A backyard ultra is a looped run in which participants must run a new lap on the hour, every hour, until they cannot run any further.
The world records in a backyard ultra push the extreme limits of human endurance.
WHAT IS THE MEN’S BACKYARD ULTRA WORLD RECORD?
The men’s backyard ultra world record is 119 laps set by Australia’s Phil Gore at the Dead Cow Gully event in Queensland, Australia on 26 June 2025. New Zealand’s Sam Harvey had the assist.
119 laps is 495.87 miles / 798 km.
WHAT IS THE WOMEN’S BACKYARD ULTRA WORLD RECORD?
The women’s backyard ultra world record is 87 laps set by Megan Eckert at the Backyard Ultra World Team Championship in Tennessee on 19 October 2024. She finished with the assist in the run.
87 laps is 362.5 miles / 583 km.
WHAT IS A BACKYARD ULTRA?
A Backyard Ultra is a looped endurance run. Participants must complete a 4.167 mile (6.7km) lap on the hour, every hour, until they fail to complete a lap within the hour, or decide they can no longer continue.
There is no finish line and it’s a last person standing event with only one winner. Technically the winner is the only ‘finisher’ and all other runners are labelled as a DNF. The second-placed runner gets the ‘assist’ in helping the only finisher.
Each lap, or ‘yard’, begins exactly on the hour. If a runner takes 50 minutes to complete a yard then they have 10 minutes to recover, rest and refuel before beginning the next one.
CAN YOU RUN 100 MILES IN A BACKYARD ULTRA?
If you complete 24 laps then you will have covered a total distance of 100 miles.
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Image by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
