Southland Sport
Organisers of the inaugural Sandy Point Backyard Ultra marathon last weekend were excited to introduce a new event to Invercargill.
One of now 14 backyard ultra events around the country, the Sandy Point Ultra is held every year on the second weekend of January.
Organised by Patrick and Joanna Manulat, the concept of the race is that runners run laps of a set course of 6.7 kms, but each lap must be completed in an hour that includes rest, hydration and food.
The race restarts again every hour, on the hour. If a runner does not complete the lap within the hour and does not line up before the race starts again, he will be out of the race.
“The race continues until the last person standing. So in this race there will only be one winner and all other runners are technically DNF (did not finish).
“The race can go on for days. But if the last runner is unable to come back to the finish line before one hour then there will be no winner.”
Last Saturday a preview event was held at the old Southland Golf Course Links Road.
Joanna said they started with 43 runners and the last person standing was completed by Blair Logie of Wallacetown with 27 Laps at 180.9 kms.
Simon Budd of Invercargill was ‘the Assist’ who completed 26 Laps at 174.2 kms.
“We had 4 women who joined the race and the last woman standing was Rose Dickison of Gore who completed 13 Laps at 87.1 kms.”
She said the entire race lasted for 27 hours.
"There has been awesome results and heaps of runners have run their PB- personal best. The entire community has come along together to help us with the event. We had tonnes of help from friends, sponsors, runners who helped us in this big running event.”
Backyard ultramarathons are international races where every even numbered year (2026) there is a World Team Championship.
On every odd numbered year (2025) there will be an individual world championship held in Tennessee. Winners of each country’s team championships will receive an entry into that.
"We would like to thank the Invercargill City Council Parks and Recreation, especially Jay Coote for all the support and assistance he has given us."
The Backyard Ultra was founded by Lazarus Lake of Tennessee who is also the founder and race director of the Barkley Marathons.
Special thanks to our major sponsors Ben of Shoe Clinic Invercargill, Mark Drew of Tailwind Nutrition, Fibi Drew- Smith of ZErotwenty2sports and RN Colaljo of Arenology Features. To all of our volunteers Team Kasikas and Low Key Sakalam (Filipino Community), Kim and Sean McColl, Keri Tuna, Southland Tri, Ryan Carter and Thomas Byatt.
“We wouldn’t be able to do it without your massive help.”
For more details go to the website https://www.sandypointbackyardultra.com/ or check out their facebook page.