Virtual Backyard Ultra
Last one standing, against the clock.
Virtual Backyard Ultra turns the last-one-standing race format into something you can run solo, anywhere. Every hour, on the hour, you run a "yard", a set loop. Finish inside the hour and you earn a rest until the next one begins. Miss the cutoff and you're out. The only goal is one more yard.
How it works
The rules are simple. Every hour, on the hour, you run a loop, a "yard." Finish inside the hour and whatever time is left is your rest before the next bell. Miss a bell and your race is over. There's no finish line and no fixed distance; the goal is just one more yard than last time.
Virtual Backyard Ultra is your timekeeper and distance tracker for every yard. It rings the bells, counts the yards, and measures each loop by GPS. Run a park loop, a city block, or a treadmill, it works anywhere. No account, no sign-up, and your route stays on your phone.
Great for
- Solo backyard-ultra training when there's no live event to enter
- Chasing your own yard-count personal best
- Runners who want a corral clock without a crowd
- Loop courses or out-and-back routes, with a halfway turnaround alert
- Treadmill sessions, the bell still rings even without GPS
What you get
- Corral clock, a clear countdown to every bell, with audio, haptic, and spoken cues at three, two, and one minute to go, and at the starting bell
- GPS distance, how far you cover each yard, with live distance-to-go and turnaround prompts on out-and-back routes
- Live route map, your trail drawn as you run, and again on your result and on every run in your history
- Live Activity & Dynamic Island on iPhone, the corral clock and distance-to-go on your lock screen while you run; on Android an ongoing notification does the same job
- Bells that reach you with the app in your pocket, plus a warning before each one (3, 2 and 1 minute, just 1 minute, or off)
- Set your format, yard distance, bell interval, and a turnaround alert for out-and-back courses; the corral can be the classic hour or any number of minutes you name, so a 30 minute yard for a hard session is a setting rather than a compromise. The classic 4.167 mi per hour (24 yards = 100 miles) is one tap away, and you can start now, at a set time, or after a countdown
- History & personal best, every run logged, your best yard count front and center
- Share card, a square or landscape summary of your result, previewed before you post it
- Export, save a finished run to Apple Health on iPhone or Health Connect on Android, and share it as a .gpx file, or a .fit file on iPhone, for Strava, Garmin Connect, and anywhere that reads them
- Apple Watch companion, the corral clock and your distance on your wrist, in your own units
- A race survives the app being killed, reopen and pick it back up where you were
- Screen-off friendly, distance keeps counting in your pocket, and the bell still rings
- Recorded and stored on your phone, your route never leaves the device