iStockphoto / Oleksii Liskonih / sportpoint
Backyard Ultra marathon runner over the Australian and USA flags
The 2026 Big’s Backyard Ultra World Team Championship is set to take place this weekend, starting on October 17th. This year it is a Team World Championship, as the Backyard Ultra Marathon World Championships alternate each year from an individual event to a team event.
For the team event, each nation competes on their home soil. 74 teams. 74 nations. All of the world’s best backyard ultra runners. But reigning BPN Go One More and Last Soul Ultra backyard ultra winner Mark Dowdle is already putting other nations on blast for taking the easy way out before the event even begins by choosing a flat course instead of challenging themselves!
Backyard Ultra Marathon Specialist Mark Dowdle Puts Australia On Blast
For a backyard ultra marathon, the rules are straight forward: runners complete one 4.167-mile loop every hour until there is one person left standing. Every loop starts on the hour. If a runner is unable to complete their current loop within the hour they are DQ’d. If they are unable to start the next loop they are DQ’d.
Unlike a typical marathon or ultra marathon, there is no finish line. The race ends when there is one person left. The 2nd place finisher is awarded the ‘assist’ for pushing the winner the furthest.
As a team event, each country’s team has 15 runners and their team score is the cumulative amount of loops ran. So if one runner makes it 30 loops in 30 hours they are awarded 30 points toward their team score and the total is tallied up.
Because there 74 teams racing in 74 countries, it would be impossible to create identical racing conditions across the board. For Team USA, they will run on the original Big’s Backyard Ultra course. For Team USA, that means running a course with around 400-feet of total elevation gain/loss per 4.167-mile loop. Over the course of 24 hours / 24 loops, that is 9,600 feet of elevation gain.
Surely the other nations would want to push themselves hard like Team USA, right?!?!? Wrong.
Mark Dowdle, Phil Gore, Harvey Lewis, And Tribalism
Backyard Ultra formats have exploded in popularity in recent years but they have been around for quite some time. Big’s Backyard Ultra was first ran in 2011 when the legendary founder Gary ‘Lazarus Lake’ Cantrell of Barkley Marathons fame put it together.
Over the years there have been some incredible feats in Backyard Ultras. Australia’s Phil Gore holds the official record for the most loops ran at 119 which put him just shy of 500 miles (495.87 miles).
At the 2023 Big’s Backyard Ultra World Championship, Harvey Lewis set the American record with 108 yards ran for a total of 450 miles. He is on Team USA this year alongside Mark Dowdle by the way, and Harvey is a vegan for anyone that thinks that being an elite athlete isn’t possible with a plant-based diet.
Mark Dowdle was recently on Cam Hanes‘ Keep Hammering Collective podcast. It is a fantastic listen (video above), all 2 hours and 10 minutes of it. I listened during a long run last weekend and at one point Mark Dowdle discusses how all the Australian ultra running fans are constantly ‘Phil Gore this, and Phil Gore that’ and how from his perspective, what he sees is people tend to glom onto the athletes who are at the top of their game when they discover the sport.
Mark has never ran side-by-side against Phil Gore, and he won’t in the 2026 Big’s Backyard Ultra Team World Championship either because Team Australia will be running in their home country, on a course this is EXTREMELY EASY in comparison to the course set up by Lazarus Lake. Dowdle called this out on Instagram this week, pointing out how the Australians are taking the easy way out by opting to run on a flat course. Check it out:
Mark Dowdle is spitting facts here. The Australian team’s course is flat. Team USA will run just shy of 2 miles of elevation every 24-hours. That is a LOT of climbing. These races go on for days! Say they run 100 loops at 400-feet elevation gain, that is 40,000 feet of elevation gain per runner. Mt. Everest is 29,031.7 feet above sea level but the elevation gain from Base Camp to Summit is just 11,450 feet. So basically, Mark Dowdle and Harvey Lewis could be each climbing Mt. Everest nearly 4x if they push themselves to the limits.
Surely the Australian backyard ultra running community would listen to facts and not throw a hissy fit, right?!?!? Wrong.
Mark Dowdle hopped back on Instagram to address all of the whining from Australians. Funnily, the top comment reads “A weird obsession with Phil Gore” is like an American saying a weird obsession with Tom Brady.” These jabronis just compared Phil Gore to Tom Brady! Absolute clown behavior.
At the end of the day, this is why the races get ran. Mark can keep talking all day but he backs up everything he says with results. Phil Gore is the man to beat. Everyone within the sport knows this.
But the Australian team has chosen the easy way out by opting to run on a flat course instead of putting up a fair fight against Team USA. Will there be an asterisk if Australia somehow wins? Which they won’t. But will there be an asterisk? Doubtful. Even still, the runners will forever know they took the easier route against their competition.