Harvey Lewis Wins Big's Backyard Ultra With a World-Record 108 Laps, 450 Miles

Vegan ultrarunner Harvey Lewis has won Big Dog's Backyard Ultra with a new world record of 108 laps, covering 450 miles in 108 hours. The race started at 7am on Saturday in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and Lewis was the last man standing on Wednesday evening, iRunFar reports.

The format is brutally simple. Runners must complete a 4.17-mile loop, called a yard, inside an hour, then line up and go again on the next hour until only one is left. Six runners passed 100 hours this year, and Phil Gore's world record of 102 yards, set in June, fell when Lewis, Ihor Verys and Bartosz Fudali all finished yards 102 and 103.

Fudali then refused to start the 104th yard. Verys was quicker on each of the next three laps, but on yard 108 he returned to the start without finishing, leaving Lewis to complete the loop alone and take the win.

Lewis had been running closest to the cut-off all race, and race director Gary Cantrell wasn't sure he would last. "None of that is any different than it was at the beginning of the race," Cantrell wrote online. "About 50 runners that looked better than Harvey are watching from the sidelines."

The Cincinnati schoolteacher was vegetarian for years before going fully vegan, and he credits his diet with keeping him healthy and recovering fast. He told Great Vegan Athletes after his first win here in 2021:

I've been vegetarian for 25 years and I've been vegan for five years.

He grew up on fast food, then a stroke his mother had at 54 made him read up on nutrition. The PLANTSTRONG podcast calls him one of the hottest ultra-distance runners on the planet.

Lewis won Big's with a then world record of 85 laps in 2021, the same summer he won Badwater 135 for a second time. Earlier this month plant-based Hubert Hurkacz won the Shanghai Masters, and Spencer Strider led MLB in wins and strikeouts.

No meat, no problem.