August 14–18, 2026  ·  Fürstenau, Germany

Last Soul
Ultra 2026

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

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Winner
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Winning loops
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Winning distance
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Runners

Last Soul Ultra 2026 ran from August 14 to August 18 in the forest at Fürstenau, Germany. One hundred and sixty runners 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, having covered 94 loops and 629.8 km. Ayyoub "Ello" El Osrouti pushed him to 93 before an Achilles injury took the last hour away from him. Below are the lap splits for every runner who started, 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

The first night took half the race

One hundred and sixty runners started. Eighty-two of them were gone before Saturday lunchtime. The damage was concentrated in a few dark hours: eighteen runners finished loop 15 at four in the morning and did not go back out, and ten more stopped an hour later. By six on Saturday morning the field had fallen from 123 to 78.

The middle of the race thinned it further without ever being dramatic. Fifty-seven runners were still going after 24 loops. Thirteen made it past 48. Only three made it past 72. The median run was 16 loops, which is to say that half the field never saw a second sunrise.

Two men and thirteen hours

Norman Mascher-Aspensjö held third place deep into Monday and stopped after 80 loops at nine 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 17 hours 50 minutes of rest to Dowdle's 12 hours 59. He was quicker, he slept more, and he still lost. His Achilles had been going for days, and on loop 93 he came in at 54:58 with almost nothing left in the hour. He did not make the start of 94.

Dowdle's answer to being alone was strange and worth looking at on the pace chart. On loop 87, at four o'clock on Tuesday morning, on his fourth night without proper sleep, he ran 38:15. It was the fastest loop of his race by four and a half minutes, and he ran it roughly 85 loops after his legs had any business producing it. His slowest loop of the whole four days was 58:03, back on loop 15 on the first night, when everyone around him was quitting.

Familiar name at the front

Dowdle won BPN Go One More in April with 73 loops. Four months later he added 21 to that. Whatever he changed between the two, the pace chart is where you can see it: his loops sit in a tighter band for far longer, and he does not have the slow crumble in the 60s that usually decides these things.

Behind the leaders, Caroline Maria Bolte ran 52 loops and finished ninth overall, the best of the 42 women in the field. Hubert Karl, who is 68, ran 45. 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