The crew runs everything else

There is a line in the Last Soul Ultra team's checklist that sums up how experienced runners approach a Backyard Ultra: the runner is basically only responsible for running the loop; the team takes care of everything else.

It is not an exaggeration. Without a good crew you will not get far, and trying to do everything yourself is, in the checklist's words, a disaster. This post is about what "everything else" means, and why it gets harder the longer the race goes.

The crew thinks for the runner

Every hour of a Backyard, the runner makes fewer good decisions. Sleep deprivation and an energy deficit do that to everyone. By the second night, a runner asked "do you want soup or pasta?" may take longer to answer than the break lasts.

So the crew thinks on the runner's behalf. The runner should have to decide as little as possible during a break. The food is ready, the socks are laid out, the lamp is charged. The crew knows the plan and follows it, especially when the runner no longer can.

This is also where the checklist's second principle comes in: execute the plan, don't act on emotion. At 3 a.m. a runner who says "I'm fine, I don't need to eat" is usually wrong. A runner who says "I'm done" often is not. The crew's job is to put the plan back in front of both of them.

Roles

Even a crew of two or three works better with clear jobs. Typical roles:

• Food and cooking: packs the loop bags, makes hot meals, keeps the intake record.
• Gear and timing: the clock and the bell, clothing, lights, batteries.
• Physio: feet, chafing, massage.
• Mental support: motivation, communication, the right words at the right time.
• Medication: who took what, and when.

On a small crew one person holds several of these, which is fine, as long as everyone knows who holds which.

The briefing

Before the first bell, the crew and the runner should go through the plan together:

• The pacing plan, the nutrition plan and the break plan.
• How problems will be handled, especially feet.
• What goes out on every loop.
• Plan B, C and D: what changes if the stomach goes, if it rains all night, if the runner cannot sleep.
• Where everything is.

The goal shapes all of it. A runner aiming for 100 km (about 15 loops) needs a very different plan from one aiming for 24 hours (24 loops) or to be the last one standing.

Labelled boxes

Base camp is small. At Last Soul Ultra it is three by three metres, with up to three crew members on site at once. There is usually no power, and water comes in containers.

The single most useful habit is to pack everything into labelled boxes by category, so anyone on the crew can find anything in seconds, in the dark: socks and feet, tops, night kit, gels, real food, medication. A crew member searching through a bag for the spare headlamp is a crew member who is not doing anything else in the one window where it matters.

Small problems, handled now

Blisters, chafing, a turning stomach, cold hands. The crew's rule is the same as the runner's: a small problem gets treated immediately, and complaints are taken seriously, even when the runner plays them down.

And problems are followed up. A hot spot taped on one loop should be checked on the next. That only works if someone remembers it was there.

The crew has to sleep too

In a multi-day race the crew is as sleep-deprived as the runner. Nobody can stay sharp for 60 hours. So larger crews work in shifts, and that creates the hardest problem of all: the handover.

When one crew member goes to sleep and another takes over, a lot has to move from one head to the other:

• What is open? The blister on the left heel, the stomach that was off two loops ago.
• What was taken recently? Painkillers, caffeine, salt tablets.
• When were shoes and socks last changed? When is the next hot meal due?
• Is a sleep break planned, and when does the runner need to be woken?

Waking the runner is its own job: counting back from the bell, leaving enough time to wake up, get dressed and get into the corral. Getting that wrong is one of the few ways to lose a Backyard entirely in camp.

A handover done in two minutes at 4 a.m., by two tired people, loses things. Not because anyone is careless, but because tired people forget, and paper notes get wet, smudged or left in the other jacket.

A note on medication

Medication deserves its own mention because the stakes are different. Runners typically carry things like painkillers, anti-diarrhoea tablets, antacids, electrolyte tablets and caffeine. The crew must be able to trace who took what, and when, across every shift change, so that nothing is doubled up by accident.

What to take, and how much, is not a crew decision on race day. It should be cleared with a doctor beforehand. NSAIDs like ibuprofen in particular are controversial in ultras because of the strain on the kidneys.

What the crew needs

Put all of this together and a pattern appears. The crew does not need more information. It needs the right information, at the right moment, in a form a tired person can read at a glance: what is due, what is open, what went in last, how long until the bell.

That is a lot to ask of a notebook and a phone alarm. We explain why in Why paper fails at 3 a.m.