The concept of Big Dog’s Ultra is very simple: walk a round of 6.706 kilometers every hour until only one participant remains. The faster you cross the line, the longer you can rest for the next round.
The Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra World Championships are held every year in Tennessee, but the corona virus has now stopped that. The concept was quickly transformed into a World Championship with national teams of 15 runners and 21 nationalities each.
And that turned out to be the Belgians. After no less than 69 hours and 462 kilometers, 2 Belgians remained: Karel Sabbe and Merijn Geerts. They had just broken the world record (68 laps) and saw the last 2 Americans give up.
The world title for Team Belgium was in, the individual title was still up for grabs. In the end, Geerts only gave up after 75 hours and 500 kilometers. After 3 days and 3 hours, dentist Karel Sabbe crowned himself world champion at domain De Hoge Rielen.
Sabbe completed each round in about 46 minutes, so he could sleep or rest for another 10 minutes and eat for 4 minutes.
For Sabbe it was certainly not his baptism of fire. He is the world record holder on the Pacific Crest Trail, a 4,300 kilometer route from Mexico to Canada. And he also ran the fastest time on the Appalachian Trail in the US, breaking the record by 4 days.
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