Let's go round again. Or not. Please yourself.

I was born in the English city of Carlisle, despite my parents being resident in Dumfries and Galloway when I made my entrance into the world. I've lived the vast majority of my life in North East Cumbria, with a good chunk of my childhood spent in that furthest flung corner of the county known as the Debatable Lands. My immediate family still live there (I'm all of 12 miles down the road). My Phillips relatives haven't moved far beyond the parishes of Bewcastle and Stapleton since at least the 1600s, so you could argue we're not a very adventurous bunch. That said, there's a persistent rumour that my great granny Phillips (nee James) was related to the infamous outlaw Jesse. I've made no effort whatsoever to confirm the veracity of this claim, but I'm not inclined to let the truth get in the way of an amusing anecdote that I might be able to exploit for a blog post.

So my bones are Cumbrian, I think of myself as British, but I've never made any secret of the fact that Scotland has my heart. On Saturday I made my debut for the Welsh National Backyard Ultra Squad.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not Welsh. Probably. My family name is Phillips, although I go by Laird these days because, aged 24, I wasn't brave enough to stick to my guns about not changing my name after I got married (don't call me Mrs though). I might have been bolder if it was a shit surname. My tribe have been in Cumbria for so long that any possible Cymraeg connections are lost in the dim and distant past. These days the biggest Welsh influence on my life is Jim's fondness for S4C. He quite likes ALBA too; for some reason he enjoys spotting the words for which there are no Welsh and Gaelic equivalents. I believe hummus and microwave fit the bill in both instances.

This is a really long-winded preamble to the fact that the Welsh squad were short on women and had resorted to asking random folk if they could represent the team. I was sat in a tent with my mate Paul at the time and he found the idea so entertaining I couldn't really say no. Anyone who knows me will be aware that, although I like jogging for hours on end, I'm very much a recreational runner. Paul now refuses to address me as anything other than Welsh International, Jodie Laird. 

Exploiting my spurious Welsh heritage.

Before I plough on and assume everyone (here's the bit where I refer to the paucity of my readership and express the belief that there may be as many as ten people who bother to read this blog these days) understands what I mean by the term Backyard Ultra (BYU), here's a brief explanation:

A concept dreamed up by Lazarus Lake of Barkley Marathons fame (you can follow the link, I'm not doing everything for you), a BYU is run on a 4.167 mile loop. The race starts at 12 noon and runners must complete the loop within an hour. Whether you do so in 30 minutes or 59:59, you do not start the next loop until the hour is up. Any runner not making it back to the starting corral within the hour is out of the race. The precision of the distance might seem daft, but 4.167 x 24 = 100, i.e. it's 100 miles in 24 hours. There is only one winner, everyone else is a DNF (did not finish). It's a seriously unforgiving format. Unlike other lapped races I've done where you can set your own schedule, even have a nap if need be, there's very little margin for anything to go tits up under these conditions.

The current world record is a fairly staggering 85 Yards (354.1695 miles).

I had no intention of targeting one of these races this year. Lakeland 100 is my big goal (again) and I really want to put it to bed after last year's failed attempt. The plan was to have a crack at the 50 mile Pennine Journey at the beginning of May, also organised by the excellent Greener Miles Running, but it wasn't going to work for various reasons. Then I met Paul for a few laps of Gelt Woods, the very beautiful playground that I'm lucky enough to call my own back yard, which he was using as a training ground for the race. As is often the case, I got a bad case of FOMO, nashed home and signed up. I figured that it was a great chance to have a longish run and practice fuelling strategies, without any logistical issues to worry about. Even better, it was less than an hour from home.

I did put a bit of effort into running slightly extended laps of the aforementioned Gelt Woods in a bid to be mentally prepared. I even left the dog behind one morning (he gets bored and behaves like a tired toddler after more than 4 laps) and set about running seven laps (just under 30 miles) under race conditions. I found I averaged about 47 minutes per lap, leaving me with 13 minutes to rest, refuel, go to the loo, and attend to any foot issues that might arise.  If I was intending to dig in for the long haul on race day (undecided at this point) then it was too fast, but I'm very guilty of fannying about and refusing to do any 'quality' training because, well, I can't be arsed and I don't like running fast, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to kick on a bit quicker than I needed to in the event itself.

My Backyard is better than most.

The Gelt is notorious locally for being a challenging route. If you're running about in the high fells regularly then it's not going to compare, but you can rack up a reasonable amount of elevation and the terrain is pretty varied, especially when the ground is wet. Doing the usual pre race due diligence (i.e. avoiding housework), it looked as though the route we were using had a chunk more elevation than we would encounter on the Cowshed Backyard loop, so I went in feeling confident I'd find the going relatively easy.

I was wrong.

There was certainly less elevation on the race route, but it was virtually all on farmland; there were pheasant feeders in the woodland sections and a lot of game crop, so I presume it plays host to a shoot in the winter. I'm no stranger to running in fields; we live on a farm and during lockdown I became intimately acquainted with our boundaries - I can still tell you the mileage of individual field circumferences. I was definitely not as bothered by the terrain as some people I overheard, and I was very conscious that it would have been exponentially more difficult after a spell of wet weather (certain sections of the course did get really mashed up and slippery as time went on), but the surface seemed to absorb energy and was definitely more leg sapping than the stats suggested it might be.

Same for everyone though, eh?

I can't really make an uneventful run around the same four mile loop any more exciting than it sounds. There were no existential crises, nor did I find out anything profound about myself. I might have done if I'd run through the night and found my limits, but I opted not to do that. I'd been expecting intestinal carnage as, with my usual spectacular timing, my period started the day before the race. It's not so much the obvious menstrual admin that proves problematic, more the fact that I could be on the Olympic shitting squad, never mind the Welsh BYU team when I'm on the rag. I've learned not to get stressed about it, just pop Immodium and hope for the best. I'm pleased to report a rather surprising lack of toilet action. Judging by the amount of farting on the course, not everyone was so lucky.

Paul and I ran together for the duration of my race, other than a few necessary pit stops for him. I don't always want to run with friends in an event, but we read each other pretty well - chatted none stop while we felt like it, but were happy to be quiet when necessary. These races are a fantastic spectator sport, even when you're running them yourself. You see the same folk over and over again, get to listen into conversations, and observe the varying states of your fellow competitors. It makes for excellent people watching.  

The format also makes the race family friendly. Ange did a brilliant job of looking after us, as well as keeping our boys entertained and fed. Rory informed me at one point that 'this isn't as crap as I expected it to be' and divided his time between football and YouTube (my last minute purchase of a decent power bank was  money well spent). Mike and Rosie Holliday had been helping out on the Vaga stand and also did a bang up job offering encouragement and advice, as well as doing an emergency pizza run. I love a point to point route and the sense of adventure you get from travelling long distances between places, but there's definitely something to be said for the party atmosphere of lapped races - even if you are watching other people enjoy themselves while you suffer.

I elected not to suffer on this occasion though. Everything went really well: I felt strong both physically and mentally; fuelling was great and at no point did I have to talk myself into eating; I did not vomit, which is a big win for me. However, it started to occur to me that the longer I ran, the bigger price there would be to pay. I need and enjoy decent recovery time and I've been so prone to injury over the years I've learned to err on the side of caution. Once the sciatic nerve that has been plaguing my life for the last month started to play up, I decided to take the positives from the day and start looking to Lakeland 100 training after a few days off. 

Hurry up and take the photo guys,
I'm starting to feel like a bit of a prick.

After last year's DNF at Lakeland I'm keen to do things a bit differently in the build up. Not necessarily to work harder, my 4am starts (and the rest) and endless recces hardly constituted shirking last year, but I can definitely be smarter. After 10 laps and 42 miles (there were a couple of toilet trips!) I handed in my number and was presented with my mug and wooden spoon. Yeah, maybe I should have ventured into the pain cave, or whatever macho bullshit term you want to use, but I feel great and raring to get stuck in, so I'll stand by my decision.

Paul has been really focused on this race and ran an absolute blinder. I know he won't mind me saying he had a fairly rotten first 50 miles, but he talked himself out of a negative headspace and went on to complete a seriously impressive 32 yards. Only race winner Sarah Perry did one more. He's now legitimately been offered a place on the English Backyard squad, but I got my national call up first 🤣 

I don't do many races so it's always a joy to catch up with old friends, make new ones, and witness some inspiring feats of endurance from very cool people. Enormous kudos to Ange for crewing - it's far from easy and sometimes it's just plain shite, but it's worth it when things go to plan. Well done Team Wilson!

Team Wilson: only Ange could look
that fresh after 30 odd hours on the go!