Phil Gore’s Project 168 Ends at 152 Yards

Phil Gore began Project 168 in Forrestdale, Western Australia, on August 23, 2026. The objective was deliberately easy to describe and difficult to absorb: start a 6.71-kilometre loop every hour, on the hour, for one complete week.

He stopped 16 hours short. Gore completed 152 yards before failing to finish the 153rd inside the hour on Saturday, August 29 — a total of 1,019.92 kilometres, or 633.75 miles, across six days and eight hours. The project was also a fundraiser for Telethon, which supports sick, vulnerable, and disadvantaged children in Western Australia.

The Result

Reports of the final yard agree on the sequence. Gore's last completed lap was his slowest of the week at 58 minutes 1 second, leaving him under two minutes before the next hourly start. He began yard 153 and did not complete it within the hour, which closed the project at 152.

What Was Project 168?

Project 168 was a solo endurance project inspired by the backyard ultra format. Gore started one yard every hour and had to return before the next hour began. Whatever time remained was available for eating, drinking, changing clothes, foot care, rest, and every other task needed to keep moving.

The project started at 8:00 a.m. Australian Western Standard Time on Sunday, August 23, and was scheduled to finish at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, August 30. The venue was Alfred Skeet Reserve on Armadale Road in Forrestdale, south of central Perth.

Key Facts

Why It Is Not an Official Backyard Record

Project 168 used the backyard distance and hourly start, but it was not a conventional backyard ultra. That distinction is more than a label. The official Big's Backyard Ultra rules say a race must be open-ended, the winner must complete one more yard than every other competitor, and non-competitors may not accompany active entrants on the course.

Project 168 intentionally changed all three parts:

• No competing field: Gore tested himself against the clock rather than trying to remain after every rival had stopped.
• A fixed endpoint: the project was set to end after 168 hours, whereas an official backyard ultra must remain open-ended.
• Community laps: supporters could book selected yards alongside Gore, although they were fundraising participants rather than competitors in a race result.

In backyard language, an assistis the final rival whose continued participation makes the winner's last solo yard possible. It does not mean a support crew. Gore's official 119-yard world record at Dead Cow Gully was enabled by Sam Harvey's 118-yard performance. With no competing assist in Forrestdale, the 152 yards do not replace that record in the official table, and the official 119-yard mark stands.

The Scale of 168 Yards

Gore's official world record is 119 yards: approximately 798 kilometres across 119 consecutive hourly starts. Project 168 set out to add 49 hours and about 329 kilometres to that benchmark, a target roughly 41% larger in distance. He reached 152 yards, which is 33 yards and about 222 kilometres beyond the record and 16 yards short of the full week.

Distance alone does not explain the format. A 45-minute yard leaves 15 minutes before the next bell. A 50-minute yard leaves 10. Those minutes must absorb every stop, and unused time cannot be saved for later. Gore's final completed yard took 58 minutes 1 second, which is the constraint in its purest form: the reset window had effectively disappeared.

Unlike a standard six-day race, where an athlete can distribute moving and sleeping time more freely, Project 168 imposed another start every 60 minutes. That repeated interruption was the defining constraint. Read our full explanation of backyard ultras for the rules and distance math behind the format.

Why Phil Gore?

Gore entered the project with one of the strongest current résumés in backyard running. The official record table lists his 119 yards at Dead Cow Gully in June 2025 as the Australian and overall benchmark. Four months later, he won the individual world championship at Big's Backyard Ultra in Tennessee with 114 yards.

The ABC reported that Gore covered almost 800 kilometres during the Dead Cow Gully record and approximately 764 kilometres during the world championship. After the championship, he described periods of confusion late in the event. Project 168 asked him to return to the hourly start well beyond either of those performances, and he did: 152 yards is 33 more than the Dead Cow Gully record and 38 more than his winning total at Big's.

Gore is also a firefighter and father of four. His official project page framed the week as a test of the limit that a last-person-standing victory cannot reveal: winners often stop because the race has ended, not necessarily because they are unable to begin another yard. See his source-checked runner profile for his backyard, 24-hour, and trail results.

The Telethon Fundraiser

The project's public purpose is fundraising for Channel 7 Telethon Trust. Telethon funds grants for beneficiaries supporting sick, vulnerable, and disadvantaged children in Western Australia. Its 2026 impact report says 100% of donations go directly to those grants.

Project 168's official site routed donations through its Telethon fundraising page, alongside donation-based in-person lap bookings, virtual laps, and merchandise. Reports published after the attempt put the campaign at roughly A$267,700 by the morning after Gore stopped and about A$285,700 from some 3,272 donors by September 3, with donations still open. Treat those as snapshots: the official campaign page remains the authority for the final total.

What Happened During the Week

The benchmark we flagged before the start was yard 120: the first hour that would take Gore past the duration of his official 119-yard performance. He passed it and kept going for another 32 hours.

• Yard 120: on the published 8:00 a.m. start, that yard began at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, August 28. Completing it took Gore past his own official record duration without changing the formal record, which requires a competing field.
• Yards 121–152: 32 further hourly starts, each one extending his personal maximum and the unofficial benchmark for a solo backyard-format effort.
• Yard 152: completed in 58 minutes 1 second, his slowest lap of the week, leaving under two minutes before the next hourly start.
• Yard 153: started at 4:00 p.m. Perth time on Saturday, August 29, and not completed inside the hour. That closed the project 16 yards short of the seven-day target.

Published reports have not given a single medical or mechanical cause for the ending, and we are not inferring one from splits or video. The documented facts are the lap time, the missed cutoff, and the final count.

What the 152 Yards Mean

The final number is 152 completed yards, reported as 1,019.92 kilometres and 633.75 miles over six days and eight hours. The fullest public account of the closing hours is the Ultramarathon Database report, with the same count in Marathon Handbook.

That total does not enter the official record table, and Gore's 119-yard mark remains the recognised backyard ultra world record. What the week did produce is a documented solo benchmark 33 yards beyond that record, and a charity campaign in the high hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars. A runner who had repeatedly won open-ended backyards took on a known endpoint far beyond his previous maximum and came within 16 hours of it.