VMM 2026: After a Record Rain in Sa Pa, 5,300 Pairs of Feet and the Silent People Keeping the Rhythm

At exactly 8 a.m. on September 18, 2026, in Sa Pa town, Lao Cai province, the first runners of the two harshest distances — 100 miles and 100 km — crossed the start line of the Vietnam Mountain Marathon (VMM) 2026. Fog swallowed the valley. The ground was waterlogged after days of rain that the organizers recorded as a record. There were no floodlit grandstands, no giant screens replaying beautiful moves. Only the tap of trekking poles on stone, the sound of labored breathing, and the hoarse instructions of the logistics crews echoing through the mist: “The slope has a rope — hold on tight.”

I have followed more than a few major sporting events, from World Cup nights to five-set tennis finals. But there is a kind of event that the media tends to remember only at the moment a runner finishes, forgetting the entire road before it. VMM 2026 is such an event. And its real story is not in the medal — it is in how people stage a race under record rain while still keeping thousands of human beings safe.

Structurally, VMM 2026 runs over four days, from September 17 to September 20, 2026. This is no longer a local race. The event has officially joined the World Trail Majors system — the group of the planet's most prestigious trail-running races. Standing in the same system as long-established events in Europe, the Americas and Asia imposes very concrete standards: safety standards, logistics standards, medical standards, and a fixed calendar slot. When a regional race is elevated to stand alongside international names, its entire operating standard has to be rewritten.

What stands out is the expected scale of VMM 2026: more than 5,300 athletes from 54 countries. That number places VMM among the trail-running events with the greatest international pull in Southeast Asia. And when a race reaches that scale, the story is no longer about a few exceptional individuals but about a machine in operation.

The two most-cited distances are 100 miles and 100 km, with some organizers' documents specifying 161 km. These are not distances for recreational runners. They demand years of preparation, a knowledge of one's own body down to each heartbeat, and an acceptance that most of the journey unfolds in the dark, when there are no spectators and no cameras. Most long distances start on the morning of September 18 and can stretch into the night, even into the following day. On September 19, the organizers expect to announce the champions. Between those two points lie dozens of hours that the media rarely covers, yet they decide whether the whole race succeeds or fails.

Even before the race began, the organizers called VMM 2026 the harshest season in its history. The reason was the weather. Rain was recorded at record levels. The trails around Sa Pa, already steep, turned slippery. Soil and rock mixed into muddy stretches that the runners themselves jokingly call “natural slides.” There are cliffside slopes where a single misstep means an accident. There are sections strung with ropes for runners to grab and lower themselves down.

That is the core reason the VMM 2026 story is worth telling. The appeal of a trail race does not lie in how hard it is to advertise, but in whether it can carry thousands of people through dangerous mountains and bring them back safely. The true value of an ultratrail event lies not in the difficulty being embellished, but in the logistics capacity being proven under the worst conditions.

Here, I want to pause on an aspect few write about: logistics. Behind every start line is a network of aid stations, medical teams and route-marking crews. They must place water, food, medicine and warm blankets at points vehicles cannot reach. They must calculate how long it will take a runner leaving station three at ten at night to reach station four in the rain. They must prepare for the worst case, while praying it never happens. Every aid station is a link in a net. Loosen one link and the whole net can tear.

Looked at through the structure of a 100-mile distance, it resembles a military march more than a competition. Runners do not simply run. They eat, doze, change shoes, treat blisters and sometimes make the decision to quit. It is a continuous chain of decisions over dozens of hours, each of which can affect the final outcome. At 100 km the pressure is shorter but far more compressed. There is no room for a nutrition mistake. No room for complacency before a climb.

This is work that produces no viral moments. No one films a nurse waiting in cold rain for six hours just so three runners can cross the line. No one posts a status about the person laying reflective markers at two in the morning. But without them, the whole event can become a hazard. I am old now, so I only trust what I have witnessed myself, not what people recount. And the thing I can picture most clearly is exactly that: the people standing at the edge of the story.

Another notable point is the presence of non-specialist faces from outside trail running, among them actor Nhan Phuc Vinh. Professionals and fans in artistic circles describe him as a fairly well-known trail runner. The appearance of a familiar television face amid an otherwise low-key race has a clear effect: it draws more eyes toward Sa Pa.

But here too, I want to speak plainly. A famous name can generate engagement, but it does not answer the core question: what value is this race building? Over the past few days social media has repeatedly expressed admiration for the runners' endurance. People shared images, expressed emotions, and called it a story of passion and the aspiration to conquer human limits. Those lines are beautiful. But they do not last long.

A sports event endures not through status updates. It endures through structure: organizing standards, sponsorship capacity, a steady stream of entrants year after year, and most important, through the belief that participants will be cared for properly. Without that belief, a race may still draw crowds for a few seasons, then fall silent.

In my years of following sport, I have drawn one conclusion: a major event is measured not by how many sign up, but by how many come back. For VMM, that yardstick lies in whether this year's 5,300 becomes next year's 5,500, and whether the 54 countries expand further.

And here is the counterpoint I want to place side by side. While the media celebrates the label “Vietnam's harshest race,” the real value of VMM 2026 lies in the exact opposite — in safety. The harsher a race is, the more certain its organizing capacity must be. If the organizers truly carry more than 5,300 people from 54 countries over slippery slopes under record rain and everyone reaches the finish intact, then the most admirable thing is not the harshness but the preparation.

There is an obvious paradox. The most-shared images are usually of runners wading through mud, falling, clinging to ropes. The unshared images are of the person checking ropes a day earlier, the person at the medical station, the person clearing rubbish after the pack has passed. Both extremes make a race. But the media only pays for the first.

Set in a broader context, VMM 2026 is also a story of sports tourism. Sa Pa has long been a tourist destination, but an international race brings something else: off-season guests, spending on local services, and free promotional imagery. When VMM joined the World Trail Majors, it not only raised the event's standing but also lifted Sa Pa's standing on the map of international trail races. That value can be measured in money, but also in the number of people who come back next year.

I have seen sports events blown up by the media and then wither within a few seasons, because organizers chased applause while forgetting the structure beneath. Conversely, there are quiet events, rarely on the front page, that survive for decades because they do the hardest thing right: keep people safe and keep their word.

VMM 2026 will give its answer on September 19, when the champions are named. But for me, the most memorable moment probably already happened earlier — at 8 a.m. on September 18, when the starting horn sounded and thousands walked into the mist, while behind them, hundreds more quietly took up their positions.

People remember those who reach the finish; I remember those who never ran a single step of that race. The trail stands empty, and I understand that I am not merely reporting — I am holding the rhythm of a belief.