A backyard ultra is a last-person-standing race: every competitor starts a 4.167-mile loop, called a yard, at the top of each hour and must finish it inside that hour to stay in, until one runner completes a yard nobody else completes. This is an official affiliate race organised independently by Ken Krogsrud of Bad Luck Run Club rather than by the championship organisation.
It runs 23 to 24 October 2026 at Beals Point in the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, Granite Bay, California, on a 4.16-mile trail loop with about 320 feet of gain per lap. The full Last Person Standing starts at 5:00 p.m. on the Friday; a Mini Last Person Standing, capped at 12 hours and 50 miles, starts at 7:00 a.m. on the Saturday. Note the official affiliate list carries a stale November date for this race — 23 to 24 October is the registrar’s date.
Entry for the full race was $190 and is now $220 after 31 August; the Mini was $130 and is now $150. Registration is open through UltraSignup and closes on 22 October. No field cap, age minimum, crew or pacer policy is published, though the format’s global rules apply.
A backyard ultra is a last-person-standing race in which every competitor starts a loop — a yard — at the top of each hour and must complete it inside that hour to stay in the race. The official rules fix the yard at 4 miles 880 feet, or 4.167 miles, so 24 yards equals exactly 100 miles. All remaining runners must be inside a starting corral at the bell, with warnings at three, two and one minute; there are no late starts, no personal aid during a yard, and no leaving the course mid-yard except for restroom breaks. There is no fixed finish. The race ends when one runner completes a yard that nobody else completes, and that runner is the only official finisher — every other entrant, including the runner who lasted second longest, is recorded as a DNF, and if nobody completes an extra yard alone there is no winner at all. The format was created by Gary ‘Lazarus Lake’ Cantrell, co-founder of the Barkley Marathons, who has run the original race on his own land at Bell Buckle, Tennessee since 2011. Races elsewhere become official affiliate, or satellite, backyard ultras by applying to the organisation and running the standard yard distance, corral and hourly-bell rules; affiliation places a race on the official list and plugs it into the qualifying ladder that feeds the championship. Each affiliate race is organised independently by its own local race director, who sets the entry fee, handles registration and runs the event. Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra at Bell Buckle sits at the top of that ladder and alternates by year between an individual World Championship and a World Team Championship, in which each nation fields a team and every yard completed by a team member scores a point for that country.
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