2026 VIETNAM MOUNTAIN MARATHON PREVIEW: CAN ANYONE BREAK 13 HOURS IN SA PA?
The 2026 Vietnam Mountain Marathon runs from September 17 to 20 in Sa Pa, with the 100-kilometer race, the flagship World Trail Majors event, starting at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 19, from Sa Pa Square. The men's course record of 13:00:10, set by Ngo Van Chinh last year, is the mark the field will be chasing.
The Field
The organizers have not published an elite start list in English-language sources ahead of race week, so the shape of the front of the race is not yet clear. What is known is the standard the winners will have to meet.
Chinh, who runs for the Sa Pa Ethnic Running Club, won the 2025 race in 13:00:10 and led a Vietnamese sweep of the men's podium, with Nguyen Si Hieu second in 13:36:29 and Nguyen Trong Nhon third in 13:44:24. Nhon was the 2024 winner in 13:22:47. Whether Chinh returns to defend on home trails will define the men's race.
The women's race in 2025 went to Wenfei Xie of China, who led from the start. Nguyen Thi Tra Giang of Vietnam was second in her first race at the distance, and Daphne Linderme of France was third. The women's course record remains the 13:17:42 that Akane Nemoto of Japan ran in 2023.
The race has a long record of Vietnamese success. Quang Tran won the 100K five times between 2015 and 2021, and Ha Thi Hau won the women's race in 2022 and 2024, with a best of 15:08:33. Foreign winners have been the exception rather than the rule, with Magdalena Boulet of the United States in 2015 and Nemoto's record run in 2023 among the few.
The Course
The 100K is listed at 101 kilometers with roughly 5,500 meters of climbing, and it takes in almost every type of terrain the Sa Pa region has. From the town square the route climbs Ham Rong Mountain and Mount Silverstone before dropping into the Ban Moi valley and its Red Dao village.
The middle section passes through Giang Ta Chai and Lao Chai, crosses the O Quy Ho pass area and climbs Cow Mountain, known locally as Núi Bò, with views across the Muong Hoa valley and toward Fansipan, the highest summit in Vietnam. The late kilometers run through Ta Phin and Sau Chua villages and a stretch of bamboo forest before the finish at Topas Ecolodge.
Terraced rice paddies, river crossings and steep, often muddy singletrack are constants. Runners face checkpoint cutoffs through the night, with the final cutoff at the finish set for 9:00 a.m. on Sunday, 28 hours after the start.
Why It Matters
The race is one of the independent World Trail Majors events, a series that also includes Transgrancanaria, the Hong Kong 100, the Mt. Fuji 100 and Ultra-Trail Cape Town. The 100K is also a Western States 2027 qualifying race and carries four ITRA points, which draws international runners looking for a qualifier in Asia.
The wider festival is one of the largest trail events in the region. More than 4,000 runners from up to 50 countries take part across distances from 10 kilometers to 100 miles over the same weekend. The event has been organized since 2013 by Topas, which also runs the Vietnam Trail Series.
What to Watch
Two questions frame the weekend. The first is whether a Vietnamese runner can go under 13 hours for the first time. Chinh's record cut more than 22 minutes from Nhon's 2024 winning time, and a repeat of last year's front-running would put the mark in range on a dry course.
The second is the women's race, where the record has stood for three years and the last two winners came from Vietnam and China. A time under 13:17:42 would require a run on par with the best the race has seen. Readers looking for the background on how the event grew from a small race in 2013 into a World Trail Major can find it in our Vietnam Mountain Marathon history.
Results will be available through the race's live timing page once the 100K finishes on Sunday morning local time.