Trail Running Races in the Ore Mountains 2026

The sixteenth edition of this mountain run opens the whole season at the end of April. From Klášterec nad Ohří the course climbs eight and a half kilometres and six hundred vertical metres, mostly on forest paths, to the top of Mědník above Měděnec — a distinctive dome-shaped hill beneath which copper ore has been mined since time immemorial.

On the Czech side the season opens with a series, not a single race. A travelling series of six stages from late April to August gradually visits six Ore Mountain villages, and it feels more like a weekend get-together of friends than a race you rush home from straight after the finish.

If you have ever arrived at the start early in the morning, you know the picture: a full car park, tents, trailers with dog crates and a meadow in front of the pub from which the first canicross pairs set off around eight. Canicross is no afterthought here — it has its own categories and often more starters than the regular run. There is also a longer adventure course run by map: the route is not marked, you find your own way.

In early June a cross-country race above the town of Most adds its part. The ninth edition follows the tracks and trails of Ressl hill, starting at 9:55 by the former amphitheatre. It is not a mountain race with a thousand metres of climbing and nobody sells it as one — it is an honest June cross in the foothills, a good way to run yourself into form before what the mountains bring later.

A mountain trail from the well-known Czech series starts unusually from the top: you gather at the bottom, ride the cable car to the summit and only then set off. The organisers tout a “negative profile” — every course finishes with more descent than climbing (the long one around −250 m). That does not mean it is all downhill: after the descents come drawn-out climbs, spiced with short primes and a final sprint to the line.

Last year’s third edition showed what the race is about. Instead of summer heat came rain, fog and wind, and still 1,763 runners turned up in Loučná pod Klínovcem — 471 of them started the long twenty-three, one of the toughest in the series. Muddy tracks, soaked shirts and all the more honest smiles at the finish.

At eleven o’clock the race leaves Abertamy’s Náměstí Míru square for one of the least-explored corners of the mountains. The course was laid out by members of the local mountain rescue service: from Abertamy through the forest to the abandoned Eva mine, up Jelení hill and on to the Swiss Chalet on Plešivec, down to Merklín, through the former settlement of Kaff and past the ski area back again. You run through a mining landscape inscribed on the UNESCO list, among shafts and settlements of which only the names remain.

The eight-kilometre Kari Traa RUN is open to women only — for those who want to try running in mountain terrain for the first time: 220 metres of climbing, no time pressure, a four-hour limit. Medical cover on the course is provided by the same people who built the route.

The thirtieth edition of the Abertamy cross closes the summer at around nine hundred metres above sea level. The 6.5, 5 and 4 km courses follow field and forest tracks around Abertamy, with the race base at the TS Abertamy grounds.

MUTR gives the Czech side an ultra finale in October. The start is on a meadow below Bouřňák, and runners choose between a fifty with a full dose of ridges and a shorter sixteen that still remains a proper mountain trail run. Beyond the race itself, the base camp deserves a mention: the Cepín hut, a fan zone, a kids’ programme and the aid stations make MUTR feel more like an all-day mountain gathering than just a bib number and a finish time.

A mountain run around the Vogtland Arena ski-jumping complex, five kilometres from the border near Kraslice. The twenty-first Sparkassen-Vogtlandlauf has a nicely graded line-up: kids’ races, a brisk six, a 10.5 km and a demanding twenty-four; walkers get a nordic walking event. The courses run on the slopes beneath the jumps, so the silhouette of the jumping tower stays above your head the whole way. For runners from the Sokolov area it is one of the most accessible races across the border — start in the morning, home by the afternoon.

The narrow forest singletracks of the Rabenberg trail centre usually belong to mountain bikers, but once a year runners take them over. Last year more than 2,300 people came — a new attendance record. It starts on Friday evening with the 3.5 km UpHill Prologue; over the weekend follow the FunTrail, BaseTrail, QuarterTrail and HalfTrail.

The highlight is the UltraTrail — seventy-five kilometres and around 2,000 metres of climbing, with the route crossing the summit of Fichtelberg itself. For many runners an ultra like this is a dream come true, and the finish line shows it: last year’s winning woman covered the course in about seven and a half hours, the fastest man ran it in under seven.

Short but brutal. The course measures 9.4 kilometres and climbs 550 vertical metres from Sehmatal-Neudorf to the top of Fichtelberg (1,215 m), the highest mountain in Saxony — all uphill, no relief. The race has been run since 1987 and to this day nobody disputes its reputation as the toughest run of its kind in Saxony; everyone makes it to the top, whatever the weather is doing on the ridge.

For the Czech side it has one lovely detail: the men’s course record has been held since 2014 by Lukáš Bauer of Boží Dar in 35:27, and the women’s was set in 2015 by Petra Nováková (40:53) — both top cross-country skiers for whom Fichtelberg is the hill next door. And because Fichtelberg rises directly above Boží Dar and Klínovec, the start is only a short hop from the Czech side.