To hear Preston Schaffer tell it, it’s all his wife’s fault.
She’s the one who, back in 2018, became intrigued with the idea of Spartan racing and encouraged him to train for the events with her.
It was the stepping stone that, four years later, saw Schaffer run his first ultra marathon and become addicted to seeing how far he could push himself.
Now, at age 39 and with just two years of ultra running under his belt, the registered massage therapist and father of four is the lone Saskatchewan resident headed to Edmundston, New Brunswick later this week as part of Team Canada where he will compete in the world backyard ultra team championships.
Backyard ultras are a form of last-person-standing race that see participants run 6.706 kilometres every hour on the hour until only one runner remains to complete a lap. The world backyard ultra team championships are contested simultaneously by several countries at events within their borders. Fifteen national team members each aim to log the highest number of laps possible to contribute to a team score. The winner of national team championships will be invited to compete at an individual world championship event next year.
Schaffer, who lives in Regina, played sports his whole life — some soccer, some basketball, some football, some hockey — but was never passionate about any particular activity until he started running as part of Spartan race training. When the pandemic put those races on hold in 2020, he and his wife shifted gears to running for fun and Schaffer became excited to “train for something really big” as soon as in-person events returned. In 2022, he ran his first half marathon at the Gopher Attack and, less than two months later, lined up for the 24-hour Canada Goose Ultra.
“Going into something like that, I had no idea what I’d be capable of,” Schaffer recalls. “I had no idea how far I’d be able to go and so I set a goal for myself and, upon reaching that goal, I didn’t really know what to do after that.”
Schaffer had aimed to run 100km to earn a belt buckle and made it to 125km before deciding he was done. “I woke up the next day and I was like: Why did I stop? I could have kept going much, much further. And that sort of gave me the inspiration and perspective to be like: I can do better next time. Let’s try something else a little bit harder.”
The next year, Schaffer ran the 100-miler at Sinister 7 and, at the urging of a friend, tried his first backyard ultra at the Prairie Nightmare Backyard Ultra in Echo Valley Provincial Park.
“I didn’t really have huge expectations per se other than see what my body’s made of or what my spirit is made of,” he says. “And, as the time went on, and as the numbers dropped, all of a sudden there were just a few people left and it became: OK, this thing’s starting to finish, let’s just see how far this goes and I kept going and all of a sudden I’ve won the race.”
Schaffer won that event with 21 “yards” or 140.9km.
There are lots of positive things about the backyard ultra format — being able to access aid stations and see your cheer squad every hour is a huge plus — but its open-ended nature is a tough thing to wrap one’s head around.
“When you have a finish in ultra racing, it’s easier to push towards that limit because you have, say, 160 kilometers or you have a time limit. You know for sure when the end of the race is. But with backyard ultras the unknown is sort of interesting and you need to find out what you’re made of. Actually, I guess, in a funny way, if you win the race you don’t really get to find out what you’re made of,” Schaffer says.
While some competitors find the repeated loops boring, Schaffer has never minded it. He likes to tell dad jokes to anyone in his vicinity to pass the time. Don’t his fellow runners want to know that ultras are the most cost effective races from a cost-per-kilometre perspective?
This year, Schaffer’s goal was to secure one of the 15 national team spots available for the world backyard ultra team championships. That meant winning a “silver ticket” backyard ultra or logging enough laps at an “at large” event. He made his first attempt at the BC Backyard Ultra in April, an at-large event, and ended up tying for third place with 33 yards (221.3km). The winner went on to run 40 yards (268.2km).
“One my ankles was starting to give me issues and I had to make a decision: If I keep running, am I going to injure myself and not be able to even run the next race that I want to go to? If I keep running, am I even going to be able to go to work and do the things that help me pay for these interesting passions I have?”
So, four months later, Schaffer travelled to Okotoks, Alta. for his final chance to qualify for the world championships. At the Grassroots Backyard Ultra, a silver-ticket event, he won the race in 35 yards (234.7km). He had punched his ticket to Edmunston.
“It was surreal to finally accomplish the goal I’ve been working towards and my body actually held out and my mind held out and all of a sudden I have an even bigger race to go to,” he says.
Schaffer and his wife fly out to New Brunswick on Thursday and have booked a return flight “for quite a few days after we assume the event will end,” which could be four or more days. Schaffer knows how far he’d like to make it, but he prefers to keep his goals close to his chest.
And as for his wife that started it all? She’s doing her first 50km race next year and Schaffer is keen to be as good a support crew to her as she’s been to him these past few years.
