Philippine Mountain Marathon 1st Candidate Race of 2020 season

We are happy to have received a lot of new applications for our Asia Trail Master Championship series in the past couple of weeks, so apart from the regular championship points races, we will also announce plenty of Candidate Races in the coming time. The first 2021 ATM Candidate Race takes place on Luzon in Philippines and will in fact be the first race we will pay attention to in the new year. It takes place on 11 January 2020 - one week before Championship season opener Tahura Trail.

The Philippine Mountain Marathon is organised by Team Malaya in Kibungan and offers a 42km marathon distance roughly 60km or two hours north of Baguio, main town in the Cordillera mountain range. The race route has no overlap with the big Cordillera Mountain Ultra event in March. Other than the main 42km, there is also a 25km and 15km option.

Kibungan is known in the province of Benguet as the town with unique mountains resembling those of Switzerland. Deep ravines and cliffs separate and isolate many sitios and some barangays. Although some plateaus, hills and small valleys can be seen in the locality, Kibungan is dominantly mountainous. This is also illustrated by the elevation gain of the 42km race: well over 5000 hm! The Philippe Mountain Marathon is therefore clearly a race for mountain goats.

The nearest international airport is Clark. But Manila of course also works. First up is a bus or Grab car anyway to reach Baguio. From there you can connect to Kibungan.

Registration can be done online via the website of Kibungan Mountain Run and Team Malaya. More details can also be found via the event’s facebook page.