As I wrote about yesterday, the international championships are going for the Backyard Ultra – a race that has laps (or yards) of 4.167 miles that must be completed every hour. At the top of every hour, any runner that is unable to go back out is listed as DNF – Did Not Finish. This race goes on until there is only one runner left. And that has not happened yet.
The Backyard Ultra Still Going On
There are 8 runners that have completed 96 laps/yards which equals to 400 miles in 96 hours. While that is incredible enough, they are all still going! The world record is 103 laps so that is definitely in reach, especially when you see the information on the live tracking page here.
The eight runners still going and their actual race times (that is the time that they are actually running) are listed here:
- Phil Gore – 73 hours, 32 minutes, 28 seconds
- Bartosz Fudali – 74 hours, 18 minutes, 50 seconds
- Terumichi Morishita – 77 hours, 10 minutes, 56 seconds
- Merijin Geerts – 79 hours, 38 minutes, 55 seconds
- Ihor Verys – 81 hours, 23 minutes, 20 seconds
- Harvey Lewis – 83 hours, 36 minutes, 11 seconds
- Jon Noll – 85 hours, 05 minutes, 01 seconds
- Frank Gielen – 85 hours, 32 minutes, 09 seconds
Now, to make it even easier to get a grasp on – the fastest runner right now, Phil Gore, is competing laps in an average time of 45 minutes and 58 seconds per lap (4.167 miles). But, his last lap, lap 96, he ran that in 45 minutes, 18 seconds – which means his last lap (400 miles) was even faster than his average!
This also means his average running pace is just over 11 minutes per mile – for 4 days straight without taking longer than a 15 minute break.
Check out American Harvey Lewis sprinting out on the start of the next lap after 400 miles! Wow!
400 miles passed, and Harvey Lewis has done it again: sprinted out like it’s a 50-yard sprint. All 8 start a new day and transition back to trail. “This is the test,” said Laz after they left out. “The first trail loop.” They started running SATURDAY. BIG’S #backyardultra pic.twitter.com/ljdNQdK3wz
— UltraRunning Magazine (@UltraRunningMag) October 25, 2023
And they are still out there! It reminds me of the line from the movie, Iron Will, about dog sled racers covering 500 miles.
