On July 25-29, 2025, the Biotropika ultramarathon took place in the Leningrad region – and it was the biggest race in the history of the Russian backyard.

Ivan Zaborsky set a new Russian record in backyard ultra! He covered 710.8 kilometers in 106 hours, which is 106 laps.

This incredible result was achieved thanks to Petr Zharikov, who completed 105 laps, i.e. 704.1 kilometers. Because if he’d gotten off earlier, the race would have been over.

The previous Russian record of 81 laps was set by Ildar Kamaletdinov a year ago.

Ivan and Peter have taken backyard in Russia to a whole new level!

It was just shy of the world record of 119 laps, 13 hours short of the world record. But that’s for now.

The essence of the backyard format is that every hour athletes go to the start line and run a lap of 6.706 kilometers. Whoever doesn’t start the next hour is out. When there is one contestant left, he must run one more lap to win.

The top five:

1. Ivan Zaborsky – 106 laps (710.6 km)
2. Pyotr Zharikov – 105 laps (704.13 km)
3. Mikhail Zaruba – 94 laps (630.3 km)
4. Alexey Belousov – 86 laps (576.7 km)
5. Vadim Sharkov – 85 laps (570 km)

All five athletes have qualified for the Individual World Ultra Running Championships in Tennessee, USA, on the farm of legendary survival racing founder Lazarus Lake.