With a handful more to come in the remaining of 2024 this will be the highest number in the records. With 600 missing km the chances are quite good that I will beat the 5000 km/year for the second time ever. All this wouldn’t have been possible without losing my job in February 2024 and the separation from the rest of the family. After all a quite difficult and painful process. Life is not as straightforward as expected; a lesson familiar from ultra running. Let’s see how this will turn out and what the future may bring. Together with Marek I immensely enjoy an interesting running challenge and this yearly review is a great opportunity to highlight the current standings on my end. The task is to run a Marathon+ on each and every calendar date available. Start date of the run = date for the entry in the sheet. Multidays/longer runs over multiple days count as one event. I guess no one else in the world cares but til end of October 2024 I reached 56% of all dates possible (204/366). This years highlight was the completion of February 29th – a rather difficult date. Focussing a bit more on the sheet and taking care that the longer runs are scheduled best possible certainly helped to increase this number. Whether or not it will be possible to complete it – who knows. But I am definitely looking forward to at least try it.

The Date Game – 31.10.2024

The year 2024 started with the our usual mAMa (matschiger Aachen Marathon) edition. With me no longer living in Aachen the future of mAMa is still in discussion at the moment. mAMa was followed by the first edition of the Teuflischer Biber Ultra – a great concept. I only managed to complete 1.5 of the 6 60 km loops but I think more is possible. If all goes well I will attend the next edition in 2025. Legends Trail 2024 was another huge test for body and mind but it ended with finish number 4. In March 2024 I had my go on the qualification run for next years LOTR Slam.

These slam projects really evolved in a small group of runners. After the Titanic Slam and the Marvel Slam this is already Slam number 3. We changed the concept a bit so that 2024 is the qualification year (you have to run a certain GPX within 2024 to access the 4 challenges in 2025). That keeps the concept alive but relaxes the time schedules a bit. So far we have 15 runners who completed the entry challenge – the Dead Mashes run (209 km). I am very pleased by the enthusiasm and the discussion in those underground Facebook chats. Proud to see how them undertake the Dead Marshes track – which happens to my GPX. Looking forward to see how those 14 and myself (or more – two more months to complete the entry challenge) will try to schedule 3×100 mile runs and a special surprise into our running agendas 2025. But I am certain that there will be finishers.

In April 2024 it was time to visit the loops again – Legends Backyard Ultra in Belgium. The aim was to qualify for the 2024 Team Germany at the World Team Championships in Backyard Ultra in 2024. The 36 loops were enough to achieve that. Huge thanks to Michael from the Biber Backyard Ultra Team for the support – both at the LBU as well as at the World Team Championships. To have a crew is crucial in this strange running format. To recover from all these loops it was time for a long trail adventure. Claudia and I tried to run the Westweg and managed 210 km. Although we did not manage to complete the whole Westweg it was a great time out there with the most spectacular polar lights night I ever saw. During the summer I tried to maintain some running abilities and attended at the 24h Lauf Dorsten (100 mi). Last but not least B. and me finally had the chance to run together and to complete the 100 mi at the Breckerfelder Flower Power Ultra – which was the last test before the Backyard Ultra World Team Championship with the German team in Nürnberg.

All in all 7×100 mi plus runs in 2024 – increasing the count from 35 to 42.

Apart from all these official runs 2024 was a great chance to expand the part of running/exploring I enjoy most. With Marek I have been trying to complete as many new tiles from @statshunter as possible. The side effect of this was that Marek could also increase his plaatsnaam bordjes count for his private challenge (collect all towns in the province Brabant in NL and take a picture of the town sign). My statshunter page looks like this – looking forward to to hunt more tiles in the next years:

Statshunter status 31.10.2024 – max square = 24×24

Another key figure in 2024 was Maarten – thank you for all those countless hours of madness – both underground and in the marshes. Lets try to conserve this in the future.

And 2025? Lets see.

A lot of plans have been made. The first focus will be on the Legends Trail 2025 – the last Legends Trail in the well known format. It would be a dream to finish this beast once more.

Nur mit meinem Team

Die persönliche Enttäuschung sitzt noch tief. 30 Runden sind sicher nicht das Ziel gewesen. Die Gründe für die schlechte Performance sind offensichtlich und da ich es perspektivisch nicht anstreben werde diese Lücken zu schließen, wird das wohl der letzte Backyard Ultra Wettkampf gewesen sein. Für mich war die Teilnahme an den Weltmeisterschaften 2022 & 2024 eine großartige Motivation und eine Chance an einem einmaligen Rennen teilzunehmen. Das Backyard Ultra Format habe ich mit nunmehr 4 Teilnahmen (29, 30, 33 & 36 Runden) gut kennen gelernt, die Mechanismen sind klar geworden, der Rhythmus ist verstanden und der Support wurde optimiert. Das soll genügen.

Dieses Jahr war es noch einmal besser als 2022. Das Team-Gefühl hat sich schon im Vorfeld über die Diskussionen in unserer WhatsApp Gruppe aufgebaut und es war großartig diese 15 Menschen im echten Leben zu treffen. Teilweise war es ein Wiedersehen – aber auch einige neue Gesichter waren dabei. Zusammen mit den jeweiligen Support Teams wurde es ein richtig gemütliches Lager und das bange Warten auf den Start war allgegenwärtig.

Team GER 2024

Als wir durch den Startschuss losgelassen wurden war es einmal mehr ein unglaubliches Gefühl. Das Zusammen-gegen-den-Rest-der-Welt-Gefühl war irgendwie direkt da. Auch wenn das Wetter über die ersten 30 Stunden nicht wirklich sonnig wurde hatten wir doch gute Laufbedinungen. Einzig der nasse und etwas kalte Nebel in der Nacht war etwas störend.

Frontrunner @TEAM GER

Ein großer Dank gilt allen Crews und den helfenden und organisierenden Händen aus dem Orga-Team unseres Rennens – es hat alles in allem gut funktioniert und wir Läufer konnten uns auf das konzentrieren wozu wir angetreten waren.

Viel könnte über das Rennen geschrieben werden, über die vielen Einzelschicksale, die einsamen Dramen, die famosen drei bzw. beiden am Ende – ein sehr starker Assist und ein verdienter Sieger – aber das war für mich nicht das Entscheidende in diesen Stunden.

Ich habe es sehr genossen mit den allermeisten aus dem Team zu quatschen, es wurde viel gelacht und tatsächlich auch viel zusammen gelaufen. Unterschiedliche Gruppen haben sich gebildet und die Dynamik war wunderbar. Der Team-Spirit wurde dann in der ersten Nacht deutlich. Eine unserer Läuferinnen mochte nachts nicht so gern allein durch die Wälder und Wiesen – und was macht Team Deutschland? Im Stundenwechsel wurde getauscht und die Begleitung organisiert. Konstante 57 Minuten Runden sind sicher nicht jedermanns Sache aber es war keine Frage – die schnellen wie die langsamen – jeder hat eine Stunde übernommen. Teamwork at its best. Wirklich schön zu sehen.

Genial war für mich vor allem die Diversität im Team. Sicher nicht ideal für eine top Performance bei der Backyard Ultra WM, aber wunderbar für das Team-Gefühl. Unsere Spartathlon-Finisher waren sich nicht zu schade, unser Wanderweltmeister war trotz Erkrankung am Start, die beste Deutsche beim 6-Tages-Lauf Anfang September 2024 war dabei. Das war in anderen Teams nicht der Fall. Insgesamt 72000 DUV-Kilometer mit einer Backyard-Ultra Quali Leistung von 632 Yards standen am Start.

Und so haben wir uns dem Backyard Ultra hingegeben. Als Team zusammen, bis es für die Einzelnen von uns nicht mehr weiter ging. Insgesamt ist der 16. Platz dabei herausgekommen – wir konnten mit 542 Yards unsere Vorleistungen leider nicht verbessern. Im Vergleich zur WM 2022 sind dennoch ein paar Yards mehr herausgesprungen.

Finale Ansicht der Ergebnis Tabelle

Während sich die Geschlagenen am Montag Morgen langsam um das Lagefeuer versammelten brach die Sonne endlich aus der dicken Suppe hervor. Ein wenig wie zum Hohn wärmte sie die Ausgeschiedenen. Viel wurde gequatscht, analysiert und erzählt an diesem Morgen am Lagerfeuer. Zu jeder vollen Stunde wurde sich am Korridor versammelt um mit Applaus die verbliebenen Läufer auf die nächste Runde zu schicken. Eine schöne und doch eigenartige Stimmung. Die Gedanken hingen greifbar über den Flammen des Feuers: Trainer und Trainierter in ernster Diskussion um die schmerzenden Glieder, einige mit den Gedanken an eine eh schon miserable Lauf-Saison, Gedanken an das absolute Ende der langen Schinderei, Gedanken an die nächsten Schritte, Gedanken an die große Leere zum Ende der Laufsaison, Gedanken an die Zukunft und wie es wohl weitergehen möge. Es ist ein ehrliches Format dieses Backyard Ultra – vielleicht etwas zu ehrlich. Die Prüfung von sowohl Körper als auch Wille ist allumfassend.

Ich persönlich habe – zumindest für den Moment – die Lust an den Runden vollständig verloren. Ich habe noch nicht einmal die Kraft gefunden die Tabellen zu aktualisieren. Das will wirklich was heißen. Nach einem Jahr der Trennung, der Kündigung, des Umzugs, des Neubeginns auf der Arbeit ist das Feuer erloschen. Ich hoffe es geht bald wieder etwas – die langen Läufe in 2025 werfen ihre Schatten voraus. Endlose Trails, endlose Dunkelheit und Kälte warten. Wieder einmal heißt es sich zu wappnen. Nur woher soll die Freude kommen?

Der Beitrag des BR über unseren Lauf in Katzwang:

Bei allen Geschichten dieser Backyard Ultra WTC ist sicher die des belgischen Teams die besonderste. Alle 15 Läufer des belgischen Teams sind 50 Runden gelaufen und waren damit als letztes Team komplett. Insgesamt sind sie 1147 Yards zusammen gelaufen – mehr als je ein Team zuvor und zum ersten Mal über 1000 Yards. Und zuletzt – 3 Läufer zusammen haben den Weltrekord gebrochen und haben dann nach 110 Yards aufgehört. Es sollte keinen Sieger gegeben unter diesen hervorragenden Sportlern.

Fotos von Sven Kiesewetter und Andi Regler – vielen Dank dafür!

Backyard World Team Championship 2024

WICHTIGE LINKS:
Internet-Auftritt TEAM GER
Instagram TEAM GER
LIVE COVERAGE DACH inkl. Links zu den LIVE-Daten weltweit
Laufend Entdecken Podcast mit Teilen der Teams GER/AUT
Live Ergebnisse GER
YouTube Live WW

00Days
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Es wird Zeit…

Viel haben wir im Team miteinander geschrieben im Vorfeld – am Samstag sehen wir uns endlich persönlich. Nur um uns ab 1400 deutscher Zeit dem Backyard-Format zu unterwerfen. Eintauchen in hoffentlich endloses Rundendrehen. Ein großer Dank geht schon jetzt raus an unseren Host vom TSV Katzwang 05 – super Vorbereitung, uns wird es an nichts fehlen.

Weltweit sind 63 Länder am Start – mit den jeweils 15 besten Läufern im Backyard Ultra Format der letzten 2 Jahren (August 2022 bis August 2024) des jeweiligen Landes. Insgesamt über 900 Athleten starten zur gleichen Zeit in 63 unterschiedlichen Rennen. Es muss ein Fest werden als Zuschauer.

Hier ist Team Germany 2024:

Team GER 2024

Wenn Ihr nicht vertraut seid mit dem Format – hier ist eine sehr gute Erklärung vom belgischen Backyard Ultra Account:

How does it actually work?

Für die Zahlen/Statistik-Fetischisten – hier ist Euer Link. Alle Backyard Ultra Zahlen zusammengefasst. Vermutlich sogar mit einigen Live-Updates während der WM. Einfach faszinierend. Team GER liegt vor dem Rennen auf Platz 14 – hoffentlich ist diese Platzierung nach dem Event eine besser!

https://www.backyardstats.com/home

Für mich persönlich geht es darum die Zeit zu genießen. Und danach noch ein wenig weiter zu machen. Ziele gibt es nicht in diesem Format. Obwohl: eine PB im Backyard, eine PB was den längsten Lauf angeht (281 km) und ach – warum nicht – eine Quali fürs Team 2026 wären schön. Nur wie viele Runden Letzteres bedeutet ist ja mehr als ungewiss. Also: immer weiter!

Viel Spaß beim Verfolgen – sowas hat es in der Größe noch nicht gegeben. Ein Format aus der Hölle erobert die Ultra-Welt. Bald wird es die echten Lauf-Rekorde auf der ganz langen Distanz gefährden, wer hätte das für möglich gehalten.

Wie wunderbar ein Teil davon sein zu dürfen.

#justonemoreloop

Late Summer Breeze

What a perfect time
Late Summer Breeze floating the surrounding
A whisper of summer warmth, of joy, of carelessness
Drinks with friends til late at night – a mild and colorful high
Dark moments remain forgotten
All those 5k runs feel like flying in blazing haze

Ever so slightly the days start to shorten
The returning breath of darkness makes you shiver
Sometimes the shiver seems to creep into you
Waking up unpleasant and dark memories
Memories you though were gone for good
Memories which feel vague and yet quite real

Memories of never-ending darkness
Memories of trails too faint to follow in front of blurry eyes
Memories of the wet and the cold and the shivering
Memories of good friends quitting while you couldn’t help
Memories of overwhelming hopelessness
Memories of endless hours of mere stumbling
Memories of pale faces on wet stones
Memories of trees which turn into shelter and back to trees with you approaching
Memories of unconscious brave individual wandering around without orientation
Memories of longing for pain to stay awake
Memories of pain and yet falling asleep while walking
Memories of flashing green and blue LEDs on one of your shoulder

The undoable task to set the mind up once more is ahead
No hope, no glory phrases, no strong emotion will survive the misery
Those returning from out there may have their secret reasons
Unspoken forces which made them tolerate the task

Less than 6 months.

Day 3

Some of the competitors of Legends Trail make it to the end: the finisher % of the race has been between 30 and 40 % during the last years (I don’t have access to the exact numbers).

The race saw a total of 195 finishers in all past editions (only considering the kids run distance; 2020 is the year with LT500 happening at the same time so not that representative with regards to finisher statistics). 12 different nations have made it into the finisher stats – Belgium naturally leads the pack with 56.4 %, followed by the Netherlands with 26.2 %. GER and FRA are around 5 % and the rest are more like the exotic finisher countries.

The % of women finishing the LT is at total around 9 % but increasing over the last years.

The average time of the LT250 winners is 48.01 h ranging from 43.03 h in 2018 to 57.35 h in 2016. Since 2019 its rather stable between 46 and 50 h. The average finish time of all runners is 60.08 h – seeing a slight increase from 2020 onwards – more towards 62ish hours.

The % of runners who enjoyed the 3rd sunrise (8 AM Legends Monday – 62 h race time) jumped from almost nothing to 50 % in 2019 and increased to somewhat around 70 % average in 2022/2023. 2020 seems to be an outlier and should not be overrated due to the above mentioned reason (LT500 happening). 2020 also happened to see the worse weather out of 2020-2023 so this may contribute to that high number as well. Overall the difficulty seems to increase over the years at least judging by the percentages of finishers with finisher times over 62 hours. Or we just neglect our training.

Data Source

But what about this third day – what is Day 3 like? First of all its actually race day 4 but no one seems to care about those first 6 LT Friday hours. Day 3 is a very special one. During my three attempts I always made it into Day 3 due to lack of abilities so I got some impressions. What makes the moments around sunrise #3 and the hours til the final cutoff unique is that almost all runners who made it that far have a very high chance to actually finish the Legends Trail. So its still a battle vs. cutoff but the odds are finally a considerable bit better compared to the chances during the first 62 hours. The runners share a dream which is almost real – the one golden moment of crossing the line and getting the beer feels very close and for the first time in the race like a somewhat realistic outcome.

To be absolutely clear – almost no runner left is without more or less serious problems. Pain is omnipresent, every single step needs an unmanageable amount of effort and with 3-5 km/h those last kilometres stretch to eternity.

If you look into those eyes – you can literally see the emptiness, you can see the horror of the past days and some just stare into an invisible nothingness. No one is able to hold long discussions, all ability to switch between languages is finally gone, some even seem to have lost all ability to talk. From an outside perspective it may seem like a nonsense and slow-motion march to an uncertain and unreachable destination. Willingness, remote-controlled.

And yet – within each and every runner there is this fire which is slowly gaining strength. You may find them standing and crying as the emotions slowly return to the destroyed bodies. You may see them standing and staring with an odd smile on their face because they finally allow themselves to believe. You may see them marching next to each other in grim silences but they are getting invisibly pulled by that end which is finally in reach.

I remember quite well meeting some LT safety team members 10k before the LT 2023 finish line with a camera interviewing people. I mean what should I tell them? The amount of thankfulness, the amount of relieve and the amount of emotions – there are no words for that. I think they understood.

Despite the unmanageable amount of discomfort of Day 3 and those final 4-6 hours of Legends Trail – to me those are the most rewarding and satisfying moments possible. They are the reason I am starting that race.

10 years

Back in 2014 we had no idea:

2014 – Limburgs Halfzware 75k

Back in 2015 we asked ourselves some questions:

Limburgs Zwarste 2015 – 100k

Back in 2016 we started to explore…

2016 – random fun

Back in 2017 we met new friends:

2017: DCUrbN 100k

Back in 2018 we tried new things:

2018: TTdR 230k

Back in 2019 we received some Dutch Bling Bling:

LEO180 2019 – 210k

Back in 2020 we explored the darkness:

2020 GR Hageland – 150k

Back in 2021 we figured daylight is also ok:

2021 Krönungsweg Bonn-AC 140k

Back in 2022 we started to conquer the unknown:

2022 The Mystique – 200k

Back in 2023 we started to relax:

2023 Biber Backyard Ultra

And what is next? After thousands of shared kms we rarely meet to run these days. But when we meet its for something big, something new – its for an adventure. On, on we go. Hop hop don’t stop!

Hohe Mark Steig

Change of plans. Instead of the planned long run it will be a shorter edition starting tomorrow around noon. Exploring the Hohe Mark Steig (https://www.hohe-mark-steig.de).

Live Tracking:

https://tim-weissbach.legendstracking.com

Live Update via WhatsApp Group:

WhatsApp Pfadsucher

Live Update via Insta-Story:

Instagram Pfadsucher

Prison Break 2023

The final preparations are in full flow. Amazing friends agreed to offer support. That means I will see a friendly face after around 100k which will give me the opportunity to refill the supplies and to lighten the backpack a bit for some parts of the following stretches. From that point onwards I will always have support which will have my back, push me and fasten up the re-supply. Thanks a lot already now.

The race starts Friday evening 1800 which means that there will be time until Sunday evening 1800 to get as far as possible from the given start point.

There will be several possibilities to follow that interesting race format. The hashtag of the race is #schinderprisonbreak – so keep an eye on that one. My IG profile will also hold a few updates Friday – Sunday:

The best update will be – as always – through the live tracking possibilities by the Legends Tracking folks. There is a live tracking from the race as well as my tracker which will be active mainly for the support crew to see the planned track as well.

Tracking of the race

Personal tracker

Last not least there are some WhatsApp groups which will be fed with updates – if you are interested to get more information – please get in touch.

So have fun following the race – it should look awesome when the race tracking page is active and evolving as most runner will start in different directions.

2023

So. The whole world is running already;

we saw/are following/will see some remarkable performances on the Duinhopper from acceptnolimits.com which is open since January 1st and the famous Montane Spine Race 2023 is about to start – a lot of live tracking is waiting just a click away.

In both events friends were/are/will be competing and although it is nice to sit in the cozy inside watching the rain and wind penetrating nature – it does not feel completely right. It may be about time to do some running.

Funny as traditions sometimes are: February will be dominated by well-unknown events. We will hold our own marathon mAMa 2023 (already edition 8!) and the Legends Trail is waiting. Again. Battling the Ardennes in winter time. Looking forward to yet another impossible challenge.

In July 2023 a new format is waiting – escape racing starting from the Grauen Kopf with a pretty simple task: get away as far as possible in 48h from that point. Really looking forward to that – drawing tracks on maps, calculating efficiencies vs. the straight line of several options, plan supply – everything your own responsibility. So basically a combination of a lot of lovely things.

In between Legends Trail 2023 in February and Schinder-Trail Prison Break 2023 in July a few smaller challenges may be waiting and a private running weekend with the CREW is already scheduled. Looks like its going to be a good first half of 2023.