00:01Well, it's hard to tell, but it's also hard to believe that the runners here today have
00:06been circling the grassy course behind me for nearly 82 hours.
00:12The Australian's men's squad have soared above the remaining nine rival nations at this year's
00:18Backyard Ultra World Team Championship, and they've maintained that lead position since
00:24yesterday morning.
00:25Now, the Australian team have completed a consecutive 1,058 laps since 11pm Saturday.
00:35Issue is, Australia has only two out of 15 team members left, whereas the US, which is
00:4230 yards behind Australia, has nine runners.
00:46So it makes our lead position quite delicate.
00:49Now, it is a deceptively simple test, this event of mental and physical grit.
00:55As each athlete must complete 6.7km on the hour, every hour, until one runner is left.
01:04And they squeeze food and minutes of sleep into that remaining time to be back at the start
01:10line behind me by the top of the hour.
01:12Now, it hasn't all been smooth sailing for the Australian team.
01:16I'm joined by race director Red Barnett.
01:20Red, the Australian team went from 11 team members to two last night.
01:25What happened?
01:26It was a little bit of carnage.
01:29It happens at this pointy end of the event.
01:32There's been a mixture of, you know, fatigue, not getting nutrition right, body ailments that
01:40are going on.
01:41So unfortunately, yeah, we kind of just had one after the other after the other and left
01:45with two now.
01:46And it's the third full day now.
01:49Just how long do you reckon our two remaining runners could keep going for?
01:53So, you know, if all goes well, these guys are hoping to get into the 100 hours, which
01:58that is Thursday morning.
02:00You know, there's the possibility of that, but it is drastically harder when there's
02:04only two left.
02:05They really need to work together to get that.
02:08And obviously, you know, having a lot of people around to support and cheer them on, even
02:12through the nights, it's all that really helps.
02:14But it's going to be a lot of a bit of a mental test for these guys.
02:17Thank you, guys.
