Exploring the World of Backyard Ultra Marathons: An Interview with Ezra Dingo after his 2nd Backyard Ultra Victory

In this insightful interview, Isaac dives into the exciting world of Backyard Ultras with Ezra Dingo, a passionate runner who shares his experiences, motivations, and the unique community found within this intriguing sport. From preparation to perseverance, Ezra gives us an inside look at what it takes to conquer this challenging endeavor.

Ezra Dingo is the first official sponsored athlete of Natural Artform, a business founded by Isaac Abeyta following a shoulder injury sustained during endurance swimming training. Unable to find a topical recovery product on the market that truly made a difference, Isaac set out to create one himself, and that is when ALLEVIATE was born. This shared passion for effective recovery and peak performance is what brought Isaac and Ezra together. 

Ezra has won his last 3 backyard ultras back to back with a personal best of 54 "yards" completed, or 362.34 kilometers! The first win was Sydney's Backyard Ultra in 20 Sep. 2025. The second was Red's Backyard Ultra  just 1 month later on 25 Oct. 2025. And the most recent was the I'm Still Standing Sydney Backyard Ultra on 14 Mar. 2026.

Isaac brings a deeply personal understanding of endurance and mental toughness to this partnership, shaped by his background in military endurance training at Fort Bragg alongside the specialists who train the Green Berets. That experience gave him firsthand insight into what it takes to push the body through multi-day endurance events, and why recovery matters just as much as performance.

 

What makes ALLEVIATE truly unique is its ability to deliver a targeted blend of biological extracts and specific salts that cross the skin barrier and are carried directly to the muscles and joints. As Natural Artform continues to explore the full limits of this exciting product, we are honored to be partnered with an athlete of the caliber of Ezra Dingo.

 

A note for our readers: Some of the slang and phrasing in this interview may sound a little unfamiliar, that is purely down to Ezra's roots. Born and raised in Mullumbimby in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, he is a true Aussie through and through. He now calls Sydney home, where he works as a tradesman (or as they say Down Under, a "tradie"). His colourful, no-nonsense way of speaking is all part of the charm.

(Ezra completed 51 yards or 342.21 kilometers to be the Last One Standing in Sydney. 14 March 2026)

 

Isaac: I was really curious and I hadn't heard of Backyard Ultras before, so I did a quick search: what is this, what do you guys do? And then the name Lazarus Lake came up. Have you seen the Barkley Marathon docos and stuff?

 

Ezra: Exactly. I have, I've watched lots of docos on the Barkley, and also just stuff that Lazarus has come up with. And obviously the Backyard Ultra is one of his offsprings.

Isaac: So is that kind of what got you interested in doing it?

 

Ezra: Not really. I just got into running in general, did a marathon in Sydney, and then was like, oh cool, I ticked off a marathon, what's next? I started getting into running docos, and then this Australian running documentary came up about this place called Dead Cow Gully, which is a place in Queensland that hosts a Backyard Ultra event. They broke the world record, it was an Aussie guy and a Kiwi guy running toe to toe basically to collapse. Just unbelievable efforts. And they filmed it as a documentary. I watched that and thought, wow, that's cool. I had this little inkling, I reckoned I could give that a pretty good go. May not break a world record, but I reckon I could run myself pretty far if I applied myself. So I searched Backyard Ultra in Sydney, and Sydney Backyard Ultras popped up. That was my first taste. I signed up, and when you first start something it is a massive learning experience, the first one you are underprepared.

 

Isaac: When was the first one you did?

 

Ezra: I did my first in October 2024, then did two in 2025. April and then October at Sydney's Backyard Ultra. They did two a year back then.

 

Isaac: Oh wow, so you did two in the same year!

(Backyard Ultras are a more social event than other typical ultra marathons. Racers often run together with a kind of understanding that at the end of the day, the only competitor is themselves.)

 

Ezra: Yeah, and I loved it, man. Just the community, the whole idea of improving on things, constantly getting a better grip on everything. Whether it's your gazebo setup, where you come back to every loop to repair and recover, you can always make that better. I'm still adjusting it. So yeah, I just fell in love with the format and the community. I started getting involved in a few little run groups that were pushing this backyard format. You'd meet up once a month, they'd put on four loops or whatever, and you'd run around together. The great thing about it is you can run a loop with someone, go back to the start, refresh, and then run the next loop with someone else. You're constantly starting again together. That's pretty cool.

 

 

Isaac: Do most people run alongside others, or do some prefer to run solo?

Ezra: It depends. In actual events, the first day is obviously a lot more chatty, everyone's more lively. Then as it gets into the nighttime, people go into their own mind a bit, go into their cave. For me, I like to put on some fast music during the night; it helps me get through and creates a little party in my head, keeps me pushing. But at the beginning it's very social. You can rub shoulders with different people each loop, which is pretty cool. Like you could be running alongside Phil, the world record holder from Western Australia, just talking and chatting. In other formats, like a point-to-point race, the top guys are gone in smoke and you may not see anyone for ages. But the fact that you restart every hour with the same group that's still going, you can mingle, get to know different people, maybe find a few you really jell with and run with them a lot. You create a little bond as you move through.

 

Isaac: Did you have a support team from the start?

Ezra: At the very first one, I just turned up with my partner and my dog, a little blue Staffy (pit bull). She's gorgeous, a good girl! But yeah, after 16 hours I'd done around 107 kilometres. My partner was dead to the world, she'd put in a massive effort, the dog was passed out, and one of my mates who'd come down to help said once I hit my hundred kilometres he had to go. So my crew was done. I was pretty spent too, probably could have pushed if I really wanted to, but yeah, we called it. It was all about how much I'd learned and how I could come back stronger. Now I have a rotating crew. You don't want to push your crew too hard, they need rest, so you put them in shifts. When it goes multi-day, you need fresh people coming in and out to keep you on your toes.

We would like to give a special shout out to Ezra Dingo's support team. He likes to refer to them as his "F1 pit crew" and believes he wouldn't have gotten as far as he has without them. Congratulations goes out to the entire team for keeping the tires full of air, tank full of high octane petrol, and headphones charged and the morale high.

Isaac: What kind of music do you listen to? What’s your jam?

 

Ezra: Usually at nighttime it's techno, or even a psytrance techno mix. Pretty fast, pretty upbeat, like a little dance party in my head. I did a lot of going out to clubs and events in my time, and yeah, running through the darkness in the forest with a head torch, it's like a little doof (dance party) in your ears. Very different, but I love it.

 

Isaac: I did a bit of that in the Army too, the biggest we did was around 50K, but with full weight, like a ruck march. Most of what I did on one particular two-week course was all nighttime movement because it was too hot in summer. Going up sand trails in the dark with no headlamps allowed, just moving through by feel. I call it the airborne shuffle, where you can't really run because of the weight, you just kind of shuffle along.

 

Ezra: After a while it just feels like part of you, you just shift and go. You feel like a pack horse but you adapt.

 

Isaac: How do you keep yourself motivated when you hit walls? I've heard ultra runners can hit multiple walls throughout an event.

Ezra: I guess it's just practice and repetition, and keeping goals in your mind. I do a lot of training running around in circles at an oval, I'll run 40 kilometres in a circle and I don't find it boring. I just know that's what I've got to do. When you're running the event, you know you've just got to run one loop at a time. Your goal is to stay out there until you can't, and that's your job. I don't think about being anywhere else or doing anything else, I'm here to run, just take it one lap at a time and keep pushing. I do hit walls. Sometimes it's nutrition, you’ve dipped in your carb intake and two hours later you feel it. And in the second night, when sleep deprivation is really setting in, you start getting wobbly in your focus. You think to yourself, I could easily call it quits. But you just grit your teeth, keep pushing, know you've got a goal and a job to do. There's no golden carrot dangling in front of me, it's just knowing the goal is there and keeping going until you can't.

 

Isaac: Besides reaching the goal, what else drives you? It's gotta feel good, some sense of completion?

 

Ezra: Definitely feels good after, knowing you've put your all in and come away with a great result. But I'd also love to come away from an event knowing I found my actual limit, go until I can't, find the point where I'm totally spent. The first couple of events I found those limits for certain reasons, but I always felt like there was more to give with a little more effort and research into doing the right things. And the other goal right now, it would be pretty cool to represent my country. If I can get my PBs (personal bests) up to the representation level, put an Australian jersey on and run for your country in a Backyard Ultra World Championship team event, that's a pretty cool goal. It feels like it's possible, I just need to find the right event that goes long enough and the right guys to run with.

 

Isaac: I love that, being around people who, of their own free will, just want to do as good as they can. No outward reward, just exploring the unknown of how far you can go. Have you ever been blown away at how the mind can help the body transcend what seems physically possible?

(Recover on the go. Applying Alleviate during the 14 March "I'm Still Standing" in Sydney) 

Ezra: Definitely. At my last event at Red's Backyard Ultra, there were times in the second night, fading in the early hours, where I could hear my mind trying to get me to give in. But I checked in with my body, no injuries, just general muscle fatigue, and I kept telling myself to just put one foot in front of the other and it would do it. Reinforce that thought in the mind. Don't give in to the little weak excuses that trickle in. Keep it simple. One foot in front of the other, loop after loop. Don't dwell on your little niggles, a slightly sore ankle isn't that bad unless you let it become bad in your head. You can go into some very dark places, but if you have a strong mindset and try to keep it positive and light, you can pull yourself out of some pretty deep holes. Quitting is just the worst option.

 

Isaac: Does that come from how you grew up? Did you have to rely on that toughness from an early age?

 

Ezra: I came from an interesting upbringing, growing up in an alternative community, kids running around in the forest, bush bashing, didn't wear shoes, very free, brought up by a community rather than just one person. So maybe some of that childhood experience brings something a little different to the table. I wouldn't say it was a rough upbringing, no underlying factors that made me like this, but I've always been a hard worker. Always been pretty fit to just do things: walk up a mountain, whatever it was. Always had that ability to push myself from a young age. I think I'm just lucky that I can guide myself into difficult pathways and keep pushing through.

 

Rapid Fire Questions

Isaac: Alright, just a short round of rapid fire questions. You've been doing these long enough that you've got a semi-professional system. What's your go-to for blisters?

 

Ezra: I don't really get blisters, I think I've had one blister so far. You pop it, get some zinc oxide tape on it, try to eliminate the hot spot, and just keep going.

 

Isaac: What kind of gear do you run with? I see you've got a pretty cool watch.

Ezra: The watch is the only thing I really use. I only have the current lap data showing, each lap I press lap and it resets. I actually don't want to see the total kilometers ticking up, because you could be approaching a milestone and that becomes a reason to stop. So I treat it one lap at a time: 6.71 kilometers, that's all I have to run. The next screen is heart rate, I look at that through the first day to see where the spikes are and learn which parts of the track push my heart rate up, then try to minimize that. And the third screen is just time of day. Super simple.

 

Isaac: What about pre-race nutrition, during and after?

 

Ezra: Pre-race I just try to carb load, pretty standard. I don't have a nutritionist, just bits and pieces I've learned work for me. During the race I have different pre-mixed drinks I like, along with whole foods and snacks. I try to eat main meals at the normal times, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in between I'm sipping on pre-mix drinks and snacks, aiming for around 60 carbs an hour.

 

Isaac: Do you have issues with chafing?

 

Ezra: Not massively. I've noticed a little bit under the arms and on the nipples, but it's pretty simple, just get some chafing cream, rub yourself down before the event starts, then reapply every four to six hours at the critical spots. A lot of people also tape up their nipples to reduce the chafing.

(photo taken @ I'm Still Standing Sydney Backyard Ultra on 14 Mar. 2026)

Isaac: You recently started using ALLEVIATE, was that mostly for recovery or pre-training?

 

Ezra: I haven't used it during an event yet because I only got it at Christmas time. But I've been using it for training and recovery during my weekly training sessions. If I'm going for a big 40 or 50 kilometer run, I'll put it on my legs beforehand, on my tendons and around my feet, and then when I get home, shower, and lather back up in those spots before bed. I found it works well. It sits well with me. Feels like it might work slightly quicker than some of the others I've used. And I like the idea of the DMSO, it gives it a bit of an edge over products that don't have it, because it allows the ingredients to actually absorb into the muscles rather than just sitting on the surface. Some of those rubs, you wonder if they're really getting into the muscles. With the DMSO, I feel like yes, the ingredients are getting in there and that's all helping with the repair.

 

Isaac: Well thanks for doing this Ezra, it's been very interesting meeting you and hearing about your own "Natural Artform" so to speak, and I'm excited to work together. I'll make the recovery gear and you put it through the literal paces. 

 

We hope you'll follow and support Ezra's running journey here: Instagram

To support your own adventure, < click here > to check out our premier performance and recovery product, ALLEVIATE.

Thanks for reading!

This deep dive into Ezra's experiences highlights not only the physical challenges of Backyard Ultras but the mental resilience and community spirit it fosters. Whether breaking records or simply pushing personal limits, Ezra's journey is a testament to the power of will and passion in this unique sport.