The Backyard Ultra World Team Championships occur every second year.
It’s called the satellite champs because the teams run against each other via a Zoom call from their own countries.
Everyone starts at the same time, and it keeps going until there is only one person left.
Each runner’s kilometres are added together to go towards the country total.
Unlike the individual championships and normal backyard ultra events, the aim is to get team members working together to get everyone to run as many laps as possible.
At the last world team champs in 2022, New Zealand placed 11th out of the 37 countries competing, ahead of the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.
Two years later, there are 63 countries with New Zealand ranked ninth based on runners’ qualification laps.
The lowest qualifying runner had to run 39 laps – equivalent to 39 hours – to make the 15-person team.
McAlpine is the only competitor from Waikato travelling to the South Island.
Other squad members hail from Dunedin, Auckland, Christchurch, Waikouaiti, Waihemo, Wānaka and Waiuku.
She is also one of two females in the team.
“I bought the Backyard Ultra format to New Zealand because I wanted to run in one. I organised it and then handed over the reins to my wife to manage while I joined the field running,” New Zealand team manager Shaun Collins said.
“In the first backyard, the winner was a woman – the first woman in the world to win in that format – Katie Wright ran 30 laps. Five years later, the New Zealand event record is 52, set by Anthony Kerr-Taylor at the Kings Backyard Ultra 2024 in Whangārei.”
The record for a New Zealander overall is 102 laps.
In June 2023, Sam Harvey ran 101 laps equalling the world record in an Australian event.
So far over 1200 people have tried this format of running.
“The past two Satellite World Champs have been based in Auckland because I’ve organised them. This time the South Islanders wanted it based down there, given 75% of the team are from the Mainland. The start/finish and runners support tents are directly outside the Otematata Pub on the main street,” Collins said.
“Support crew are just as important in this competition because after 24 hours or more, the runners start to go into autopilot and need their crews to feed, pamper and wake them up to keep them going.
“It’s fascinating to watch and good crew will be like a formula one pit crew. The runners can come in in 56 minutes and sit down and the crew will force them to eat and drink and put warm gear on and get up into the start area before the final one minute warning whistle. Out on the course no support is allowed.”
With Harvey in their squad, the New Zealand side has high hopes for this year.
“Our team are focused on working together so everyone on the team runs further than they have ever run before. As team manager I will be down there but I’ll also be doing the electronic timing of the event (for a live leaderboard), making sure our connection stays up with the worldwide Zoom call, and helping our local New Zealand livestream team by commentating/interviewing and shooting footage of the event,” Collins said.
“I can’t wait to see how they go and help them all keep running until they absolutely can’t continue. It’s definitely a mind of matter type of thing with the brain trying to tell the body that it’s done, and it can’t go any further, but these runners push through that and get more laps out of the body.
“So, it comes down to the crew and us supporters convincing them and cajoling them out of the chair and to start another lap.”
The event will start at 1am on Sunday.
To follow the action, results and livestreams visit my.raceresult.com/312584/results
2024 Backyard Ultra World Team Championship:
1 Sam Harvey, male, Christchurch, personal best loops – 102
2 Anthony Kerr-Taylor, male Auckland, 52
3 Simon McLean, male, Auckland, 51
4 John Bayne, male, Dunedin, 51
5 Jeremy Pelvin, male, Christchurch, 50
6 Glenn Sutton, male, Dunedin, 49
7 Caleb Pearson, male, Auckland, 42
8 Shannon Rhodes, male, Waikouaiti, 42
9 Brion Matthews, male, Christchurch, 41
10 Glenn Tomlinson, male, Waihemo, 41
11 Johan Bergman, male, Christchurch, 40
12 Chris Taylor, male, Dunedin, 40
13 Julia Chamberlain, female, Wānaka, 40
14 Carl Read, male, Waiuku, 40
15 Jane McAlpine, female, Cambridge, 39.
