Düsseldorf, Germany | August 2026 For four days last week, 169 ultra-endurance athletes gathered at a secret former military base outside Düsseldorf, Germany, to take part in one of the most punishing endurance formats in existence: the backyard ultra. When the dust settled early Tuesday morning, only one runner was still standing 29-year-old American Mark Dowdle, who covered roughly 630 kilometers (about 395 miles) over 94 consecutive hourly loops to claim the title of this year’s “Last Soul.”

The Format: No Finish Line, Just a Bell

Unlike a traditional marathon, the Last Soul Ultra has no set distance and no finish line in the conventional sense. The race follows the “backyard ultra” format: every runner lines up together at the top of each hour and must complete a 6.7 kilometer (4.17-mile) loop before the next hour begins. Anyone who fails to finish in time or doesn’t show up for the next lap is eliminated. Whatever time is left over after finishing a loop is the only time an athlete has to eat, rest, treat injuries, or change gear before the bell rings again.

The race simply continues, hour after hour, until exactly one runner remains, who must then complete one final solo lap alone to be crowned champion.

True to its name, the event is deliberately shrouded in mystery. Organizers never disclose the venue publicly, citing safety and the smooth running of the event, and no spectators are permitted on site. Instead, fans follow along through a 24-hour livestream in both German and English, supported by a live dashboard and timing leaderboard. The race is run by Last Soul GmbH, fronted by German ultrarunner Kim Gottwald, who founded the event alongside former Germany football international André Schürrle.

A Duel That Rewrote the German Record Books

This year’s last soul edition, which began on Friday, August 14, quickly turned into a two-man showdown between Dowdle and 27-year-old German runner Ayyoub El Osrouti, known to fans as “Ello.”

The pair matched each other loop for loop deep into the race, and together they pushed the event somewhere no backyard ultra held on German soil had ever gone before: past the previous national benchmark of 90 loops. They crossed that mark side by side on the fourth night of racing.

El Osrouti, a Wuppertal native, was no stranger to this stage he had also finished as runner-up at the inaugural 2025 edition of the race, stepping off after 67 loops due to an Achilles injury. This time, he pushed all the way to loop 93 before finally calling it, a performance that stands as the second-best backyard ultra showing ever by a German athlete, behind only Hendrik Boury’s 100-loop effort at the 2025 backyard ultra world championship. Rounding out the podium picture, German runner Norman Mascher-Aspensjö was the last athlete standing alongside the two leaders before dropping out at loop 80, while fellow competitor Caroline Maria Bolte set a new German women’s record, reaching 52 loops (roughly 348 kilometers).

Dowdle’s Path to the Title

Dowdle arrived in Germany as the reigning champion of “Go One More,” a backyard ultra hosted on Nick Bare’s ranch in Texas, which he’d won back in April with 73 loops beating out a field that included Harvey Lewis and Last Soul co-founder Kim Gottwald. Notably, Dowdle almost missed the start altogether:

he was flown in at the last minute, partly by private jet, after finishing up work commitments just a day before the race began.

Dowdle isn’t a full-time professional runner. He picked up endurance racing after playing college football and lacrosse, and earlier this year he also won the frozen Arrowhead 135 in Minnesota in January. He’s since earned a spot on the U.S. team for the backyard ultra world team championship this coming October. At Last Soul, he shattered his own previous best of 73 loops by 21 full loops a leap of more than 140 kilometers on what is now the biggest stage the backyard ultra format has in Europe.

Data from the race also offers a glimpse into just how demanding the event was: Dowdle’s fastest loop of the entire race came on lap 87, clocked at 38 minutes and 16 seconds, compared to his overall average of roughly 51 minutes and 42 seconds per loop a lap he ran roughly 83 hours and 580 kilometers into the race, deep into a period of extreme sleep deprivation.

“Is the Job Finished?”

Near the end of the race, Dowdle posted a video from the course describing the mental process that kept him going hour after hour. He explained that between laps, he and his crew would repeatedly ask themselves a single question back at base camp. Dowdle described spending 94 hours on the same four-mile loop despite not being forced to, saying simply that he wanted to be there. According to Dowdle, the answer to whether the job was finished was “no” every single time until, finally, it wasn’t.

What’s Next

With El Osrouti’s exit at loop 93, Dowdle went on to complete his 94th and final loop alone, officially sealing the win. The result cements him as the breakout star of the Last Soul Ultra’s short history, having taken the title in just its second running. Organizers have already confirmed the event will return in 2027, with planning for the next edition now underway.

For a sport built almost entirely around refusing to stop, Dowdle’s win achieved on roughly 15 minutes’ notice and zero sleep has quickly become one of the defining performances in backyard ultrarunning this year.

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