Big’s Backyard Ultra is a race where - well, it’s not really even a race. It’s an endurance challenge. The track is a 4.1 mile loop, kind of hilly, through the woods. All you have to do is run it in an hour.

And repeat.

Until you’re the last one standing.

It doesn’t sound too preposterous until you start to think about it. Seven in a row is more than a marathon, but you’ve got 7 hours, so, ok. 16 in a row is a 64+ mile ultramarathon, but you can sort of imagine it. Once you think about 24, well, you’re running through the night, doing about 100 miles with no sleep. The current record holders did it 124 times, running 516 miles in slightly over 5 days.

I’ve tuned in to watch it, and it’s brutal, but not obviously. You see the runners hit the finish line and they go sit down, drink water, eat something. Maybe they take a little nap. 4 miles in an hour isn’t that far; usually they get back with 15-20 min left, so they can microsleep a bit. They just have to get to the starting line when the next hour’s whistle blows.

Frequent readers may guess where I’m going with this: It’s the best analogy for parenting I’ve ever come across. Each individual lap isn’t impossible, but you have to do it over and over and over. Sometimes it’s not so bad if the weather’s good and you get a good second (, third, fourth, 500th) wind. Sometimes it’s the middle of the night and raining and your ankle got twisted last lap. And you can’t quit.

I’m sure there’s great camaraderie among the runners. And I bet there are great runners’ highs too, and afterwards a feeling of accomplishment. I’d like to say you get these parenting too, but … well, there kind of is no “afterwards”. And camaraderie is real, but every time you’re with a friend and your kids, it’s such an impoverished adult interaction. I’m sure the runners would say it’s sort of an out-of-body experience, striving for something beyond yourself. And I bet the ones who do the best are the ones who are best at dealing with absurd amounts of pain.

In Big’s Backyard Ultra, the winner officially gets “1st place”; everyone else simply gets “Did not finish.”