Three hours of the Ode. The same 4.167 mile trail loop, starting at nine on the Saturday morning alongside everybody else, and three laps at most. In the race's own words it is there for anyone who wants to "experiment with one, two or three loops but aren't sure how far you want to go". Under the backyard rules an event with a defined finish names no winner: a runner either finishes or they do not.
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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