Unique Trail Lanzarote 2026: preview of the first edition

The first Unique Trail Lanzarote by Joma is run on Saturday 17 October, although the weekend starts two days earlier, on the Thursday afternoon, with a vertical kilometre on the Risco de Famara. On the Saturday four races set off from four different places, 67, 46, 23 and 12 kilometres, and all four finish in the same one: Mirador del Río.

What arrives with it is an ultra, and Lanzarote did not have one.

What is at stake

Being a first edition, there is no roll of honour and no previous times to compare. What there is, is an empty slot in the island’s calendar. One of the entrants, Gran Canaria’s Oswaldo Medina, puts it this way: “I think Lanzarote deserved an ultra; since that Spain Ultra Cup they used to run years ago, I had missed a race like this on the island.”

The response has been good for a debut. On 18 August the organisers announced more than 400 entries, with 20 nationalities, 35 % women and almost 40 % of runners from outside the province of Las Palmas. Since 4 September the figure they give is more than 500. Places are capped by distance, 200 in the 67, 250 in the 46, 300 in the 23, 350 in the 12 and 200 in the vertical, but they do not publish how many are still free.

Who is coming

The entry platform publishes no start list, it only lets you look up your own. So the names we know are the four the organisers have announced, all of them in the open category.

• Julen Calvó (Reus, 1995), from the Joma team and with an ITRA ranking of 912, runs the 67. In 2026 he won the Advanced at Transgrancanaria and was second at Penyagolosa CSP and at Andorra 100 by UTMB; in 2025 he was Spanish RFEA ultra trail champion.
• Oswaldo Medina, of Carphial Teror Trail and 860 ITRA points, is also in the 67. He won Tamadaba Trail and Dynafit Andorra Trail in 2025 and the Tenerife Bluetrail marathon in 2024. He knows the ground: he was on the podium in the Haría Extreme half in 2017.
• Lorena Padrón, 678 ITRA points, runs the 46 of the Maratón del Jable. This year she won the Artenara Trail half for the second season running.
• Estela Guerra, of Arista Pro Team and 672 ITRA points, doubles up: the Thursday vertical and the 12 on Saturday. She was Canary Islands vertical kilometre champion in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2026.

The route, told through where it hurts

The tracks the organisers publish measure 66.8 km for the ultra, 47.2 for the marathon, 22.6 for the half, 11.1 for the Manriqueña and 1.75 for the vertical. The official climbing figures are 2,870, 2,082, 1,202, 641 and 400 metres.

The ultra leaves La Geria, in Uga, at around 300 metres, crosses Conil and Masdache, touches 530 metres at about kilometre 15 and drops to San Bartolomé at 22. Then Teguise. And at kilometre 43 it starts falling towards Famara: from 165 metres to just over 60 in two kilometres.

That is the trap. With 45 kilometres in the legs and at sea level, the Risco begins: in four kilometres the track climbs from 60 to around 615 metres. There is nothing like it anywhere else on the course, and what is left afterwards is twelve kilometres across the Haría uplands to the finish, at 436 metres.

The marathon takes that same wall at its kilometre 25, from 61 to 621 metres, setting off an hour later. The two courses meet right there.

The half starts high up, at 645 metres, near the Ermita de Las Nieves, and its first three kilometres drop to 275. Then it climbs the same cliff from the other side and is back at 623 metres by kilometre 4.5. Anyone who lets go on that descent pays for it twenty minutes later.

The Manriqueña starts in the village of Haría, at around 290 metres, and climbs 240 in the first two and a half kilometres. Thursday’s vertical goes from Playa del Embarcadero to about 350 metres in 1.75 km, and the start has no road access: the rules warn of about two kilometres of approach on foot.

Where to watch it and when

Saturday’s starts are staggered: 06:00 the ultra at La Geria, 07:00 the marathon at San Bartolomé, 08:00 the half at Peñas del Chache and 09:00 the Manriqueña at Haría. The platform lists the day from 06:00 to 17:00.

In mid October the sun rises on Lanzarote at around 07:55, so the ultra runs almost two hours in the dark and the marathon one. The mandatory kit published in the rules does not include a head torch for any distance, only a charged phone, a water reservoir and your own cup: worth asking about at the briefing.

There are two places to see actual racing. One is the Famara climb, where the ultra and the marathon go through. The published cut-offs place the moment: in the ultra, kilometre 19 at Casa Cerdeña closes at 10:00 and kilometre 44 at Famara at 13:00; in the marathon, kilometre 25 at Famara closes at 11:00. Midday on Saturday at Famara is when both fields pass through. The other place is the finish at Mirador del Río, where all four arrive.

On Friday 16 in the afternoon there are children’s races, the Kinder Trail, at La Geria, San Bartolomé and Mirador del Río itself.

Where to park

The organisers publish no spectator parking plan. What they do publish, and this is the part that matters, is a free shuttle bus between Haría, by the cemetery, and Mirador del Río, running both ways every 40 to 45 minutes, with an explicit request to leave the car behind. The finish sits at a clifftop viewpoint on a narrow road: the shuttle is not a convenience, it is the plan.

Runners have their own bus, 11 EUR return, booked with the entry, from the Radisson in Costa Teguise, the Cabildo esplanade car park in Arrecife, the Seaside Los Jameos in Puerto del Carmen and the Mynd Yaiza in Playa Blanca. Pick-up is at 04:15 for the ultra, 05:15 for the marathon, 06:15 for the half and 07:15 for the Manriqueña, and return buses leave the finish every 45 minutes for those same four points.

What the weather is usually like that weekend

Looking at the last eleven years (2015 to 2025) of ERA5 reanalysis for the 13 to 19 October window, La Geria, where the ultra starts at six in the morning, has an average high of 25 degrees and an average low of 18.6, and eight of those 77 days went over 30. In Haría, 22.9 and 19.1. At Mirador del Río, the finish, 21.9 and 18.2.

Rain is rare: a millimetre or more on 5 of the 77 days at La Geria and on 11 at the Mirador. What does show up is wind. At the Mirador, 13 of those 77 days had gusts above 30 kilometres per hour, and the strongest in the series reached 78. On the edge of the Risco that is noticeable, and it is what to watch in the forecast that week rather than the temperature.

If you are going to run it

Entry is through Rockthesport and closes on 13 October at 23:59. The current band is 69 EUR for the 67, 55 EUR for the 46, 35 EUR for the 23, 25 EUR for the 12 and 25 EUR for the vertical, plus the platform fee. Race numbers are collected on Thursday 15 from 17:00 to 20:00 and on Friday 16 from 10:00 to 13:00 and 16:00 to 20:00. There are no cups at the aid stations.

And one detail worth checking before signing anything: the organisers have two sets of rules published at the same time and they do not say the same thing. The one linked from the button on their website, dated August and marked as final, calls the distances 65K, 46K, 22K and 11K, publishes no cut-offs and pays 200 EUR to the ultra winner. The one attached to the entry platform, which is the one you accept when you sign up, is the March version: it calls the distances 67K, 46K, 23K and 12K, does publish the cut-offs, requires ultra entrants to have finished a trail marathon of more than 40 kilometres since 1 January 2025, and pays 400 EUR to the winner. They agree on the entry deadline, on the number of places and on age: adults only everywhere, except for over-16s with guardian consent, who may run the short distance.

The full listing, with distances, mandatory kit, hotels with a discount code and the organisers’ contact details, is at Unique Trail Lanzarote by Joma.