October 18, 2025  ·  Bell Buckle, TN

Big's Backyard
Ultra 2025

4.167-mile loop  ·  Trail by day, road by night  ·  Start: 7 am

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Winner
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Winning loops
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Winning distance
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Runners

Big's Backyard Ultra 2025 results, also known as Big Dog's Backyard Ultra, held October 18 at Lazarus Lake's farm in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. One of the most prestigious backyard ultras in the world and the de facto world championship of the last-one-standing format. Seventy-two invited runners completed a 4.167-mile loop every hour, trail during daylight and road at night, until only one remained. Phil Gore won the 2025 world championship with 114 loops and over 475 miles across nearly five days. Below are the full results, lap splits for every starter, and a breakdown of where the field came apart.

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Lap-by-Lap Pace
Finish time per loop · top 2 shown by default · click a name to toggle
DNFs by Loop
Number of runners who completed their final loop at each point in the race

Only four runners gone in the first 24 hours

Ron Wireman was the first to stop. He ran six loops and finished at one in the afternoon on Saturday. Then nobody else stopped for ten hours.

Brian Pasmor stopped after 16 loops. Łukasz Wróbel after 17. Thorleifur Thorleifsson after 20. That was the whole of the first day.

So 68 of the 72 starters ran 24 loops. That is 100 miles, and a full day of running. Sam Harvey stopped there. The other 67 went back out at seven on Sunday morning.

Fifty-two of them got to 48 loops, which is 200 miles. Twenty-seven got to 72 loops, which is 300 miles. Nine were still going at 96 loops, or 400 miles. Eight of those reached 100 loops.

The middle of this field would win most races

Half the runners here did 63 loops or more, which is about 260 miles. At Big's, that is a normal result.

Now compare it.

The middle runner at Last Soul Ultra 2026 did 16 loops. At Legends 2025 it was also 16. Anyone can enter those two races. In both of them the middle runner got about 15 percent of the way to the winner. At Big's the middle runner got 55 percent of the way to Phil Gore.

The night barely mattered here

Most backyard races empty out in the dark. Big's did something different.

Thirty-seven runners stopped at night. Thirty-four stopped in daylight. The race had 54 hours of dark and 60 hours of light, so those two numbers are close to even.

Look at the open races next to that. At Last Soul, runners dropped out 1.6 times faster in the dark than in the day. At Legends it was 2.5 times faster. At Big's it was only 1.2 times faster. This field kept going at night almost as well as it ran in the afternoon.

Keep in mind the course at Big's changes at night, from trail to road.

The worst hour of the whole race came at one in the morning on Monday. Four runners stopped there, after 42 loops.

Four men were still in at loop 111

Four men ran 111 loops. That is 462.5 miles each. Getting four runners that deep into a race is rare.

Harvey Lewis and Jon Noll both stopped there. That left Phil Gore and Ivo Steyaert. The two of them ran loops 112 and 113 together. Steyaert stopped after 113. Gore went out for 114 on his own and won.

Gore banked more than twice the rest

In a backyard ultra you get one hour for each loop. Run it fast and the time you have left over is your rest. Run it slow and you get almost none.

Gore ran his loops in 46:42 on average. Steyaert ran his in 53:52. That is about seven minutes a loop, and over five days it added up. Gore got 25 hours and 17 minutes of rest. Steyaert got 11 hours and 32 minutes.

The slow loops show it best. Gore ran five loops slower than 55 minutes. Steyaert ran 57 of them.

Gore's fastest loop of the whole race was 35:13. He ran it on loop 96, at six in the morning on Wednesday, on his fourth day of running. His last loop was 37:03.

Those 114 loops made Gore the 2025 world champion. His world record is 119 loops, which he set five months earlier at Dead Cow Gully in Australia.

Behind the leaders

Sarah Perry ran 95 loops, or 396 miles. She finished tenth overall and beat every other woman in the race. It was a world record for a woman. Megan Eckert was next with 92 loops.

Sam Harvey once ran 118 loops next to Gore at Dead Cow Gully. Here he stopped at 24.

Łukasz Wróbel won Legends Backyard Ultra 2025 with 116 loops. Here he stopped at 17.

Final Standings
All 72 starters · loops, distance and time on course
Pl. Runner Loops Distance Total time
1 Phil Gore 114 475.0 mi 88:43:00
2 Ivo Steyaert 113 470.9 mi 101:27:41
3 Harvey Lewis 111 462.5 mi 98:17:53
4 Jon Noll 111 462.5 mi 100:27:46
5 Kazuhiro Kawahata 106 441.7 mi 90:29:38
6 Nicolas Cointepas 105 437.5 mi 79:58:23
7 Oriol Antolí Sarrau 103 429.2 mi 87:37:16
8 Hendrik Boury 100 416.7 mi 88:54:27
9 Brecht Vandamme 98 408.4 mi 86:54:08
10 Sarah Perry 95 395.9 mi 81:06:22
11 Dan Camac 93 387.5 mi 78:07:10
12 Megan Eckert 92 383.4 mi 80:52:43
13 Merijn Geerts 88 366.7 mi 74:36:04
14 Rodolfo Ramírez 88 366.7 mi 79:36:40
15 Niklas Yjord 87 362.5 mi 73:58:55
16 Niklas Sjoblom 86 358.4 mi 71:38:46
17 Greg Fall 80 333.4 mi 68:38:32
18 Patrik Hrotek 80 333.4 mi 64:18:58
19 Ryan Crawford 77 320.9 mi 63:09:17
20 Matthias Pelgrims 77 320.9 mi 68:50:32

Timing and results for Big's Backyard Ultra 2025 by MCM Timing and Results LLC, published through raceresult.com.