Kaga Spa Trail Endurance 100 Japan by UTMB® 2026

Imagine a race that starts at nightfall, in a 1,300-year-old Japanese hot-spring village, surrounded by primary beech forests and mountains ⛰️. Here, we’re in Japan, you’re running in another world, and that’s exactly the point 😏. The Kaga Spa Trail Endurance 100 by UTMB® is the first stop of the UTMB World Series on Japanese soil—and you immediately understand why! 🤩

Let’s start with the setting, because honestly it’s worth dwelling on. The race takes place in Yamanaka Onsen, in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan, and this hot-spring resort has existed for more than 1,300 years 👴. Yes, you read that right: while Charlemagne was busy unifying Europe with a sword, the Japanese were already soaking their tired feet in these hot springs 🛁. And today’s fun history fact: the great Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, the Shakespeare of the haiku, stopped here on his famous journey “Oku no Hosomichi” and even wrote a poem in praise of these baths 🤓. In other words, if you finish the 100K and dive into the local onsen, you’re literally following in the footsteps of a 17th-century literary genius 🪶. Not bad for a foot race 🦶.

Let’s talk distances, because KagaSpa isn’t a one-size-fits-all event—it’s a well-stocked buffet for every appetite 🍜. First, there’s the KagaSpa 100K, the flagship distance, which is technically 97.4 km with 5,122 meters of elevation gain. The start is in the evening at 6:30 p.m. from Yukemuri Kenkou Village. For comparison, the winner of the first edition (2025) finished it in 11h30 (a stratospheric time, we’ll give you that 🤯), and the last finisher in 26h45. That leaves plenty of time to admire the scenery, don’t worry 😂. For those whose knees still have some self-respect, there’s also the 50K with its 2,500 m D+, and the 20K, the perfect gateway to test the Japanese terrain before signing up for the big format 🤪.

The 100K course itself is a full-on program 📆. We’re talking single tracks running alongside mountain streams, 360° panoramic ridgelines, primary beech forests that even Instagram can’t really do justice 😅, and climbs that will make you reconsider your registration choice 😬. The three peaks of Kanan Sanzan (Mount Fuji Shagatake, Mount Dainichi, and Mount Kurakake) structure the route and give the course its very Japanese alpine character: technical, beautiful, and just ruthless enough 🤌. There are also ten aid stations along the course, which means you’re not going to starve between two of them 🍽️. On the other hand, the mandatory gear list is serious—and wait, because the best part is here: there’s a section dedicated to bear management on the race’s official website 🐻. No, no—it’s not a joke. The forests of Ishikawa have bears, and the organizers take it very seriously ⚠️. It’s probably the only UTMB World Series race where “not running into a bear” counts as a performance goal 🏃‍♂️.

KagaSpa is also the first UTMB World Series stop in Japan, launched in 2025 with around 2,500 runners, including 800 international participants from 42 countries 🌍. The race director, Jiro Takikawa, discovered the UTMB universe in Chamonix in 2016 and took nine years to bring that magic back to Japan. And the little bonus is that the event takes place in June, right in the beautiful light of the Japanese summer 🌄.

And if you don’t finish, you’ll end up at the spa either way! 😎