He had to run nearly four days for it, but it was rewarded with a big victory, because Belgian’s Merijn Geerts set a new word record on the Backyard Ultra. He was not the only one to break the previous record, because Ireland’s Keith Russel did so too. While Geerts managed to run 90 laps of 6.706 km (a total of 603.5 km), Russel ran 89 laps, which comes down to a total of 596.7 km.
The record was previously held by America’s Harvey Louis, who ran 85 laps in Tennessee. The Backyard Ultra – an idea of Lazarus Lake, the man behind the famous Barkley Marathons – is a “last man standing” event, where athletes try to run as many laps as possible. The challenge started on Saturday morning. Every hour, a start signal announced the start of the next lap. Athletes who weren’t back in time for that next lap, were out of the race.
In the women’s race, it was Belgium’s Fanny Jean who won the event. She ran a total of 44 laps, equaling 295 km.
