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At 10 a.m. Saturday, 157 runners hit the starting line for the Last Man Standing Back Cove Backyard Ultra.

When is the race over? We don’t know.

How long is it? We don’t know that, either.

The rules are simple. Starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, runners do a 4.167-mile trip each hour around Portland’s Back Cove Trail. The distance was chosen because after 24 hours and 24 laps, it’s 100 miles. Partcipants have to finish each lap in an hour, and then do it again and again, until only one runner remains.

If you’re reading this over your Sunday morning coffee, they’re probably still racing. If you’re reading it Sunday afternoon, they might still be.

“You have to have the physical base, but once you get to the race, it’s largely mental,” said Jason Bigonia, 48, of South Bristol.

Bigonia won the event last year, completing 112.509 miles. It took 27 hours, but it could take longer. Races like this have gone four or five days, said Rachel Peck, one of the organizers from the Runaways running club.

We know it’s going to push you past your limits, and it’s going to hurt. So why do it?

Come on. You know why.

“To push myself. To show to my girls that they can do anything they put their mind to. I have three girls, and you put your heart, mind and dedication, time (and) effort into it, you can do what you want to do,” said Nicole St. Cyr, 41, of Kingston, New Hampshire. She was the top woman finisher last year, doing 100.08 miles. “It just takes a lot of work. And heart. And pain.”

It was cool Saturday morning when the competitors took their first lap. From Baxter Boulevard, the Portland skyline across the cove was hidden by fog. The tide was coming in. For racers fortunate enough to make it through the day and into the night, the tide would go out again, then come back in Sunday. The world goes by, and you race.

St. Cyr competed for the first time last year. In the middle of the night, it switched from being a physical grind to a mental one. Her plan when she started was to just put one foot in front of the other and see how it goes. She knew she had to find a balance between running and walking, and that balance presented itself a few laps in. Still, the night is dark, and your brain and body will conspire to talk you into quitting. You ignore it.

“I was feeling kind of crummy, all down on myself. I couldn’t eat anything. I was not thirsty, but I knew I needed to eat and drink. You’ve got to get through that. It’s definitely a mental game after that. it’s not physical anymore. You’ve just got to push yourself through. How bad do you want this?” she said. “Coming into Portland and seeing that sunrise was another, ‘I can totally do this.’ Either you can get through it, or you’re going to be done. And I’m not doing that. I’m not.”

Tara Allen, 31, of Mt. Desert Island, ran her third Backyard Ultra this year. Her morning fuel came from Holy Donut. Two years ago, she did 11 laps, approximately 45 miles. Last year, she made it 100 kilometers, around 62 miles. This year, Allen set no goal other than to give it a shot. She recalled the feeling she had before and after hitting the 100-kilometer mark last summer.

“Oh man, I don’t know if I can do one more. But I was like, it’s just four more miles. It’s the same monotonous thing, over and over again. This year for me, it will be more on vibes than anything. I feel good,” Allen said.

There’s the old B&M Baked Beans plant. There’s Payson Park. There’s Cheverus High. Over and over. Minor distractions will become big ones if you let them. Is that sweat in my eye? Did I just swallow a bug?

Jared Bartlett, 36, of Portland volunteered at the event last year. This year, he decided to run it. It’s not about how fast can you go, he said. It’s about supporting each other through the mutual grind. An hour and a half before Lap 1, Bartlett was excited to see how he could do. Did he think he could go 24 hours? The question elicited a hard, honest laugh.

“If I was in a car, possibly. I’m trying to hit maybe a third of that, and anything beyond that, I’ll consider a bonus,” Bartlett said. “You obviously don’t want to spend too much energy getting to this base camp too quickly. At the same time, you need enough time to do whatever you need to do. Get food, water, use the bathroom, whatever it is. There’s a bit of strategy going on.”

Bigonia doesn’t think there’s a secret formula to winning the Backyard Ultra. You have to be self-motivated, he said. The first year he did it in 2023, he was coming off an injury and just wanted to see if he could do it. Bigonia made it 54 miles. He could do it. He could do more.

“You come out, everybody’s kind of doing their own thing. Everybody’s got their own goal. My goal is usually to find a new limit for myself. In this format, you don’t always have control over that. Because once the last person stops, you have to stop as well,” Bigonia said. “It’s consistent training over many years, not many weeks.”

The event record is 116.67 miles, completed by Jason Geroux in 2023. With 100 miles last year, St. Cyr started Saturday with the goal of 117 miles, the overall record. She would have support from family and friends, including the three daughters she looked to inspire.

“I might not be talking to whoever is running with me, I just have somebody talking to me, running beside me, and it’s a huge morale boost. Huge,” she said.

A few minutes before 11 a.m., runners began to congregate at the starting line. At 11 sharp, the sound of a cowbell started Lap 2. Some had 15 minutes of rest, many had much less.

You go, because you have to. You go, because it’s what you do.

You go.