August 14–18, 2026  ·  Fürstenau, Germany

Last Soul
Ultra 2026

6.7 km loop  ·  Last one standing wins  ·  Start: 2 pm

—
Winner
—
Winning loops
—
Winning distance
—
Runners

Last Soul Ultra 2026 results: the backyard ultra marathon ran from August 14 to August 18 in the forest at Fürstenau, Germany. One hundred and sixty participants set off at 2 pm on the Friday, and every hour on the hour they went round again on a 6.7 km loop. Four days later Mark Dowdle was the only one left. The Last Soul Ultra 2026 winner covered 94 loops and 629.8 km. Ayyoub "Ello" El Osrouti was the assist. Below are the full standings for all 160 participants, race stats, lap-by-lap pace for every runner who started, and a breakdown of where the field came apart, loop 87 included.

Loading race data…
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

The first night took 56 runners

One hundred and sixty runners started at 2 pm on the Friday. Sixteen were gone before 9 pm, in daylight. The first night ran from 9 pm to 5 am and it took 56 more. Ten more stopped at 6 am as it got light. That left 78 runners after 16 loops.

The biggest drop came at 5 am. Eighteen runners finished loop 15 and did not start loop 16. In those two hours the field fell from 106 runners to 78.

The middle of the race thinned out more slowly. Fifty-seven runners completed 24 loops or more. Thirteen completed 48 or more. Three completed more than 72.

Eighty-two runners stopped at 16 loops or fewer, which is 107 km. The other 78 went further. Twenty-four of them ran a loop that started on the Sunday.

Two men and thirteen hours

Norman Mascher-Aspensjö held third place deep into Monday and stopped after 80 loops at ten in the evening. That left Dowdle and El Osrouti alone on the loop, and they stayed that way through the whole of Monday night and on into Tuesday morning, thirteen hours of two men circling a forest with nobody else on the course.

The numbers say El Osrouti was the faster runner for the entire race. He averaged 48:29 a loop against Dowdle's 51:42, and by getting round quicker he banked 4 hours 51 minutes more rest than Dowdle over the four days.

Loop 87

It was four o'clock on Tuesday morning. The fourth night.

Mark had finished loop 86 with 2 minutes 40 seconds left on the clock, his second slowest of the race. When the bell for loop 87 rang, Ello took off fast. Mark followed him, tracking right behind him with his headlamp off.

Mark has described what he read in the fast start: "I saw him sprint out of the gate sort of trying to show me how strong he was, and I said, I'm right here with you."

A few kilometres in, Ello stopped. Mark stopped too.

"I said something like, what the hell is wrong with you," Ello said in a post-race interview. "And he looked at me and said nothing."

They ran half of the loop in about 15 minutes. Then Ello lay down on the ground. Mark was still in his tracks. Ello waited for him to go on ahead.

Mark went on and finished the loop in 38:15—his fastest lap of the race by more than five minutes.

Alone at last, Ello got up and completed lap 87 in 42:14, the fastest loop of his own race. He ran six more and DNF'd at 93.

Familiar name at the front

Dowdle won BPN Go One More in April with 73 loops. He beat his own PB by 21 loops at the Last Soul Ultra just four months later.

Behind the leaders, Caroline Maria Bolte ran 52 loops. She finished ninth overall, the best of the 42 women in the field, and set a new female German record.

Hubert Karl, who is 68, ran 45, also setting a record in his age category for the most loops.

Harvey Lewis, twice a Badwater champion, stopped at 46.

Final Standings
All 160 starters · loops, distance and time on course
Pl. Runner Loops Distance Total time
1 Mark Dowdle 94 629.8 km 81:00:24
2 Ayyoub "Ello" El Osrouti 93 623.1 km 75:09:21
3 Norman Mascher-Aspensjö 80 536.0 km 63:11:44
4 Hendrik Boury 68 455.6 km 53:39:53
5 Martin Stiller 66 442.2 km 55:23:59
6 Norman Junker 56 375.2 km 42:10:19
7 Dennis Musche 54 361.8 km 45:29:26
8 Adrian Gröschner 53 355.1 km 42:20:18
9 Caroline Maria Bolte 52 348.4 km 41:07:43
10 Tom Kopke 50 335.0 km 41:07:19
11 Luis Vesely 49 328.3 km 41:42:37
12 Aaron Feeney 48 321.6 km 41:38:25
13 Livio Maskarin 48 321.6 km 42:02:19
14 Harvey Lewis 46 308.2 km 39:54:17
15 Philipp Rüger 45 301.5 km 35:20:29
16 Hubert Karl 45 301.5 km 41:01:16
17 David Luterbacher 44 294.8 km 37:26:43
18 Saimuson Manivannan 44 294.8 km 33:56:01
19 Jacob Hamburg 41 274.7 km 34:12:35
20 Sebastian Faltin 38 254.6 km 32:31:58

Timing and results for Last Soul Ultra 2026 by Sportservice Hamburg GmbH, published through raceresult.com.