The 4 Pillars of BYU Success

Alexandra Airport Carousel BYU 2025. Photo credit: @kelsipaige_photography

A Backyard Ultra looks like a running event, but it isn’t really.

It’s an eating competition, and a problem to solve.

Most people don’t DNF because their legs are done (that’s the dream!). They step off because their brain is done. Usually somewhere between “I hate you all”, “This potato tastes like sadness”, and “I can’t face that corrall again”, the small things start piling up: slipping behind on fuelling, getting a bit dehydrated in the warm laps, forgetting sodium, wearing the wrong layers, or not being able to find things in the tent. Tiny issues slowly chip away at your brain until it seems impossible to continue, and once the brain fog creeps in, everything looks harder than it is. 

That’s why a Backyard Ultra rewards preparation more than grit. When you’ve built a solid race plan across the four pillars of BYU success — nutrition, training, mindset, and gear — you remove most of the chaos that usually derails people. Instead of trying to “be tough” for 24 hours, your job becomes much simpler: follow the plan, solve problems early, and keep your world small.

This article walks you through the four pillars in a clear, practical way so you can head into your next BYU with confidence and give yourself the best possible chance of staying in the game when things start getting wobbly.

Pillar 1: Nutrition — The Decider (and the Easiest Way to End Your Race Early)

Nutrition and hydration decide more BYUs than fitness or grit. Because the running feels easy, many athletes trust their appetite and thirst — and that’s where the trouble begins. Your appetite in a BYU is about as trustworthy as GPS in a dense forest loop, and your thirst mechanism lags behind the reality of what your body needs.

Most DNFs that look like “fatigue” are actually nutrition or hydration slips that happened hours earlier.

Here’s what matters:

A small, steady intake beats big meals every time

Don’t make your digestive system work harder than it has to by giving it big meals.  Your goal is to keep your energy intake and therefore your blood sugar as constant as possible, rather than starting a rollercoaster. 

Taste fatigue will come for you

BYUs are long enough that even your favourite snacks will end up tasting like crap.  Have different options - savoury, sweet, salty, crunchy, creamy, smooth…

Heat and darkness change the game

When it’s hot, your blood is directed to your skin for cooling and away from your digestive system, which means digestion slows and liquid calories become your friend.When night rolls in, your appetite naturally dips, and you need options that feel easy to get down and digest.  

Hydration requires sodium — not just water

If you’re only sipping water, you’re not hydrating; you’re diluting. That’s when things like cramps, nausea, GI issues, fatigue, headaches, and poor decision-making creep in. The choices you make at midday often show up as problems at midnight.

Know exactly where your sodium and calories are coming from

BYUs are too long for guesswork. Know your numbers, practice them, and adjust them based on the conditions.

If you use your training time wisely and dial your fuelling and hydration during training, you remove one of the biggest sources of chaos on race day

Pillar 2: Training — Durability, Not Hero Miles

There’s a persistent belief that you need massive 150km weeks to go deep into a BYU. What you actually need is durability — the capacity to do the same thing repeatedly without your body falling apart or your brain turning on you.

Here’s what actually matters for a BYU:

Gut training

If you’re not fuelling in training, you’re not preparing for a BYU. Your gut needs the same conditioning as your legs.

Strength makes a bigger difference than people think

Late in the event, it’s your ankles, calves, quads, knees and hips that start negotiating with you. Including strength sessions in your training programme has never been a better idea than when training for a BYU.

Practise the BYU rhythm

Run. Stop. Eat. Drink. Reset. Run again.

If you’ve never practised that pattern, race day feels chaotic, and chaos is exhausting.

Night training helps more than you expect

The first time that you experience running through the night (or close enough) shouldn’t be your BYU.  Just be mindful not to let sleep deprivation ruin your training block - 7pm-2am or 2am-9am should give you a pretty good idea of how you’re going to feel at that time of the day/night during your BYU, what foods are going to work, and how your brain responds to the fatigue.  

Long blocks on your feet build familiarity

You’re not doing it for fitness — you’re doing it so that 12, 18, 24+ hours on your feet doesn’t feel foreign, and to test your gear to make sure it doesn’t chafe or cause blisters.

You’re not trying to become a mileage hero.You’re trying to become durable.

Pillar 3: Mindset — Where BYUs Get Uncomfortably Real

Mindset is one of the biggest deciders in who makes it through the night and who quietly bows out. Most runners don’t think about it until they’re sitting in a camp chair at 3am, suddenly emotional about a 6.7km stretch of trail they’ve seen too many times.

A few tools help enormously:

Keep your world small

Don’t think about the whole event — just think about what you have to do for the next lap. “Eat this. Drink this. Finish this lap.” Small tasks are manageable, and manageable keeps you calm.

Use distractions

Count your steps. Sing a song. Talk to someone. Solve a puzzle.The goal is to give your brain something else to focus on besides catastrophising about how heavy your eyelids feel or how sore your [insert body part here] is.  

Act the way you want to feel

Stand tall, smile, breathe steadily — even if you don’t feel like it.Your body responds to the signals you send, and sometimes the fastest way to stop the downward spiral is to interrupt it physically.

Mindset won’t replace training, but training won’t save you if your mind unravels. BYUs are long enough that everyone has low patches — the difference is what you do when you hit one, and how you’re going to push through so you can come out the other side.

Pillar 4: Gear — The Boring Pillar That Quietly Wins the Whole Event

Gear and logistics may not be sexy, but they’re one of the biggest predictors of who’s still going after midnight. Blisters, dead shoes, chafing, overheating, freezing, or simply not being able to find anything in your tent — these are tiny problems that compound into very big reasons to quit. The good news is that almost all of them are preventable with a bit of planning and practice.

A BYU isn’t just about what you wear on the loop — it’s equally about what you come back to each hour. Your shoes, clothing, layers, and base setup form a system, and when that system runs smoothly, you save an enormous amount of energy.

Clothing that keeps you comfortable across 24+ hours

You’ll cycle through warm, cold, sweaty, wet, chafed, and sticky across the span of a BYU. Every layer — socks, thermals, jackets, shirts — should be something you’ve trained in for hours, not something you’re trying for the first time because it looks cool or sounds good. BYUs are long enough that even tiny irritations become major problems.

Shoes that are ready for the long haul

Most runners underestimate how fast a BYU chews through cushioning. Plan a rotation and know exactly which pair you’ll use at the start, when your feet are swollen, when they’re sore, and how often to rotate them (along with your socks). Foot care needs to be part of your plan, otherwise you’ll end up with blisters and be unable to bear weight.  

A tent set-up that works even when you're tired and slightly emotional

A well-organised base isn’t a luxury — it’s a performance tool. Your tent should act like a tiny pit-crew station: simple, predictable, and easy to navigate even when your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders.

• A 3×3 gazebo with sides, plus a tarp on the ground, keeps the wind, sun, and night cold under control.

• A comfortable reclining chair for the runner (and extra seating for crew) allows real rest and micro-recovery between laps by being able to put your feet up.

• Tables, shelves, and bins create order — the more surfaces the better, and keeping categories separated (electronics, clothing, food, medical, etc.) prevents chaos later on.

• A chilly bin with ice, warm blankets or sleeping bags, and boxes dedicated to spare shoes and clothing make transitions fast and easy.

• Lighting inside the tent, reliable head torches, power banks, and a charging station stop you from scrambling at night when everything suddenly matters more.

• And of course — lots of water, a jet boil or thermos, and all the small but crucial odds and ends (lube, tape, chapstick, wipes, mugs, pegs, funnels, etc.) that seem excessive until you desperately need them.

Organisation that saves mental energy

Always put things back where they came from. When you’re tired, flustered, or rushing to hit the whistle, the last thing you want is a frantic search for a head torch or a bottle you swear you saw five minutes ago. Keeping things categorised, labelled, and consistently returned to the same spot isn’t pedantic — it’s efficiency under fatigue.

Crew who know the system better than you do

Your crew becomes your brain as the hours pass. They’ll be the ones doing the thinking when your decision-making dips, so setting them up in advance is essential. 

• share your goals and race plan beforehand

• scenario-plan together (“If this happens, what will we do?”)

• make sure they know where everything is and what it’s for better than you do

• empower them to take charge when you start fading

• give them permission to push you out the corral even when you don’t want to go.

Gear won’t make you a faster runner, but poor gear — or poor organisation — will absolutely make you a slower and more frustrated one.

BYUs reward preparation, and nowhere is that more obvious than in those precious minutes you spend in your

tent after each lap. When your clothing, shoes, and tent setup function like a well-oiled machine, you preserve the most precious BYU resource: your mental energy.

Final Thoughts

BYUs are brutally honest events — they’ll show you every strength you’ve built and every detail you’ve overlooked. But with a clear plan across nutrition, training, mindset, and gear, plus a few backup plans tucked in your pocket, you give yourself the best possible chance of staying in the game when things get tough.

Lean on your preparation, lean on your crew, and keep your world small.

You don’t need to feel amazing.  You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to keep stepping back into the corral — one lap at a time.