2025 DATE CONFIRMED! I’m Still Standing Sydney will be on Saturday 15 March 2025. Registration opens Friday 1 November 2024 at 9am.
The inaugural I’m Still Standing Sydney was held on Saturday 16 March 2024 at Heffron Park, Maroubra. This was the first backyard ultra event to be held in the Eastern Suburbs and what an incredible weekend! Our goal was to bring the running community together for a local, ultra running event and it was incredible to see this vision come to life. The positive vibes, energy, banter and camaraderie was next level and we couldn’t have been prouder of every single runner, support crew, volunteer, partner and spectator that was there and made it happen.
For our runners, it was inspiring to watch them complete yard after yard, hour after hour, pushing their limits and challenging themselves mentally and physically. We had 100 runners on the start line and only 12 had previously experienced a backyard ultra so this race format was new for most of them. Not only was the race format new, but for 27 of our runners, the furthest distance they had run previously was 42km or under and during the event, 22 of them surpasses this distance and became ultra runners! How cool is that?
We were also blown away that 62 of our runners achieve a distance personal best – absolutely incredible and a true testament to the strength, determination, grit and resilience that all of the runners displayed during the event.
As we know, a backyard ultra is a unique race format, especially given that everyone is a DNF (did not finish) except for the last one standing. We are incredible proud and were inspired throughout by all of the runners and the number of yards they completed. The final results were:
- Our last one standing was Jon Berry with 36 yards, representing a distance of 241.4km
- Our assist was Baden Reynolds with 35 yards, representing a distance of 234.7km.
- A special shout out to our last female standing, Savanna Lawson, with 24 yards, representing a distance of 160.9km
- And finally, we were thrilled to witness three more of the runners surpass the 200km distance with Mitch McInnes running 32 yards (214.6km) and Peter Kaldor and Thomas Gilanyi both completing 30 yards (201.1km).
For updates, follow us on instagram @im_still_standing_sydney
