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The Backyard Ultra Marathon World Championships just wrapped up in the wee hours of Thursday morning. 39-year-old Australian runner Phil Gore made history by running 475 miles!
For those unfamiliar with the Backyard Ultra Marathon format, it is pretty straight-forward. The course is a loop. Each runner has to run that loop once an hour. The lap (or ‘Yards’ as they’re called here) is 4.167 miles long, or 6.706 kilometers, and once the runner completes the lap they can relax until the next hour starts.
This continues until everyone either taps out or doesn’t complete the laps in the specified period of time and get DQ’d. So unlike traditional marathons or ultra marathons, there is no specified distance here. The winner is the last person standing.
Phil Gore Wins Backyard Ultra Marathon World Championship After Setting Dead Cow Gully World Record
Right now, ultra runner Phil Gore is 1 of 1. Back in June, the Perth native set a record at the Dead Cow Gully ultra in Australia after running 495.87 miles in 5 days… He was less than five miles shy of running 500 miles!
For that race, the previous record was 117 laps but Phil Gore completed 119 to set a new record.
Flash forward a few months and Phil Gore has just won the Backyard Ultra World Championship which was held in Tennessee after running 475 miles (114 ‘Yards’ or laps).
Phil Gore finished his final 4.167 mile loop in 37 minutes and 3 seconds. He was still breaking 10 minute miles after having already run 470+ miles and sleeping for maybe 5 minutes an hour.
If you skip ahead to the 7 hour, 26 minute, and 41-second mark in this video you can see him crossing the finish line. I was GLUED to this live stream over the past few days:
2025 Backyard Ultra Results
Phil Gore won it all and of course he did. After his showing at the Dead Cow Gully ultra it was his race to lose.
Belgian runner Ivo Steyaert finished in second at 113 laps and 470.83 miles ran. He was followed by two Americans, Harvey Lewis and Jon Noll who each completed 462.50 miles ran on the course.
And the top female runner at this year’s Backyard Ultra World Championship was British runner Sarah Perry of Cockermouth, England. She ran 95 loops for a total of 395.89 miles. That, my friends, was a new backyard ultra world record for female runners.
Sarah, a teacher, would say after the race that a back injury is what eventually led to her tapping out. But she finished 10th overall and set a new women’s world record which is beyond incredible.
Ultra marathons are truly one of the most exhausting mental and physical challenges one could ever attempt. There’s no finish line. You are racing against the clock, against your fellow competitors, and your body’s rapid deterioration.
To see where Backyard Ultra Marathons rank on our list of the ‘13 Longest And Most Grueling Ultramarathons On The Planet‘ you can follow that link.
If you are the type to get emotional about incredible physical achievements, hearing Phil Gore talk about getting into running and and how led to him eventually winning the Backyard World Championship is incredible stuff:
Congratulations to Phil, Sarah, and every competitor at the 2025 Backyard Ultra World Championships this year.