A 35-year-old software engineer from Pacific Beach ran more than 138 miles over 33 straight hours to become the last man standing in a brutal endurance race outside Lake Placid, New York, on July 25. Kyle Hunter outlasted 239 other competitors on a non-flat, unpaved forest trail course, completing 33 hourly laps before he was finally told he was the only runner left.
How a Backyard Ultra Actually Works
The format Hunter conquered is known as a Backyard Ultra, according to Fox 5 San Diego. Runners must complete a planned loop of just over 4 miles before the next hour begins, with a new lap starting at the top of every hour, whether or not a runner is ready. Anyone who fails to finish the loop in time is eliminated, and even a competitor who logs well over 100 miles receives an official Did Not Finish if they drop out before the eventual winner, per Wikipedia. Only the runner who completes a final, unassisted loop after every other competitor has quit is declared the Last Man Standing.
That rule meant Hunter needed help to close out his win. Runner-up Sean O'Connor completed 31 laps covering 129.177 miles, serving as the required assist runner whose completed lap allowed Hunter to head out for his winning 33rd, according to results posted on RunSignup. Under Backyard Ultra rules, a winner cannot officially finish unless a runner-up also completes the lap immediately before it.
Racing Through the Night in the Adirondacks
Hunter started the race at 9 AM that Saturday and did not stop running until around 5 PM the next day, pushing through the night without sleep, the station's report states. He described the race as continuous running, with rest limited only to whatever time remained before the next hour's lap began, and said he received a DNF himself if he failed to make it back before the next lap started. Between laps, he refueled with breakfast sandwiches, quesadillas, and pizza rather than resting.
The course wound through the Mt. Van Hoevenberg complex, the historic site of Olympic winter sports venues located outside the Lake Placid village used for the 1980 Olympics, according to details from Ultra Race Calendar. Mt. Van Hoevenberg hosted bobsledding and cross-country skiing events during both the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. Hunter had run those same trails before, finishing third in his age division at the August 2025 Lake Placid Trail Challenge 50K in a time of 5:21:09, per records from Ultra Running Magazine.
Told He Was the Last One Left
When it was finally over, race official Jordan Bicher told Hunter he was the last runner remaining on the course. Hunter has said that mental ability can push a runner farther than physical ability, a lesson that came five years after he first started taking running seriously in 2021. He now plans to try more 100-mile events, per the same account from the outlet.
The Backyard Ultra format itself was created in 2011 by Gary Lazarus Lake Cantrell in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, who set the loop distance at exactly 4.167 miles so that 24 consecutive hourly laps equal 100 miles, according to Wikipedia. Cantrell also co-founded the Barkley Marathons. At the sport's elite level, Australian runner Phil Gore won the 2025 Big's Backyard Ultra World Championship in Tennessee by completing 114 laps totaling 475 miles over nearly five continuous days, while British runner Sarah Perry set the women's world record at the same event with 95 laps covering 395.8 miles, according to Marathon Handbook.
Running in Memory of a Late Dog
Hunter raised over $6,500 for the Animal Cancer Foundation, running in honor of his late puppy, a yellow Labrador Retriever named Cora who died of cancer. He established a dedicated fundraising campaign titled For Cora: Funding Hope for Dogs with Cancer through the foundation, seeding it with a personal contribution of $2,000, according to the campaign page hosted by the Animal Cancer Foundation.
The Animal Cancer Foundation was founded in 1999 by board-certified veterinary oncologist Dr. Gerald S. Post to advance comparative oncology, the study of naturally occurring cancers shared between pets and humans, with the goal of using pet cancer research to accelerate treatments for both animals and people. The foundation's own statistics estimate that roughly 1 in 4 dogs and 1 in 5 cats in the United States will develop cancer in their lifetime, with about six million new canine cancer cases diagnosed annually, making cancer the leading disease-related cause of death in companion dogs.
