{"id":605536,"date":"2026-09-19T18:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T18:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/605536\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T18:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T18:30:17","slug":"elite-backyard-ultra-coming-to-hawkes-bay-may-threaten-world-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/605536\/","title":{"rendered":"Elite backyard ultra coming to Hawke\u2019s Bay; may threaten world record"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Zealand team features 15 top athletes, both men and women, including one of the best backyard ultra runners in the world, Sam Harvey<\/a>. Hawke\u2019s Bay\u2019s Matt Radford is also in the team.<\/p>\n

The course is the same one used for the annual River Run Backyard Ultra in Waipukurau<\/a>, being held on October 24. That event is free and entries remain open online.<\/p>\n

As for the world teams championship, the winning country will be the team with the most combined laps. There will also be a top overall individual.<\/p>\n

Backyard ultras are growing in popularity and see competitors run (or jog) as many laps of a 6.7km course as possible.<\/p>\n

Competitors must complete one loop every hour.<\/p>\n

Competitors are eliminated when they fail to finish a loop in a given hour, and the event ends when one person is left standing and finishes a solo lap.<\/p>\n

The course is 6.7km long because over 24 hours (or laps) an athlete completes 100 miles (160km).<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s world record is 119 laps (797km), set by Australian Phil Gore, and the women\u2019s world record is 95 laps (637km), set by Britain\u2019s Sarah Perry.<\/p>\n

River Run Backyard Ultra co-organiser Josh Lloyd said they were rapt to be hosting the New Zealand team on the Waipukurau course after winning a bid for the world teams event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the world record will fall somewhere around the world at this event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to see it in New Zealand. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe team are capable of going past 119 [laps] \u2013 that will be getting us to Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the course at the A&P Showgrounds in Waipukurau was flat and had a strong reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been told by people who have come here for years that we have a great course, and a great venue, and a great location.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the start and finish were based at the A&P shearing shed \u2013 with \u201cproper rural hospitality\u201d and plenty of space.<\/p>\n

The course has a nice mix of grass, limestone and track.<\/p>\n

Belgium won the 2024 Backyard Ultra World Team Championship and New Zealand finished sixth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time we are definitely hoping to do better than that,\u201d Lloyd said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Zealand team features 15 top athletes, both men and women, including one of the best backyard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[32322,1561,29385,24004,124,33231,8231,1976,12022,7810,111,139,69,48717,1974,213,1361,109209,61,64520,54948,377,28643],"class_list":["post-605536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-backyard","tag-bay","tag-believes","tag-coming","tag-could","tag-elite","tag-event","tag-hawkes","tag-host","tag-may","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-organiser","tag-record","tag-sports","tag-that","tag-threaten","tag-to","tag-ultra","tag-waipukurau","tag-world","tag-worldclass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}