BACKYARD ULTRA NZ

Photos: Find your Feet Films, Shaun Collins, Photos4Sale

A Backyard Ultra is a type of ultramarathon where participants run laps of a set course of 6.706 metres (4.167 miles) and they must finish each loop in less than an hour. The race restarts each hour with all those that finished the previous lap on time.  The race is over when only one runner remains to complete a lap. This runner is marked as the winner and only finisher, with all other runners receiving a DNF (Did Not Finish). The strange distance is because the distance for 24 laps is equal to 100 miles.

This awesome film from Find Your Feet Films gives a great narration of what the backyard ultra format is all about, while following the 2023 Riverhead ReLaps Backyard Ultra. Who better to narrate such a film than, Backyard Ultra Founder, Lazarus Lake, who attended the event. Laz shares his thoughts on what it takes to compete and succeed in the Backyard.

 

Follow our NZ Backyard Ultra Facebook Page to remain up to date on all the news – facebook.com/NZBackyardUltra

 

Official Backyard Ultras of New Zealand

There are currently 14 official Backyard Ultras in NZ

The affiliated NZ Backyard Ultra events which follow all the Backyard Ultra rules and count towards Backyard Ultra New Zealand records and qualification for Team or Individual World Champs are:

 

Current New Zealand Records

Mens

  • NZ Venue record – Sam Harvey with 73 loops at the World Backyard Ultra Team Champs on 20 October 2024

  • NZ Worldwide Backyard Record – Sam Harvey with 101 loops at the Aussie Masters Backyard Ultra at Dead Cow Gully in Australia on 21 June 2023.

Womens

  • NZ Venue record – Julia Chamberlain with 51 loops at the World Backyard Ultra Team Champs on 20 October 2024

  • NZ Worldwide Record – Julia Chamberlain with 51 loops at the World Backyard Ultra Team Champs on 20 October 2024

 

 

International Backyard Competition

The International Backyard Ultra website is [here]

Internationally the record is 110 loops (737km) set jointly by Merijn Geerts, Ivo Steyaert and Frank Gielen from Belgium at the World Backyard Ultra Team Champs October 2024

Backyard Ultra World Team Championships

There are currently 4 NZ Backyard ultras that are official silver ticket events (MASH2026, Pigs2026, ReLaps2026, and Krayzies2026).  Silver ticket event winners automatically get selected in the NZ World Team Backyard Champs which are held every second year (the next one is on October 2026). The rest of the 15 person team is made up from the at-large list which is the highest number of loops run in any official backyard ultra between August 16, 2024 and ends August 15, 2026.

You can see the top 15 people that would make the NZ team for 2026 here backyardultra.com/world-team-championship-2026 by filtering for the country NZ.  This is kept up to date based on results from each qualifying backyard ultra.

The current 15 person team looks like this (As at Jan 2025):

Backyard Ultra World Individual Championships

The World Individual Backyard Champs is held in Tennessee (USA) every second year (next in 2025) and this is made up of the winner of each of the nations in the World Team Backyard Champs. In addition to those champions, the remaining spots are selected from the At-Large list… the top performances of the previous 2 year qualifying period (August 16, 2023 to August 15, 2025).

 

Results from the 2024 World Team Backyard Champs

New Zealand team placed 6th out of 63 countries

Results from the 2022 World Team Backyard Champs

New Zealand team placed 11th out of 37 countries

Results from the 2020 World Team Backyard Champs

New Zealand team placed 16th out of 21 countries

NZ BACKYARD ULTRA RESULTS DATA

Below are the results from all of the official NZ Backyard Ultra events.   You can search for yours or someone elses results using the search function or you can sort a particular event by clicking on the column header.

To select a particular event use the filter and select the event and select “is not empty” to get all results from that event.

Updated 20 February 2025 post the Pigs Backyard Ultra

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