The latest brainchild of David Lloyd and his team at Topas Travel is called Vietnam Ultra Marathon and joins the Asia Trail Master Championship and Grandmaster Quest calendar on 8 March 2025. The second edition of this event in Mai Chau, roughly three hours southwest of Hanoi, features a 75km category that is the one to focus on. VUM therefore joins VTM, Vietnam Trail Marathon in Moc Chau, in January on our current 2025 event calendar.

The events organised by Topas, spearheaded by VMM in Sapa, are among the most popular in Southeast Asia every year and we are indeed delighted that we will again have two of them with races for ATM points. Runners who took part in the first edition of VUM last March gave rave reviews of stunning landscapes on beautiful trails between remote villages. As the website describes, the route climbs up to the fabled land of Hang Kia, where Hmong communities live not far from the border with Laos. For many years, this area was completely off the tourist map. Now you can run here and discover another side of Mai Chau.

From a competition point of view, the 75km race profile shows the toughest sections with most elevation will be tackled in the first half. Pure mountain and technically skilled trail runners may need to use these, before the speedsters can get their running pace to work in the second half.

Registration is open already and can be done via the official website of VUM linked below. As usual, there’s travel packages on offer that take the hassle out of everything. Transport from Hanoi departs from the Turtle Lake Brewing company, same as for the other events organised by Topas.