The Gauntlet
Gauntlet.
Every backyard ultra runs on the same number. 4.1667 miles, every hour, until one person is left. It's a good format. It's also a format every runner in Texas has already trained for.
The Gauntlet doesn't ask you to run the same mile forever. It asks you to keep up with a race that keeps getting harder underneath you.
Last Frontier runs two backyard ultras
One holds the difficulty constant and lets the hours wear you down. The other changes the difficulty on you every eight hours. Same family, same rules of last person standing, opposite philosophy.
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The Standard Series
Rodeo · Austin's · Big Bastrop · Gulf Coast
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The Gauntlet
Canyon of the Eagles · Bluebonnet · Labor Day · Fields of Gold
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The ground shifts every eight hours
You start easier than the standard format. Then the loop grows and the pace tightens, whether you're ready or not. Four times, right up until the ramp runs out.
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HRS 1 TO 8
15:00
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HRS 9 TO 16
12:00
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HRS 17 TO 24
10:00
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HRS 25 TO 32
8:34
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HRS 33+
8:34
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4 MI
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5 MI
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6 MI
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7 MI
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THE WALL
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| HOUR 1 | HOUR 32 | HOUR 33 → ∞ |
| Hours | Loop | Pace you need to hold |
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| 1 to 8 | 4.0 mi | 15:00 /mi |
| 9 to 16 | 5.0 mi | 12:00 /mi |
| 17 to 24 | 6.0 mi | 10:00 /mi |
| 25 to 32 | 7.0 mi | 8:34 /mi |
| 33+ | 7.0 mi | 8:34 /mi |
Hour 33
The Wall
By hour 33, the loop stops growing. It holds at 7 miles, on the hour, every hour, at 8:34 pace, for as long as anyone can answer the bell.
Everyone who's still standing when the loop hits 7 miles has already covered 176 miles to get there. What happens next isn't a race anymore. It's whoever can keep finding 8:34 pace, hour after hour, with less and less left to find it with.
Whoever answers the bell after everyone else has stopped earns the only title The Gauntlet gives out: Sole Survivor.
The race you started isn't the race you finish
We could have built The Gauntlet by just raising the standard series' number: a fixed 5 mile or 6 mile loop, every hour, forever. We didn't want that. A fixed hard loop still punishes everyone equally from hour one. It just fills the DNF board faster and calls itself a different race.
The Gauntlet starts slightly gentler than Rodeo, Austin's, Big Bastrop, or Gulf Coast. The first eight hours are more forgiving than the standard format, not less. That's on purpose. The difficulty isn't in any single hour. It's in the fact that the race you're running at hour 20 is not the race you signed up for at hour 1, and there's no going back to the easier version once it's gone.
That's also what makes The Wall mean something. Nobody arrives there fresh. Everybody standing at 7 miles has already survived three versions of this race before the hardest one even starts.
Four stops, one arc, New Year's to October
The Gauntlet has its own four race calendar, separate from the standard series' four venues. Every stop runs the identical format, start to Wall: same loop, same ramp, same 8:34 pace waiting at the end. What changes is what it means to win.
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Canyon of the EaglesOPENER
Burnet, TX. New Year's Eve into New Year's Day
First blood. First name on the board for the season. |
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Bluebonnet Trail Run
Marble Falls, TX. Spring
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Labor Day Trail Challenge
Labor Day Weekend
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Fields of GoldFINALE
Marble Falls, TX. October
Whoever is still standing here in October is the season's Sole Survivor, the one everyone remembers. |
Every runner who lines up at a Gauntlet start already knows how to survive a backyard ultra. That was never going to be the test. The test is what's left of you at hour 33, when the loop stops changing and the only thing left to do is keep answering the same impossible bell.
One name left standing. One title: Sole Survivor.
