Getting In · Pilgrimage race
Everest Marathon
You do not travel to the Everest Marathon. You walk to it. Eight to twelve days of trekking up the Khumbu Valley to Base Camp, acclimatising as you go, and then on May 29 you turn around and run back down.
- Start altitude
- ~17,600 ftEverest Base Camp
- Finish
- Namche Bazaar, ~11,300 ft
- Date
- May 29Anniversary of the 1953 summit
- Trek in
- 8 to 12 days
- Total trip
- 2 to 3 weeks
- Field
- A few hundred
The race is held on May 29 every year, the anniversary of Hillary and Tenzing's 1953 summit, and it starts at Everest Base Camp at roughly 17,600 feet. The course descends the Khumbu Valley on the same trekking trails you came up, which sounds gentle and is not: the terrain is rocky, technical, crosses suspension bridges, and includes significant climbs despite the net loss of 6,000 feet.
The altitude is the story. Even after two weeks of acclimatisation, you're running with roughly half the oxygen of sea level. Pace becomes meaningless. Sherpa runners routinely win by enormous margins. And the whole experience is inseparable from the trek in, which for most people is the actual highlight.
How to get in
- Tour operatorExpedition packages
Entry comes bundled with the trek, guides, permits, and accommodation in teahouses along the way. Several operators run it and the packages differ significantly in group size and acclimatisation schedule, which matters more than price.
- Open entryIndependent entry
Some runners arrange their own trek and permits and enter directly. It's cheaper and it requires you to manage your own acclimatisation, which is the part most likely to end your race.
The acclimatisation is the event
- Do not rush the trek. The standard schedule includes rest days at Namche and Dingboche for a reason. Operators who compress the itinerary are selling you a DNF.
- Expect to feel terrible above 14,000 feet even when acclimatising well. Headaches and poor sleep are normal; confusion and breathlessness at rest are not.
- Stomach illness ends more races than altitude. Be aggressive about water treatment and food choices from Kathmandu onward.
- Train descending on technical ground. The race is a rocky, uneven downhill for hours.
- Build in buffer days. Lukla flights are weather-dependent and routinely delayed by days.
Questions runners actually ask
How high is the Everest Marathon?
It starts at Everest Base Camp at roughly 17,600 feet and finishes in Namche Bazaar at about 11,300 feet, making it the highest marathon in the world.
How long is the whole trip?
Two to three weeks. The trek to Base Camp takes eight to twelve days with acclimatisation, and you need buffer days for Lukla flight delays.
Do I need mountaineering experience?
No. It is a trekking route, not a climbing route. You need endurance fitness, patience with altitude, and a conservative acclimatisation plan.
Go to the source
Entry rules, dates, standards, fees, and odds change every single year, and the interesting races change them the most. Use this guide to build the plan; use the official site to confirm the details before you book anything.
If this is your kind of thing
Need the races in between? The hard part of a bucket list year is everything else on the calendar: the qualifier, the tune-up, the long run with a bib on.