Ultrarunning
Maggie Guterl reveals how she won Big’s Backyard Ultra outright
After 250 miles and 60 hours of running, the 39-year-old was the last runner standing at the race with no end. Here's what it took to win one of the most gruelling ultras around.
In October 2019, in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, 39-year-old ultrarunner Maggie Guterl, from Colorado, joined 72 other runners at dawn in the starting corral of a race where there could only be one finisher.
All she knew was that she would run a 4.16667-mile loop on the hour, every hour, until she missed the cut-off time, voluntarily withdrew or was the last person standing.
The race in question was Big’s Backyard Ultra, an event dreamed up by Gary ‘Lazarus Lake’ Cantrell, the man behind the equally twisted and rarely finished Barkley Marathons. Completed on loops of his farm’s woodland trails by day, before switching to an out-and-back road run through the night, the loop distance of just over 4.1 miles is carefully chosen so that it totals 100 miles every 24 hours.
I had doubts here and there, but that’s when I’d push them out. But I was pretty confident. You just have to keep pretending that no one can beat you
Known as ‘the race with no end’, the event has no set distance and continues its on-the-hour loops until all but one of the would-be finishers drop, leaving one sole runner to be crowned the winner.
Sixty hours and 250 miles after she started, Guterl – who completed 183 miles the previous year – became the first woman in the race’s seven-year history to win the ‘last man standing’ event.
From caffeine tapers to mashed potatoes and ironclad mantras, here’s how she did it...
She had one plan: Don’t quit
Guterl, an experienced ultrarunner, whose race resume includes winning the Brazos Bend 100-miler outright – one of the fastest ultras in the US – took inspiration from the 2018 Big’s Backyard Ultra race winner, Swedish ultrarunner Johan Steene. “He decided he wasn’t going to quit and that nothing was going to stop him, and it worked,” she explains.
The mindset was something Guterl stewed upon in training in the months leading up to the race. “It takes a while; you can’t just show up and say, ‘Oh, this is a good strategy, I’ll just say I won’t quit.’ You have to really let it marinate for a while.”
She doubled down on strength and conditioning
Although she clocked up an incredible 183 miles in 2018, issues with her hips and IT band forced Guterl to withdraw. “Everything was messed up. So [for 2019] I did more strength work, I did more stretching and yoga, and during the race I addressed those things before they got out of control.”
Guterl’s strength work included regular sessions at her local box-style gym, The Vault. “They do circuits and big lifting. I would do their workouts and sometimes things on my own, like band walks, planks and squats.”
Her run training was ‘mellow’
Guterl fit her training around work, sometimes running twice a day, and incorporated two speed sessions each week, as devised by her coach, Michelle Yates of Rugged Running.
I did a lot of fast hiking and slow running at altitude, as I live at 7,400ft. I think that helps because a lot of people aren’t used to running slower or even walking a bit [in races]
Her training was a mix of trail and road running to prepare her body for both: “If you’re only running trail in training, I think the road will beat you up and vice versa,” she explains.
The training was “pretty fun” due to its flexibility. “I did a lot of fast hiking and slow running at altitude, as I live at 7,400ft. I think that helps because a lot of people aren’t used to running slower or even walking a bit [in races]. That’s all I did, really. It was really, really mellow.”
However, she did go all-out with two huge mountain runs
Amid her mellow training, Guterl threw in two big mileage, high-vert days, which included a second-place finish racing the Telluride Mountain Run – a 40-mile race with 14,000ft of elevation that took more than 10 hours (“One of the hardest short races I’ve done”).
Topping that was a self-motivated solo 100km run that Guterl created to hit the seven major summits that surround her hometown of Durango, Colorado. It took 15 hours. “That was my major big effort, my big run. It was awesome,” she says. It made Guterl realise she could handle whatever Big’s threw at her. “I felt like I wasn’t destroyed after that, which was a big confidence boost."
She did a caffeine taper
In order to use caffeine strategically during the race, Guterl tapered and cut her caffeine intake in the weeks leading up to the race. “In a 100-miler, once you start using caffeine, you just have to keep using it so you don’t crash, but in an event where you don’t know how long it’s going to last, you really can’t do that. So I cut back my caffeine and then two weeks before, I cut it out completely, which was horrible,” she laughs. It worked during the race though. “I really felt the effects, like I was getting a boost,” she says.
She took a one-loop-at-a-time approach
“If you try and think about the results or what happens next, it’s too much,” explains Guterl, who admits the first 50 miles were the most monotonous: “You’re trying to go your own pace but sometimes you’re stuck in a line with a load of people.”
Luckily, she had barely any low points. “[It was] just when I got really sleepy and tired. Then I looked forward to the caffeine, so I’d tell myself: ‘Just get through another lap… And another… And another’.”
She consumed around 15,095 calories via liquid nutrition and real food
“You need a tonne of calories to do this day after day, so having a liquid supplement, in addition to real food is a good way to get in a lot of calories,” explains Guterl, who consumed roughly 250 calories an hour and around 15,095 calories over the course of the event.
The majority of her real food calories came from mashed potatoes, but other options included pierogi, waffles, and two breakfast sandwiches, which provided extra motivation. “Before the race, a friend asked a bunch of us who would like a breakfast sandwich bringing on Monday (day three of running) and most of the others were like, ‘Nah, I’ll be done by then’ but I was like, ‘I’ll have an egg and cheese!’ And I did think about that sandwich – like, ‘hang in there, you’ve got to deserve that sandwich.’”
Her crew fixed niggles before they blew-up
Learning from her previous Big’s experience, Guterl and her team were fully prepared when it came to muscular and mechanical issues.
“I had an awesome crew, they were just amazing and so organised. Any time I had knee swelling or irritated IT bands, they combatted that with rock tape or whatever [was required]. My friend Amelia brought tonnes of massage guns and they were jamming those into my muscles. One person, Jen, bought a Tens [transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation] unit so they’d slap those electrodes on between loops. It was awesome.”
She was severely sleep deprived
Guterl didn’t manage to snatch much sleep during the 60-hour race. “The plan was just to keep laying down and eventually my body would get into a rhythm. By the end of the first night, I maybe got a minute or two of sleep, then maybe five minutes by the second night.”
Did she feel refreshed? “No!” she laughs. “I’d tell myself, ‘it’s just sleep’ and then I looked forward to the caffeine. A couple of laps before the day loop started, I could have caffeine and that would boost my spirits.”
... which made her hallucinate
The weird thing that messed with me was the sound hallucinations
The sleep deprivation led to hallucinations – but not just the visual kind. “I saw a lot of severed heads and big faces in the trees, but that wasn’t the scary part. The weird thing that messed with me was the sound hallucinations; I would hear a lot of whispering and I’d turn around a lot. It was eerie. I’d hear a lot of growling. It was weird.”
She repeated mantras aloud
When her fatigue led to a drop in pace, shuffly feet and wandering thoughts, Guterl dug into her mantras. “I fell a few times because I wasn’t focussing and my feet were shuffling, so I started talking to myself. I’d say, ‘Pick up your feet’ if I started to shuffle, and if I started to think too far ahead, or ask myself how I can get through a fourth day of trail, I just said, ‘Focus!’ and that would bring me back into that loop,” she explains.
“At one point I hit the tree that was usually my 20-minute marker at 23 minutes and was like, ‘Oh my god, you better hurry up!’ so I started saying ‘Pace’ if I was slowing down too much.”
She sounded other competitors out
During the race, she let other runners know she was in it for the long-haul. “I was like, ‘Hey, 100 hours, guys. You want to make it to the fourth day on the trail?’ Just to see what people would say. Most people were like, ‘Nah, my cut-off is 72 hours’ or whatever – so I knew, if they had a cut off, they’re not in it to win it, you know?”
She was excited in the final few hours
While you might expect a sleep-deprived runner to be falling to pieces after running for three days, Guterl’s overriding feeling in the final few hours was excitement. “I was excited to finally get to the third night because I really wanted to beat [the winning time from] last year, which was 68 hours, and make it to 70 hours of running. So I was excited and it was also pouring with rain, which was kind of fun because I was literally drenched.”
Her confidence never wavered
In the end, her duel with Kiwi runner Will Hayward ended when he failed to make the 60th loop, subsequently leaving her as the sole competitor of the race with no end.
Did she have any doubts during the race? “No, not really,” Guterl reveals. “A couple of times I fell and I was like, 'wow, I could lose this if I smash my knee up and can barely run. I had doubts here and there, but that’s when I’d push them out. But I was pretty confident. You just have to keep pretending that no one can beat you.”
