ULTRA GOBI

We love the energy in Chamonix 🤩 So many familiar faces from past editions of Ultra Gobi have stopped by already, some we last saw at the finish line in the desert.

If you are here too, come find us. We are at stand 107 in the Ultra-Trail Village until Friday, with the team, the giveaways, and a round of touhu, the traditional Chinese pitch-pot game, if you want to try your luck for a small prize.

Stand 107, Ultra-Trail Village, Chamonix.

Bonjour and Ni Hao from Ultra-Trail Village in Chamonix Mont-Blanc 👋

We are here all week, stand 107. Come talk our races in the Gobi Desert and AlUla with the team. Try the prize game and get the first look at our newest race.

Are there any Ultra Gobi alumni in town?

Four days until Ultra Gobi Series sets up in Chamonix.

Starting Monday, August 24, our team will spend the week at stand 107 in the Ultra-Trail Village, right through Friday. If you are in town for race week, this is where to find us.

Bring your questions. What the Gobi Desert actually feels like at night in October. How the AlUla course reads in January heat versus altitude cold. What the A format changes about how a team runs together. We will have answers, a prize game running all week, and a first look at the newest race joining the Ultra Gobi Series, on a new continent, at a legendary mountain.

Stand 107, Ultra-Trail Village, Chamonix. See you Monday.

Next week, the Ultra Gobi Series comes to Chamonix. From Monday, August 24 to Friday, August 28, our team joins the Ultra-Trail Village as an exhibitor.

Find us at stand 107, in the heart of Chamonix. Come by to say hi and talk about our races in the Gobi Desert and AlUla. Pick up a giveaway, try your luck at our game for a chance to win prizes, and ask us about the formats, the terrain, or what race week actually feels like.

We are also sharing something for the first time: the newest race in the Ultra Gobi Series. A new continent. A legendary mountain.

Stand 107, Ultra-Trail Village, Chamonix. Monday to Friday. Who's making it to Chamonix next week?

Every format at Ultra Gobi AlUla spends at least one night in the desert. That happens to put runners in one of the best places on earth for it: the region became the first location in the Middle East to be designated an International Dark Sky Park in late 2024, with its nature reserves ranked among the top five percent of the world's darkest skies.

Don't forget to look up after sunset.

The Ultra Gobi AlUla runs January 12–20, 2027. Registration open.

The Gobi Desert in late September and October is a tough place with very cold nights. Sometimes well below freezing. Days can be warm, but the temperature swing between noon and 3 am is the thing that catches people off guard — and it compounds over days of moving without proper sleep.

AlUla in January is different. Daytime temperatures around 20°C, nights dropping to roughly 5°C. The physical demand in AlUla probably comes from distance and terrain, not from managing cold.

Same formats, same distances — two very different destinations.

Ultra Gobi started in China, and it grew fastest among one specific group: EMBA students and business schools who wanted something that a conference room couldn't replicate. Four days in the desert, entirely dependent on the people next to you, with no way to opt out of the hard parts.

That's not a marketing pitch. It's what 4 days of shared difficulty actually produces between people. The conversations happen on the move, at 3 am between checkpoints, or when you set up your tent at sunset between stages. You don't need to know someone well before the race. You will afterwards.

Ultra Gobi AlUla is the first edition outside China. Teams from companies, business schools, or groups of friends who want to do something that earns its place in the memory — registration is open.

The Ultra Gobi A runs over 4 days and 121 km. In the Gobi Desert in teams of 6 to 8, in AlUla it is teams of 3 to 5. The team result is determined by the sixth/third finisher — not the fastest, not the average. The sixth/third finisher.

That one rule changes everything about how a team moves through the desert. You can run ahead and wait, but this will not help your team. Every decision — pace, rest, strategy — has to account for the person who's crossing the line in sixth/third position.

In the Ultra Gobi A+, checkpoints are roughly 10 to 15 km apart. Each one has water. Everything else you carry, or collect from a pre-deposited drop box at the Change Point midway through the race.

The Ultra Gobi 400 km works on the same principle, with Rest Stations at larger intervals — where you can access your drop boxes, sleep if you need to, and keep moving. The course is unmarked. You navigate with your own GPS device.

121 km or 400 km: the race provides water and a route. What you eat, when you rest, how much you carry — those decisions are entirely yours.

No lottery, no waitlist, no selection committee. A qualifier and you are in.

The qualification window for both solo formats is the two years before race start.

For the Ultra Gobi A+ (121 km, nonstop): one finish of 100 km or longer within that window, or two finishes of 50 km or longer.

For the Ultra Gobi AlUla 400km: one finish of 168 km or longer.

Registration is open for Ultra Gobi (Gobi Desert, China, Sep. 27–Oct. 4, 2026) and Ultra Gobi AlUla (AlUla, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 12–20, 2027).