Two Belgians run 124 hours to break the backyard ultra record, and the United States win the team title
Merijn Geerts and Ivo Steyaert stopped together after 831.5 km in Retie, so neither was declared the winner. The US team finished 51 yards clear of Australia, with Belgium third.
Belgium’s Merijn Geerts and Ivo Steyaert each completed 124 laps at the Backyard Ultra World Team Championship, five more than the previous record, before stopping together on the evening of 22 October. The team title went to the United States.
The pair ran in Retie, Belgium, where the race started at 14:00 local time on Saturday 17 October. Each lap of a backyard ultra is 4.167 miles (6.7 km) and must be started on the hour, so 124 laps means 516.7 miles (831.5 km) in 124 hours, a little over five days.
Because they finished lap 124 side by side and chose not to start lap 125, neither was declared the winner. Under backyard rules, the race ends only when the last runner completes a lap alone. Both were recorded as did not finish, Runners.nl reported.
A third record together
The previous best was 119 laps, set by Australia’s Phil Gore at the Dead Cow Gully Backyard Ultra in June 2025. Runners.nl reported that the new mark still needs official confirmation, which it described as likely to be a formality.
It is the third time Geerts and Steyaert have set the record together, according to iRunFar. They stopped together at 101 laps in 2022, and in 2024 they shared a 110-lap record with Frank Gielen.
Speaking to Sporza on 23 October, Steyaert said his feet were swollen, and that getting up and walking was hard. “Het is een aanslag op je lichaam, dat kan je niet ontkennen,” he said (“It is an assault on your body, you can’t deny that”). He said the biggest damage was the lack of sleep.
The team race
The World Team Championship is held every two years. Each nation runs its own race at home with a team of 15, all starting at the same moment (12:00 UTC), and the score is the total number of laps, or yards, completed by the whole team.
The United States won with 1,120 yards, according to the official Big’s Backyard Ultra site. Mark Dowdle was the last American running, finishing with 107 yards after Jon Noll stopped at 106. Australia were second on 1,069, with Dan Camac their last runner at 87 yards, and Belgium third on 1,058.
The official site lists Belgium’s 2024 total of 1,147 yards as the team record, which this year’s winners did not reach.
Japan were fourth with 1,038 yards, iRunFar reported, and Runners.nl listed Great Britain fifth with 939. Canada finished ninth on 830, a national best, Canadian Running reported.
Reports differ on the size of the field. iRunFar gave 67 nations and 990 runners. Canadian Running said teams from 73 countries took part.
Frank Gielen, Belgium’s third record-holder from 2024, put the country’s success down to its support crews as much as its runners. “Dit gaat bijna meer over management dan over het lopen zelf,” he was quoted as saying by Runners.nl (“This is almost more about management than about the running itself”).
