The Race With No Finish Line
Only one winner. Everyone else is a ‘Did Not Finish’
That’s the brutal truth of Big’s Backyard Ultra — 4.1667 miles (6.7KM) every hour, on the hour, until there’s no one left. If you complete a full day, you’ve successfully run 100 miles.
Then you do it again. And again. Each lap is called a “yard.” Run too slow and you have no time for recovery. Run too fast and you burn out. 60 minutes: long enough to suggest stopping, not long enough to ever truly rest. All you can do is think about the next yard.
Most don’t fail on the course, seventy-five percent of people who quit do so at basecamp, not mid-race. The hardest part, says the mythical owner Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell, is “between the chair and the starting corral.”
The duration of the backyard ultra is decided by the participants alone. Only the winner records a time. And only if they manage to complete one more lap than the others. The runner-up is faux-lovingly described as the assist. Everyone else is registered as a DNF.
Just a few weeks ago Australian Phil Gore won the event, clocking in 475 (760KM) miles after almost five days of nonstop running. His wife’s reaction to the win? “Oh, you stink.”
It’d be weird if he didn’t.
Hard History
The race, first ran in 2011, has grown into a global phenomenon, with events now in 85 countries. It’s clear high performers the world over are craving difficulty, something that cuts through the digital sludge of convenience. It’s proof, alongside other fitness events of a similar ilk, that there’s an innate human ache for friction.
“Any advice?” a runner asked. “Go home.”
Big’s Backyard Ultra was dreamed up by Lazarus, a man who’s dedicated his life to transforming suffering into meaning. Known as the pioneer of the infamous Barkley Marathons, the dystopic Tennessee race where runners have sixty hours to complete five loops through outrageous terrain, using only a compass for directions. Participants have to write an essay to be considered and must retrieve a series of pages from books matching their bib number through woods, hills and all types of weather conditions, to finish.
Since starting in 1986, over 1000 people have attempted it and only 20 have ever finished it.
“You can’t accomplish anything without the possibility of failure,” Laz says. He means it. He designed the Barkley to be unfair because “life isn’t fair.” Determined to challenge the best around to reveal their true potential, these races set the bar as high as it can go.
“Most people think fair is what’s best for them. If you don’t fail, how will you know how far you can go?” - Laz
The Backyard, the Barkley, Triathlons, Iron Mans, Marathons, Hyrox… they all remind us that struggle is a feature, not a flaw, of being alive.
Modern Mentality
They speak to the blossoming global fitness culture that’s captured so many of us in different guises, as event organisers seek to dream up creative, wild and ambitious challenges to attract performance seekers from around the globe.
Just taking Hyrox as an example: 7,400 took part in 2021-2022. In 2025 that number was 97,000.
There’s beauty in the brutality. Confronting the deepest darkest parts of ourselves that want to quit. It’s the Geminian push and pull between who we are and who we tell ourselves we can be. The stage that begs us to practise, repeat and perform.
Unpicking the psychology underneath is interesting. Does it reflect a desire for stoicism: the ability to control our internal response to external events?
There’s also an element of modern goal culture. We’re all looking for things that draw us towards better versions of ourselves. An event in the calendar turns our wants into needs. Fitness events are flags in the ground of the future that remind us of our capacity.
One of the greatest ultrarunners of all time, Courtney Dauwalter, only managed one loop of the Barkley, but insisted the event wasn’t there to torture people.
“He makes these crazy-hard events,” she said, “because he thinks we all have more than we think is possible.”
Us too. That’s what we made ZAAG for.
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