Great Wall Marathon - One Of The World's Most Unique And Challenging Marathons

Since its inception in 1999, the Great Wall Marathon has become revered as one of the world’s most unique and challenging marathons.

While the Great Wall Marathon’s three distances of a marathon, half marathon and 8.5km Fun Run look relatively straightforward, you’ll have to take into account that the full marathon involves climbing and descending more than 5000 steps on top of the ancient wall.

A TALL IDEA

First dreamed up by Albatros Travel’s founder Søren Rasmussen in early 1998, the first running of the event took place in 1999, with 292 runners. Søren tells the story of how the event went from paper to reality. “When the idea originally came up during a discussion on how we could expand our travel and adventure itineraries in China, I felt that it was far too specialised for us. I was growing tired of producing complicated itineraries for small groups of people as these inevitably involve a lot of work for very little money.

That evening I went for a short run. As I was running the idea of running a marathon entered my head for the first time. The idea seemed a bit unrealistic as I was then not much interested in the idea of running for enjoyment. To me, it was just a laborious way to counter middle-aged spread. But it suddenly struck me that a run along China’s famous Great Wall would be a great addition to our brand and could really have an impact for this small Danish travel agency with lofty international ambitions. But would such a run be realistic?”

The idea was put forth to the Chairman of the Danish Athletics Association, and a Danish sports journalist Peter Fredberg. The three of them headed off to China to see if their plan was even remotely possible.