Sydney's Backyard Ultra started yesterday at 8am at St Ives Showground.
Runners must complete a 6.7km loop once every hour. Fast runners can rest until the start of the next hour, slower runners have less time to rest.
Runners who are unable to complete the loop within the hour are disqualified and must drop out.
It started with over 600 runners and at the time of writing, 58 runners are still in the running, completing their 30th lap (for 200km distance).
I completed 100km (15 loops) last year but went as a spectator today.
Well worth checking out if you are nearby.
Event is expected to continue until Tuesday or Wednesday.
Posted by bay30three
7 Comments
Sydney has now truly become a global running city now, with a World Marathon Major event, UTMB World Series Major trail running event nearby (Blue Mountains), the world’s largest fun run (City2Surf), and now the world’s largest backyard ultra event. Go us!
these people are nuts, to be able to stay awake for days on end basically running nonstop, puts the rest of us to shame
Wait excuse me, are people going to be running for over 24 hours?!?
I went and stayed a few hours last year on day 2. Amazing acts of endurance. Well worth a visit.
I was even hooked on the live leaderboard seeing these guys come in at 3am etc.
Although it’s an easy pace… to see someone come in at 54 mins and know they’ve only got 6 minutes to recover, gruelling stuff. Credit to everyone taking part, especially the families and support staff.
Edit: 55 participants are still in it
[https://180cadence.au/pages/sydneys-backyard-ultra-april-2026-results](https://180cadence.au/pages/sydneys-backyard-ultra-april-2026-results)
It’s insane what the human body is capable of. I want to do this when I get some more miles under my belt as a runner. Best I could do at the moment is probably 2 hours haha
Live stream link: https://www.youtube.com/live/89-_f6o2vHw?si=PTeEFWKQcTocO424
This sounds like such a cool idea. I’d be stoked just to finish one lap though.
Bunch of psychos running those races