What a backyard ultra is, and how the app handles your location and your runs. The short version: it's a timer and a distance tracker, and everything it records stays on your phone unless you choose to export it.
It's a last-one-standing race format. Every hour, on the hour, everyone runs the same loop, a "yard." Finish inside the hour and you earn a rest until the next one starts; miss the cutoff and you're out. There's no finish line and no fixed distance: runners keep going, hour after hour, until only one is left to start another yard. That runner wins. Everyone else is scored on the yards they completed.
No. Virtual Backyard Ultra is built to run the format solo, anywhere. There's no field to outlast, just you and the clock. The app is your timekeeper: it rings the bells, counts your yards, and measures each loop. The one to beat is your own best yard count.
Right, in this sport a "yard" is one loop of the course, not the unit of length. The standard yard is 6.71 km (4.167 mi) on the hour, so twenty-four yards is exactly 100 miles. You can set a shorter loop or a tighter interval if you like, a 1 km yard every 15 minutes is a perfectly good backyard ultra.
Only while a race is running, and only to measure how far you've covered each yard. The app keeps counting with your screen off so a long loop isn't cut short when your phone locks, that's why iOS may note background location use. Your route is recorded to a file on your phone and is never uploaded. You can also turn GPS tracking off entirely and mark each yard done yourself.
No. The app never reads anything from Apple Health. When you finish a run you can optionally export it, the app then writes that one run to Apple Health as a running workout (one segment per yard, with your route as the map). If you never tap Export, nothing is written. It only ever writes, never reads.
Yes. Turn GPS tracking off and the corral clock still rings your bells and counts your yards. A treadmill run still exports too, laps and time, just without a map.
No account, no sign-up, no feed, no subscription. Just you, the clock, and one more yard.
There's a single small banner. In regions that require it, you'll see a consent prompt the first time, and you can change your choice any time from Settings → Manage Privacy Choices.