Belgium may be a small country, but once again, it showed the world the strength of its endurance athletes. Merijn Geerts, Ivo Steyaert, and Frank Gielen decided to stop together after 110 yards, sharing a new world record and leading Team Belgium to a resounding victory in the 2024 Backyard Ultra Team World Championships.

Daniel Westergren spoke with them 35 hours after they finished. Together, they discuss the power of teamwork, the secrets behind Belgium's success, future plans, and much more.

Photo: Caroline Dupont

00:00 Introduction to the Belgian Backyard Ultra Champions

02:11 Post-Race Reflections and Recovery

03:51 Frank Gielen Joins the Team

05:52 Secrets to Belgian Success

09:46 Team Dynamics and Training

20:28 The Importance of Crew Support

22:23 Breaking World Records and Team Achievements

28:09 Pushing Beyond Limits: The Final Hours

30:18 Running Together vs. Running Alone

30:39 Adapting to Different Running Partners

31:14 The Final Hours and Team Dynamics

33:14 Deciding to Stop at 110 Laps

34:55 Reflecting on the Team's Decision

36:54 Celebrating the Victory

39:20 Anecdotes from the Race

41:36 The Appeal of Multi-Day Races

43:40 Lessons Learned from Ultra Running

46:48 Comparing Backyard Ultra to Six-Day Races

52:27 Future of Backyard Ultra Records

58:12 Pressure to Perform at Big's Backyard Ultra

59:42 Concluding Thoughts and Inspirations

In this special episode Daniel Westergren talks to Aleksandr Sorokin after his incredible new 24-hour world record, at the European Championship in Verona, Italy. 319.614 km, or 198.599 miles, are numbers that are difficult to comprehend. This 41-year old Lithuanian has started a new chapter in the history of ultrarunning, yet he is a very down to earth person.

There is also a video version of this interview at https://youtu.be/6L6w3xEHjxA. For a prerace interview with Aleksandr Sorokin, see https://youtu.be/b2GX-gnZ-lU.

Today we have interviewed the winner from Val d'Ran by UTMB Katie Schide (CDH) and Germain Grangier (VHA) who is one of the power couples of our sport.

We also have a fresh interview with Lootie who is about to finish her run across the whole world.

Finally we caught up with Joe McCongaughy (stringbean) who set an impressive unsupported FKT on the John Muir Trail.

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Ida Nilsson is again co-hosting this episode with reports from some high-profile ultratrail races. We are joined by Western States winners Adam Peterman & Ruth Croft, Marathon du Mont-Blanc winner Jon Albon and Lavaredo winner Hannes Namberger.

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Emelie Forsberg is joining us in our virtual studio and tells us about her way back to racing, participating in Zegama again, the philosophy behind Moonvalley and NNormal and future plans. We have also interviewed Nienke Brinkman, who crushed the course record at Zegama and who is at world class level in both trail running and marathon.

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Belgian Merijn Geerts was the last one standing at The Race of the Champions - Backyard Masters. His new backyard ultra record is an unbeliavable 90 hours. We have both Merijn and his assist, Irish-man Keith Russell, on the show. Patrycja Bereznowska finally got her 48-hours world record at the Ultra Park Weekend in Poland. We have interviews with Patrycja and with Andrzej Piotrowski who broke the Polish 24-hour record.

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In this episode we have interesting interviews from two long 250 mile races, Thames Ring 250 and Cocodona 250. Paul Mason ran TWO laps of Thames Ring and 24-year old Annie Hughes won Cocodona and placed third overall.

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We report from a stacked weekend of ultra racing. Ida Nilsson is back as co-host directly from Moonvalley in Norway. The mix of nationalities among the interviewes is bigger than ever.

We talk to the winners from the Canyons by UTMB 100k Adam Peterman (US) and Jazmine Lowther (CAN).

Womens second place at Madeira Island Ultra Trail (MIUT) Audrey Tanguy (FRA) gives an insight into this tough but beatiful race with a high profile field.

Hannes Namberger (GER) tells us how he broke the course record and took an impressive win at Penyagolosa trail.

Aleksandr "Sania" Sorokin (LIT) is back on the show with a fresh interview about the new 100 km world record set at the Centurion track 100 in the UK.

We also talk to Sergio Pereyra (ARG) who shared the win with Pau Capell a few weeks ago in Patagonia, and with Kate Jayden (UK) who recently broke the guiness world record of most consecutive marathons (101 marathons in 101 days) while raising money for refugees.

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