The 25 Hours That Run

🔄 A backyard, yes, but how long do we run?

Have you ever heard of the backyard ultra format without quite understanding how it works? Here's a summary. Every hour, a whistle blows. You set off to complete a loop of 5.7 km (150 m of D+) 🏃. You come back before the 60 minutes run out. You refuel, catch your breath, change your clothes... and start again. Anyone who doesn't cross the line in time, or who doesn't show up at the next start, is out of the game 🚪. The last one standing wins. Everyone else goes home with a DNF (Did Not Finish), no matter how many loops they've swallowed up.

The concept was invented by Gary Cantrell, aka Lazarus Lake, the twisted mind behind the legendary Barkley Marathons. His original race, the Big Dog's Backyard Ultra, takes place in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, literally in his backyard 🌳. The loop distance is no accident: 24 laps = exactly 100 miles (160.9 km), one of the symbolic thresholds of ultra-trail.

Except that "The 25 Hours That Run" puts a new spin on the recipe. Where a classic backyard can last several days, the one by Clemquicourt stops after a maximum of 25 loops ⏰. Translation for your calves: up to 168 km covered over 25 hours of racing. In other words, the format borrows its leg-crushing side from trail running and its ability to rally an audience well beyond the starting pen from the Internet.

The event will take place on November 6, 2026, live and exclusively on Clemquicourt's Twitch channel. The exact location? Kept secret by the organizer, true to his love of teasing 🕵️, although we know it will be in the Pyrénées-Orientales. The start is expected in the afternoon, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. One thing is certain: 100 runners will be there, ready to run in circles for a good cause.

🌟 A cast somewhere between Chamonix and YouTube: who will be on the start line?

Clément Deffrenne, aka Clemquicourt, born in 1999 in the Lille metropolitan area, who went from the Call of Duty controller to the trails of Mauritius, is organizing much more than a simple race here 🎮. Winner of the Hug The Backyard Ultra Mauritius (174 km in 26h), 4th at the Ultra Terrestre in La Réunion (224 km, 14,000 mD+), the content creator knows what "holding on for one more loop" feels like in the legs.

On the trail side, the lineup is dizzying. Blandine L'Hirondel, freshly crowned at the UTMB 2026 🏆. Mathieu Blanchard, winner of the Diagonale des Fous 2025. Ludovic Pommeret, a living monument of French ultra-endurance. Théo Detienne, sovereign over the 90 km of the Marathon du Mont-Blanc 2025. Aurélien Sanchez, the first Frenchman to finish the Barkley in 2023. Mathieu Delpeuch, team trail running world champion. Léonie Périault, Olympic triathlete, will also take part. As for Kilian Jornet, his attendance is rumored, with no official confirmation to date 🤯.

On the creators' side, the lineup is no less wild. Tibo InShape, Domingo, Zack Nani, Baghera, Laink, LeBouseuh and also Hugo Tout Seul are all present 📱. An ultra-trail runner who has tamed Mont-Blanc alongside a YouTuber discovering the distance for the first time: that's the explosive cocktail promised by Clemquicourt.

And what about the community in all this? 50 "golden tickets" (half of the 100 spots) will allow subscribers to join the start line alongside their idols. A participatory format that turns the spectator into a runner, and the loop into a shared playground 🎟️.

❤️ Why does running 25 hours change children's lives?

The 25 Hours That Run isn't only about separating the strongest calves. The event is 100% charitable, organized in support of the Rêves association, recognized as a public-interest organization since 1994 💛. Its mission: to grant the dreams of seriously ill children and teenagers aged 3 to 18. Meeting a celebrity, living an adventure, escaping the hospital routine... since its creation, the association has fulfilled more than 7,000 dreams through its 30 branches across France.

Every loop, every kilometer nibbled away in the night therefore takes on a meaning that goes beyond the stopwatch ⏱️. Clemquicourt's ambition comes down to one sentence: bring together the power of his online community and the endurance of trail champions to generate as many donations as possible during 25 hours of live streaming on Twitch.

The backyard format lends itself perfectly to this kind of charitable storytelling. Unlike a classic marathon where the camera loses the pack at the first turn, here the audience sees the runners every hour, follows the dropouts in real time and thrills at every return to the starting corral 📺. We bet that donations will climb as legs begin to wobble.

Want to follow the adventure from your couch? Join us on November 6 on Twitch. Would you rather lace up your own running shoes? Check out the trail running calendar on Finishers and book your bib before it's too late 🎫. And if the loop format tempts you in a road version, take a look at the 10 km, half marathons or marathons near you on Finishers. Because deep down, whether you run in circles for 25 hours or head straight for 42 km, what matters stays the same: crossing the line with a smile 🏁.