Mount Olympus: The Marathon and Trail Races

Mount Olympus: Greece's highest mountain as a race venue

Mount Olympus sits on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, between the Larissa and Pieria regional units, and has 52 peaks, according to Wikipedia. Its highest peak, Mytikas, rises to 2,917.7 m and is the highest point in Greece. It has been a National Park since 1938 — the first in the country.

In July 2026 the wider Olympus area was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a mixed, natural-and-cultural site, according to Wikipedia. The first confirmed modern ascent of the summit was on 2 August 1913, by Christos Kakkalos together with Frederic Boissonnas and Daniel Baud-Bovy.

• 36th Olympus Mountaineering Marathon — 41.91 km, Litochoro, 6 September 2026 — /en/races/run-oreivatikos-marathonios-olybou-2026
• 13th Kalyvia Olympus Trail Running — 5 km / 12 km, Kalyvia Elassonas, 5 September 2026 — /en/races/run-kalyvia-olympus-trail-running-2026
• 8th North Olympus Trail Vrontou — 6 / 13 / 21 km, Agioi Apostoloi (near Vrontou), 4 October 2026 — /en/races/run-north-olympus-trail-vrontou-2026
• South Olympus Forest Trail — 10 km / 54 km, Palaios Panteleimonas, 31 October 2026 — /en/races/run-south-olympus-forest-trail-2026

The 36th Olympus Mountaineering Marathon: how it began

The race began in 1986, when a group of mountaineers from the Hellenic Mountaineering Club of Thessaloniki (EOS Thessalonikis), led by then-president Dimitrios Bataras, conceived the idea of a marathon run inside the mountain itself, according to the club's own history page. It was, the same page states, the first race of its kind in Greece.

EOS Thessalonikis was founded in 1930 and today counts roughly 500 active members. The Olympus Mountaineering Marathon runs every September and is, according to the club itself, the only race in Greece organised by a mountaineering association with no financial gain, run entirely by volunteers; it takes place under the auspices of the Municipality of Dion-Olympus.

The marathon's route: elevation and time limits

The club's history page describes the classic ascent route Gortsia–Skourta–Oropedio Mouson–Prionia–Enipeas–Litochoro, finishing in Litochoro (300 m). The official regulation for the 36th edition (Article 2), however, states that both the start AND finish are at the "Dimitris Boudolas" refuge, Stavros Olympou (920 m) — matching what run-events.gr also states. For the actual 2026 course, the regulation is the current source, not the older history text.

Per Article 2, the 41.91 km race (41,910 m exactly; the organiser also informally calls it the "42 km race") has 2,974 m of total ascent and an equal descent, running mostly on mountain trails up to the Plateau of the Muses at 2,650 m. It started on 6 September 2026 at 07:00, with a 12-hour overall time limit per the regulation — run-events.gr separately listed intermediate cut-offs at Petrostrouga: 2h45 on the ascent and 7h45 on the descent from the start. Alongside it, a 15 km race ran on 5 September and two separate 5 km races ran on 5 and 6 September.

How registration works for the Olympus Mountaineering Marathon

Registration was exclusively online, through a form on the EOS Thessalonikis website with electronic payment; no race-day registration was offered. The entry fee for the 41.91 km race was €50, with a cap of 200 participants for that distance, per Article 3 of the regulation. Registration and payment closed on 31 July 2026 — so, like the race itself, this edition's entry window is already closed.

Bib pickup ran on Saturday 5/9 at the Naval Museum of Litochoro, or earlier, on Thursday 3/9, at the club's Thessaloniki offices, according to run-events.gr. For the next edition, the club's own site (eosthessalonikis.gr) is the only source worth checking — bib2bib does not project future edition dates.

Two different "Olympus" race brands — do not mix them up

The name "Olympus Marathon" is used publicly by two entirely separate organisations. The first is the 36th Olympus Mountaineering Marathon run by EOS Thessalonikis, described above — the only one of the two that appears in the bib2bib catalog. The second is the website olympus-marathon.com, a separate family of races also based in Litochoro: a Marathon 44K, an Ultra 71K, a Vertical race, "Kopsi ton Aeton", a Melindra 5K, "Olympia Trails", and a winter race, the "Cheimoniatikos Enipeas" (its 20th edition, 13 December 2026, per the site itself).

None of the olympus-marathon.com races currently appear in the bib2bib catalog. If you are specifically looking for the "Marathon 44K", the "Ultra 71K" or the "Cheimoniatikos Enipeas", the only official source is olympus-marathon.com itself — not run-events.gr or eosthessalonikis.gr, which cover the different, 41.91 km Mountaineering Marathon.

13th Kalyvia Olympus Trail Running: the eastern slopes

In Kalyvia Elassonas, on the eastern slopes of Olympus (Larissa), the Kalyvia Mountaineering Club "O Christakis" held two routes on 5 September 2026, both starting and finishing at the village square (650 m): a 12 km with +700 m of climb and a 5 km with +250 m, according to the organiser's own announcement. The 12 km route was described as moderate difficulty and the 5 km route as low/easy difficulty, both running on passable dirt tracks, trails and forest roads.

Registration ran through a Facebook message to the club's page, a registration link on its page, or by phone. Entry cost €15 for the 12 km and €10 for the 5 km, including electronic timing, a bib number, aid stations and a finisher medal. The 5 km race also carried the nickname "Prophet Elias" in its awards.

8th North Olympus Trail Vrontou: the northeastern side

At Agioi Apostoloi, 4 km west of Vrontou in Pieria, the Vrontou Mountaineering Club organised three distances (6, 13 and 21 km) on 4 October 2026, aiming, per its own proclamation, to showcase the northeastern side of Olympus. The main 21 km route has +1,250 m of climb, runs mostly between 320 m and 1,200 m altitude (the same proclamation also lists a point on the route, Agia Kori, at 300 m), passes through sites such as Krevatia, Papa Rema and Agia Kori, and carries a 5-hour time limit. The race is ITRA-rated.

Entry cost €25, paid only by bank transfer to the club's account, and included a technical T-shirt, aid stations, RFID electronic timing and a finisher medal. The proclamation gave late September 2026 as the registration deadline, with two slightly different dates (29 or 30 September) in two places of the same text — check the current status directly on eosvrontous.gr before you register.

South Olympus Forest Trail: the toughest course, on the southern side

In Palaios Panteleimonas, Pieria, on the southern side of Olympus, Pourlia Trail organises the South Olympus Forest Trail on 31 October 2026: an ultra-distance 54 km course with +2,800 m of climb (the same page's English description gives "+2,700 m" — a small discrepancy on the same site) and five aid stations, alongside a parallel 10 km route with +580 m. The main course climbs to Lake Kati and to Metamorfosi peak (1,600 m) before descending back to the village, with an 11.5-hour finish cutoff and intermediate cut-off gates at Palioi Poroi (K17, 3h30) and Patomeni (K36, 8h30).

Because of the late-October timing, the organiser requires mandatory gear: a foil blanket, a rain jacket, gloves, a whistle, a torch, a mobile phone, a navigation device pre-loaded with the course, and at least half a litre of water. Registration for 2026 was open at the time of checking, through the official site south.pourliatrail.gr.

Practical notes for visitors and foreign runners

All four races start and finish in mountain villages around Olympus (Litochoro, Kalyvia Elassonas, Vrontou, Palaios Panteleimonas) rather than a large city, so you will need your own car or transport arranged in advance. The mountain can see sudden weather changes even in summer, and both autumn (October) races explicitly call out mandatory safety gear.

Three of the four races — Kalyvia Olympus Trail Running, North Olympus Trail Vrontou and South Olympus Forest Trail — currently have no English-language registration page; their official notices are in Greek only. The 36th Olympus Mountaineering Marathon is the exception: it has a full English-language page via the run-events.gr platform (https://run-events.gr/en/event/36th-olympic-mountain-marathon-2026), though registration there has closed, just like the Greek page. For the other three races, a foreign runner who wants to enter should either use translation or contact the organisers directly, using the phone numbers or emails listed in each proclamation.