Ruul, 24, from Tartu, completed the feat in 56 laps, covering 375.536 kilometers in that time – an improvement of 20 laps or 134 kilometers on his previous PB.
That PB was set last autumn at the world team championships, with 36 laps, or 241.416 kilometers, which was also his personal best until now. That victory earned him a place at the individual world championships held in the U.S., the first Estonian to take part.

A backyard ultra sees competitors start each full hour with a 6.706-kilometer loop, on a "it pays to be a winner" basis. The quicker you finish the loop, the longer the rest you get until the next hour starts, but the event itself is open-ended, so proper sleep is off the table: With 56 laps, Ruul was on the go for 56 hours, for instance.

For instance, Ruul's lap times this time ranged between 43 and 56 minutes, which meant he had between four and 17 minutes in the rest tent. This short time was spent on eating, drinking, changing clothes, tending to his feet and other parts of the body, watching supportive video clips posted by fans, or simply just resting.

The race continues on a "last person standing" basis. That last competitor still going needs to complete one last loop after the runner-up has dropped out, again within the one-hour time limit.

A total of 72 runners formed up at the world championships, which started on Saturday, at 7 a.m. local time (3 p.m. in Estonia). This was Ruul's eighth backyard ultra, though he was still the youngest competitor: Only four runners under 30 took part, hinting at the importance of wisdom and experience in an endurance of this scale.

Ruul picked his moment to finish once he had set a new domestic record – surpassing Hannes Veide's record of 55 laps set closer to home in Keila, in 2021.

He had also picked up an injury well before finishing. "My right ankle is [now] twice as big as my left, and I managed to run like this for about the last 10 hours. But now all the exhaustion just hit at once, and I have no energy left. At least I managed to set the Estonian record," he said afterwards.

A social media post at lap 50 summed it up: "Karl's Achilles is acting up. The main thing now is to keep it warm — in that sense, the slower daytime loop helps, as it doesn't have time to cool down. The situation is a bit better now than it was two laps ago. On the previous lap, Karl got stuck behind a slower group, hence the slower lap time. From all the runners' motions, you can see that they've really been through it — people are slower and staggering along the course."

"My past year has literally been planned around this event. I'm happy to have my support team here, and all the other runners are great, very friendly people. I've made many new friends over the past few days," Ruul added.

45 runners completed at least 56 laps, in other words, meaning 26 had dropped out before Ruul did.

While the Estonian had set up a Facebook event covering the race mostly for family and friends, it ended up getting a different audience. "The feedback there was fantastic, and in the end there were so many people commenting and sending videos. That support probably made up 50 percent of what gave me the strength to keep going. Everything has been amazing — now I'm really looking forward to getting into a hot bath and going to sleep," he continued.

The first night brought wind and rain for several hours: Night and day laps are run on slightly different routes, with that during the hours of darkness a little easier given competitors needed to use headlights or similar to see their way around.

The race is still in progress at the time of writing. The official event site is here.

The current world record was set this summer by Australian Philip Gore, who in an event in his home country stayed on course for 119 hours — nearly five full days — covering 798.014 kilometers.

The women's world record is held by American Megan Eckert, at 87 running hours, or 583.422 kilometers.

Both record holders are also competing in the ongoing world championships.

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