The full Ode to Laz. A 4.167 mile loop, one an hour, starting at nine on the Saturday morning and going on until one runner is left. The trail loop runs by day and the closed park road runs at night, and the race switches between them at nine in the evening and nine in the morning. Everyone but the last runner standing goes down as a DNF in the results. That is how the format names its winner, and it is not a verdict on anyone's day.
Two loops, and they are not alike. The day loop is 4.167 miles of trail, two thirds technical single track and one third moderate walking or hiking path, with roots, rocks and off camber sections, and the climb the race calls the Stairway to Heaven about four tenths of a mile in. The race puts the day loop at 450 feet of climbing a lap on its registry entry and at about 350 feet on its entry page. At nine in the evening the race moves onto the paved park road, an out and back to Fisherman's Bridge with 250 feet of climbing, closed to traffic from ten at night until about six in the morning. At nine the next morning it goes back to the trail. Bring shoes for both: the race says not to run the trail in road shoes unless it is abnormally dry. This is a self supported race. Water, coffee and Tailwind are put out at the start and finish, and everything else a runner brings themselves. The race's own rating of the trail loop is "Ridiculously fun and equally difficult".
The Ode to Laz is a backyard ultra in the Holly State Recreation Area in Holly, Michigan. Runners start a 4.167 mile loop at nine o'clock on Saturday morning and start another one every hour after that, for as long as they can keep finishing inside the hour. Twelve laps run the trail loop through the woods above Wildwood Lake, then at nine in the evening the race moves onto the closed park road for the night and goes back to the trail at nine the next morning. There are no aid stations. Runners set a pit up at the start line, and their crew can only help them there. It has been run every July since 2019, and it calls itself the place where finishing last means the most.
The first Ode to Laz was run in 2019 and the 2026 race was the eighth. It is affiliated to Lazarus Lake's Big's Backyard Ultra, so a result here counts toward the at-large list. For the qualifying cycle that ran from 16 August 2024 to 15 August 2026 it was one of six United States Silver Ticket races, which meant its winner went straight onto the fifteen-runner United States team for the world team championship. The 2026 winner took that place with 63 yards, 262.50 miles, over three days. Silver tickets are handed out again for each new two-year cycle, so the list changes.
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