The minutes between loops
· 7 min read
In a Backyard Ultra the runner spends most of every hour on the course. But the race is often decided in the few minutes after they come back. That gap between arriving and the next bell is where the runner eats, drinks, gets their feet looked after, sleeps, and gets ready to go again. Waste it, and the next loop starts with a deficit. Waste it every hour, and the race is over by the second night.
How big the gap is
Loop times are a choice. The common guidance, from the Last Soul Ultra checklist and from backyardultra.de, is to run most loops in around 50 minutes, give or take a few. Many runners think in three zones, like a traffic light:
| Zone | Loop time | Pace | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | 48–51 min | ~7:09–7:36 /km | Calm, lots of walking, testing the stomach |
| Yellow | 44–48 min | ~6:34–7:09 /km | The standard rhythm |
| Green | 40–42 min | ~5:58–6:16 /km | Fast on purpose, to buy rest (night, sleep) |
The first five loops are usually red. What feels easy at the start, a 35 or 40 minute loop, takes its toll many hours later. Fast loops are a tool, not a habit: you run one when you want a longer break, typically at night to sleep.
A lot of runners map the loop beforehand: where they walk, where they run. That makes the loop time repeatable, and a repeatable loop time is what makes a repeatable break possible.
One signal matters more than any single loop: the trend. When loop times creep upward over several loops, or start approaching 55 minutes, things are getting critical. It rarely happens all at once, which is exactly why it is easy to miss.
The pit system
A 10-minute break is not a rest in the usual sense. It is a pit stop, and it works best with the same fixed sequence every time:
- Come in. Shoes off immediately, feet up.
- Refuel. Eat and drink what is prepared.
- Recover. A short massage every few loops.
- Fix problems. A hot spot, chafing, a loose lace, a cold hand.
- Sleep, at night, when the plan says so.
- Prepare the next loop. Clothing, food bag, lamp.
With a good crew, a regular break takes 4 to 6 minutes. Before every break, the crew should know what this particular break is for: just fuel, or fuel plus a sock change, or a sleep break. A 15-minute break without closing your eyes is, as one checklist bluntly puts it, pretty pointless.
The fixed order matters because nobody in camp is thinking clearly by hour 30. A sequence you do not have to think about still works when you cannot think.
The care that has to fit in
Some jobs do not happen every loop, but they have to happen reliably. They are also the easiest to forget, because nothing is visibly wrong until it is. Common guidance looks like this:
| Action | Roughly every |
|---|---|
| Shoe change | ~4 hours (bring 3–4 pairs) |
| Sock change | at most 8 loops |
| Foot care: soak, balm, powder, nails, tape | ~10 loops |
| Massage | ~4 loops |
| Anti-chafing | ongoing |
The honest question in camp is never "should we change socks?" It is "when did we last change socks?" At 3 a.m., after several crew rotations, that is surprisingly hard to answer. The useful unit is not the clock time but the count: how many loops since this was last done.
Small problem, act now
Blisters, hot spots, chafing, a stomach that turns, cramps, cold, a dip in mood. Every runner gets some of these. The rule the experienced crews repeat is simple: a small problem gets treated immediately. A hot spot taped on yard 12 is a two-minute job. The same spot ignored until yard 20 can end the race.
Problems also have a history. Reported on one loop, treated a certain way, resolved or still there. If the crew changes shift in between, the next person needs to know what is open. Otherwise the same blister gets discovered twice, or worse, not at all.
Sleep is also a break
In a race that can last several days, sleep is not optional. It is a break like the others, just longer, and it follows its own sequence: a fast loop to buy time, eat, then sleep immediately. Mask and earplugs, a warm tent, a blanket.
Adrenaline makes sleeping in the first night or two harder than people expect. And someone has to wake the runner, counting back from the bell: enough time to wake up, get dressed, get their shoes on and get into the corral. Getting that wrong is one of the few ways to lose a Backyard in camp rather than on the course.
Why this is a crew problem
Every item above is simple on its own. The difficulty is doing all of it, in the right order, in a few minutes, every hour, for a day or more, while tired, cold and working by headlamp. The runner cannot carry that; they have enough to do. The crew carries it, and the crew needs a way to keep track that still works when nobody in camp has slept.