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Allison Mercer, our award-winning correspondent of the year, is back, and we brought some hot takes. We start with the Backyard Ultra team world championship. Can you call it a world championship when every country runs a different course, in different weather, and the rules change mid-race? And why is this format suddenly the most-watched thing in ultrarunning?

Then we get serious about the Moab 240 and race safety: what runners should be able to expect from race organizations, Allison’s own scary story from crewing, and why trail ultras could learn a lot from the Boston Marathon. After that, Allison turns the mic on me and my first flat 24-hour at Fat Ox.

We also launch the official Rajpaul Pannu fan club and make our Javelina Jundred golden ticket picks.

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At the time we recorded this, Belgian runners Ivo Steyaert and Merijn Geerts had been running for 123 hours—five days and three hours—and had each covered about 512 miles. They’d just broken the previous backyard ultra world record, and Belgium was the only team with runners still going in the World Team Championship.

I’ve done two backyard ultras myself: I won one in 2022 and was the assist in another in 2023. The format is simple: run 4.167 miles every hour, on the hour, and keep going until only one runner is left. In this bonus episode, I check in with Frank “the Tank” live from Belgium. Frank has gone more than 100 yards himself and was part of Belgium’s record-setting team. This year, he’s watching from the other side as a crew member and part of the media team.

We talk about how the World Team Championship works, what Ivo and Merijn do in the minutes between loops, how they help each other through rough patches, and why Belgium has become such a force in backyard running. Frank shares stories from the race, including a sleep-deprived runner who thought he was making cash drops, and gives us a close-up look at what it takes to keep going when you’ve already run more than 500 miles.

Then I talk about why the backyard format can be such a useful way to pace a long effort—and why the prospect of doing another one is starting to sound pretty tempting.

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#Trailrunning #Runningnews #Outdoors #Outdooradventure

I’ve been spending the last few months trying to become a better runner. After years of long hikes and FKTs, I’ve been doing more speed work—and now I’m taking that fitness into a 24-hour race. I even ran 25 miles around a track recently to start figuring out what that might take.

So Meg Eckert was the perfect person to talk to. She recently ran 636 miles in six days, but her running story started with signing up for a 5K and being too afraid to show up. We talk about how she found her way into ultras, what makes fixed-time races so compelling, and how she handles sleep, fueling, caffeine, recovery, and the mental ups and downs of running for days.

This conversation is about big mileage, but it’s also about staying flexible, finding joy in the process, and showing up even when you’re nervous.