Some people you meet once and forget. Others you meet once — at silly o'clock, in the cold, watching someone push their body somewhere it really doesn't want to go — and you know straight away they're going to do something big themselves one day.
That's how I met Devin Agca.
How We Met
I was at Down Grange Athletics Track in Basingstoke, supporting Peter Knowles as he set out to run 111 miles around a 400m loop and reclaim the British record for furthest distance run by a teenager. I ran the first marathon next to him — 100-odd laps, same bend, same straight, same start line. That was just his warm-up. Read the full story here.
Nobody was paid to be on that track that morning. People just turned up — an 11-year-old, a 71-year-old, club runners who'd driven across the country for a few laps. Devin was one of them — he'd come from Germany!
That's where we met. That's where we became friends. And when Devin told me he had his own backyard ultra coming up — a big one — there was only one thing to do: be in his corner the way he'd been in Peter's.
The Builder Behind the Brand
Most people know Devin as the founder of Modifox — the German footwear brand behind Hybrid Sport, a trainer built to switch between lifting and running in one shoe. “Lift & Run In One,” as they put it.
What most people don't know is that Devin wasn't a runner before he built a running shoe. He became one because people doubted his first one.
When Modifox launched its debut product back in late 2023 — a house slipper you could wear outside without it falling apart — people doubted it would hold up. They said the sole would come away from the upper the first time it hit real distance. So Devin decided to find out for himself, and signed up for a marathon. It became the first of what are now four product tests over the past two years.
He barely trained. By his own admission, he turned up to the start line having barely run at all — and it nearly broke him. He finished in 5 hours 20 minutes, then collapsed at the finish, throwing up and shivering for two hours straight. To this day, he calls it the hardest thing he's ever done. Not because of the distance — because he simply wasn't familiar with that kind of pain yet.
That's not the start of a story most people would bet on. It's exactly the start I respect the most.
Because Devin didn't stop there. He kept testing, kept running, and got better with every product and every mile. Then in late 2025 he went further still — running from Germany to Portugal, 50 marathons in 50 days, over 2,000km, on a single pair of Hybrid Sports, to prove the shoe could take it. He proposed to his girlfriend at the finish line. She said yes.
That's the thing about Devin. He doesn't talk about building something. He runs into it, literally, one brutal test at a time.
Last Man Standing
On 5 June 2026, Devin lined up at the start of the brand-new Westerwälder Backyard Ultra in Höchstenbach, Germany — 173 runners from eight nations, one 6.7km forest loop, repeated every hour, on the hour, until only one person was left.
That's the format. No finish line, no fixed distance. Just the bell, the loop, and whoever breaks first.
34 hours later, Devin was still going. He completed his 34th loop — 227.8 kilometres in total — as the last person left in the race. Viktoriia Nikolaienko from Ukraine ran the “Assist” role, the runner whose final loop decides how long the winner has to keep going, finishing an incredible 33 loops and 221km herself.
173 starters. One finisher. Devin Agca.
How The Feats Showed Up
Across 34 hours and 227.8km of repeated loops, the thing that ends many a backyard ultra isn't lungs or legs — it's skin. Friction in the same spots, lap after lap, for the better part of two days, no matter how many times the kit gets changed.
Devin never changed the shoe itself — that stayed Modifox Hybrid Sport, start to finish — but he changed his socks during the race, and swapped the soles too. Every sock change, he or Peter Knowles — yes, the same Peter from the Basingstoke track — applied Chafe Guard. That repeated reset, lap after lap, is exactly what kept his feet in the race for 34 hours, when most people's feet give out long before their legs do.
What's Next
Devin isn't treating this as a one-off. A win like this — at a brand-new event, against a 173-strong international field — puts him firmly in the conversation for Team Germany selection, and from there, a shot at the Backyard Ultra World Championships. That's the goal he's working towards: representing Germany on the world stage, not just collecting another finish.
Given where he started — an unfit founder who collapsed after his very first marathon — I wouldn't bet against him.
Why This Matters
This is the part of what I get to do that I love most. Watching someone build into something slowly, badly at first, one ruined pair of shoes and one brutal test at a time — and then watching them stand on the start line of something genuinely brutal and come out the other side better than everybody else who showed up, and better than they were when they showed up themselves.
That's not talent. That's work. Devin's the proof of it.
We're cheering every step from here. Go get it, Devin.
Logan
