Last Soul Ultra

On 14 August I lined up for my very first backyard ultra, the Last Soul Ultra in North Rhine-Westphalia.

To be honest, I was pretty nervous. I went in with high expectations, but I had no idea what was coming or how my body would react to that kind of load.

As at my last ultras, I had my team with me again: my sister Olivia, my dad Dieter, Domenico as physiotherapist and Max for nutrition.

The first laps were brutally hot at 35 degrees. Then came the dust. With so many runners and the dry ground, the whole course was churned up and I had more and more trouble with coughing.

That made the first night pretty rubbish. Hardly any sleep, lots of coughing, and with the strain I couldn’t really switch off anyway. After that things got better and I found my rhythm more and more. I ran most of my laps somewhere between 42 and 45 minutes. That left me about 15 minutes to eat, sleep and get ready for the next lap.

Nutrition, on the other hand, went really well. No stomach issues, no real problems with eating, and I needed the toilet surprisingly rarely during the whole race.

Mentally it was a completely different story.

Honestly, I wanted to stop on almost every lap. At some point I was hardly enjoying it at all.

At kilometre 200 I hit my absolute low and wanted to quit for good. Mike Egan, a former soldier, convinced me to keep going.

I kept running.

Until lap 56.

After 375 kilometres I finally rang the bell and withdrew from the race.

Physically there might have been a bit more in the tank. I ran my last lap in 54 minutes and would still have had time afterwards. But for me the decision was made. I didn’t know how my body would react to more strain, and mentally I was simply finished.

In the end it was 6th place out of 160 runners.

For me it was an incredibly intense experience. I definitely don’t have the experience yet to compete at the very front of a backyard ultra. But that is exactly why I entered: to learn.

These 375 kilometres showed me where my limits are – and, probably even more importantly, where I can still grow.

The format

A backyard ultra has no finish in the usual sense. Every hour on the hour, a lap of 6.7 kilometres begins. Anyone who fails to complete it in time, or is not in the starting area for the next lap, is out. The race only ends when one runner is left — and that runner has to complete a final lap alone to win officially.

The rules

The setting was deliberately spare. No power in the base camp, water stood ready in containers, and everyone sorted out their own food. Three by three metres — that was all the space anyone had for their camp.

From dusk onwards a headlamp was mandatory. My crew could only help me in the base camp: anyone who took something handed to them out on the course was disqualified. Spectators were not admitted, and the organiser kept the exact location secret.