Naresh Kumar
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14
  1. Starting with the history
  2. Designing the emblems
  3. Where runners see it
  4. What I took from it

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Forging a legion for Big’s Backyard Ultra

How Laz’s idea for Roman ranks became Backyard Legacy, ten titles and emblems that runners earn one hour at a time, researched with AI and rendered with Gemini.

Written by
Naresh Kumar
Published
Reading time
3 min
Topic
Client stories

A backyard ultra has the simplest rules in running. Every hour, on the hour, you run a 4.167-mile loop. Finish it in time and you go again. Keep going until only one runner is left.

That makes every hour feel earned. So when Gary Cantrell, better known as Laz, the creator of Big’s Backyard Ultra, reached out to talk about an idea, it made immediate sense: give runners a title for how far they’ve gone, and make it feel like something worth carrying.

His inspiration was the Roman legion. He gave me a handful of titles to start with, like centurion and tribunus militum, and asked me to build the rest.

The result is Backyard Legacy: ten ranks, from Tiro, the new recruit, to Princeps Civitatis, the first citizen. Each one has its own emblem, a title and an hour threshold. The emblem is embossed on the runner’s certificate, and the title is theirs to keep.

The Backyard Legacy site: Forge Your Legacy, with the ranks of the legion

Forge Your Legacy.

Starting with the history

I didn’t want ranks that only sounded Roman. I wanted the order to make sense to anyone who knows the history, and to feel right to a runner climbing through it.

So I started with research. I used AI to search widely and summarise what I found, then read the sources myself to understand how the legion was actually organised: who served under whom, what each role meant, and what symbols each would have carried.

A clear ladder emerged. It begins with the recruit and the ordinary soldier, rises through the officers who held the legion together, and ends beyond the army entirely, in the highest offices of Rome:

  • Tiro, the recruit, and Legionnaire, the backbone of the legion.
  • Centurion, who led a century of soldiers in the line.
  • Tribunus Militum, a military tribune, one of the legion’s staff officers.
  • Praefectus Castrorum, the camp prefect, an experienced officer who ran the legion’s camp and logistics.
  • Tribunus Laticlavius, the senior tribune, marked out by the broad stripe of senatorial rank.
  • Legatus Legionis, the commander of the legion.
  • Praetor and Consul, the high offices of the Roman state.
  • Princeps Civitatis, “first citizen”, the title Augustus chose for himself.

Then each rank needed a threshold. In a backyard ultra, 24 hours is exactly 100 miles, so the hours and distances line up neatly.

The ten ranks, from Tiro to Princeps Civitatis Tiro at 1–14 h; Legionnaire at 15 h, 100 km; Centurion at 24 h, 100 mi; Tribunus Militum at 36 h, 150 mi; Praefectus Castrorum at 48 h, 200 mi; Tribunus Laticlavius at 72 h, 300 mi; Legatus Legionis at 100 h, 417 mi; Praetor at 120 h, 500 mi; Consul at 144 h, 600 mi; Princeps Civitatis at 168 h, 700 mi. 1–14 h Tiro 15 h Legionnaire 100 km 24 h Centurion 100 mi 36 h Tribunus Militum 150 mi 48 h Praefectus Castrorum 200 mi 72 h Tribunus Laticlavius 300 mi 100 h Legatus Legionis 417 mi 120 h Praetor 500 mi 144 h Consul 600 mi 168 h Princeps Civitatis 700 mi
Every rank is earned one loop at a time: hours on the left, distance on the right.

Designing the emblems

For each rank, I gathered the symbols that belonged to it: the legionary’s shield and short sword, the centurion’s crested helmet, the tribune’s standard, the fortified walls of a camp. I kept them as close to what was historically used as I could.

Then I rendered them with Gemini. The challenge wasn’t generating an image; it was making ten of them belong together. Every emblem shares the same bronze finish, the same laurel wreath and the same nameplate carrying the rank, hours and distance, so the set reads as one family.

Six Backyard Legacy emblems: Legionnaire, Centurion, Tribunus Militum, Praefectus Castrorum, Legatus Legionis and Princeps Civitatis

Six of the ten emblems, from Legionnaire to Princeps Civitatis.

Where runners see it

The ranks live on the site, where runners can explore every insignia and see what comes next. When a runner reaches a rank, the title is theirs, and the certificate they download from the Big’s Backyard Ultra results page carries their emblem: a proud achievement they can show off.

The ten ranks in order, with their hours and distances

The full ladder, from 1–14 hours to 168 hours and 700 miles.

What I took from it

This was an exciting project. AI made the research fast and the rendering possible, but the judgement was still the work: which sources to trust, how the ranks should be ordered, and when an emblem was finally right.

It also came from a long relationship. I’ve worked with Laz on Big’s Backyard Ultra since 2020, and this started the way most of our work does: with a conversation and an idea.

Every yard counts. Every hour matters. Now runners have a name for how far they went.

Explore the ranks on Backyard Legacy, or read how I build and run Big’s Backyard Ultra’s platform.