Paradise runner pushes boundaries to capture ultra marathon

By Mark Squibb

Nearly 200 runners from across the province – and some from even further – pushed themselves to the limit over the May 22 – 24 weekend at the Paradise Backyard Ultra (PBU).

Beginning Friday afternoon, runners completed a 6.7 kilometre loop around Octagon Pond every hour on the hour in an intense ‘last man standing’ competition that ran until 5 a.m. Sunday morning when Ryan Quinlan, 39, of Paradise was named the winner after completing 41 laps, equating to a staggering 275 kilometres, while enduring rain, wind, and cold.

“You go through sleep deprivation, you’re up for two days, you’re putting your body through something that it’s never gone through before,” said Quinlan.  “The amount of support I got from my family and friends was unbelievable.”

Quinlan has run each PBU since the inaugural event in 2024. That year, he completed 18 loops. Last year, he ran 25.

Heading into this year’s event, Quinlan said he didn’t have a particular goal in mind, only that he wanted to do better than last year.

“If I got to 26 hours, maybe I would have got to the next milestone, which would have been 30 hours, which would have got me over 200 kilometres,” said Quinlan. “After that I was just trying to hit small milestones. I had A, B, and C goals.”

Quinlan maintained an average pace of about 52:29 a loop, focusing more on endurance than speed so as not to exhaust himself. He had a lap-by-lap plan for how to spend the minutes between laps.

“You would either focus on rest, nutrition, or gear change,” said Quinlan. “I had my wife, my friends, my brother to help me out. They were my crewmates, so when I would get in, they were assisting me with those things. I would tell them, ‘I need a can of soda,’ or ‘I need some rice pudding,’ and ‘Can you have that ready for me, I’m going to lie down for five minutes, can you wake me up before the two-minute buzzer?’”

Funny enough, Quinlan lives about three kilometres from the start line, and the course took him in a homeward direction.

“The thought of continuing on to my house and just not finishing the race did cross my mind,” said Quinlan. “That was a frequent thought I had.”

Of the nearly 200 runners, only four reached the 30-loop milestone –Quinlan, Ryne King, Chris Nash, and Ian Royle.

Royle, of St. John’s, finished 31 laps, while Nash, of Mount Pearl, made it to 33.

King and Quinlan ran seven laps together before King, of St. John’s, finished at 40 laps (268 kilometres,) leaving just Quinlan to make a final lap and claim the title.

Quinlan said his previous experience running the PBU gave him a leg up over the competition in the final stretch.

“In my mind Ian was the front runner, but when he dropped out, then it was down to Chris Nash, Ryne King, and myself,” said Quinlan. “And those guys had never run the event. I think having experience in this event is crucial, just knowing how your body is going to feel after running for 24 hours, and the emotions that you’re going to go through, and having that experience really played to my advantage.”

He credits King with keeping him going during the final loops.

“You need an assist,” said Quinlan. “You need to have that person who was going to push me to 41, which was Ryne King. And I’m so happy that he showed up because my number would have been much lower if he wasn’t there.”

Quinlan played sports in his youth, but had little experience with long distance running. In 2015, while living in Goose Bay, he registered for the Trapline half marathon.

“I considered myself very fit, but there were people much older than me passing me gracefully,” said Quinlan. “And I thought, ‘How is this possible?’ I’m a young, fit dude, and these guys are just cruising by me. And that planted the seed.”

He credits the first PBU with kicking his running career into full gear.

“I think it’s the concept that really captured it for me,” said Quinlan. “If you’re here to ask me, ‘Hey, do you want to go run a 100-kilometre race, I would say, ‘No, that’s ridiculous…’ but the question becomes, how many (6.7 kilometre loops) can you do before you have to stop. And that’s where it becomes very interesting. I like that mental aspect of it. Because it becomes a puzzle. But I think everybody has their endpoint, and in order to find it you have to take yourself there. And for me, having good preparation, having good family support, having a good crew, and having proper training, I wanted to see how far I could go with it. If it was one loop, so be it. If it was a lot of loops, perfect, at least I found my endpoint and I did something that was hard, and pushes me, and gives me some purpose.”

As the winner of this year’s event, Quinlan will have the opportunity to represent the province as a member of Team Canada at the Big Backyard Ultra World Championships in British Columbia in October.

Along with bragging rites and a spot on the Team Canada roster, Quinlan received $2,000 worth of prizes, including a silver Canadian dollar from East Coast Coins, Auctions, and Collectibles and ice cream cones for life from Eva’s Chimneys food truck.

When The Shoreline reached him on the Monday afternoon following the race, he had sufficiently recovered with plenty of bed rest and a giant stack of French toast.