Kullamannen by UTMB® 2026

Late October. Night has already fallen for a while when the doors of the church in Höganäs open onto a crowd of tense runners, headlamps on 🔦, breath steaming in the cold air of Scania. And then, appearing out of nowhere, a masked knight on his steed bursts forth to guide the runners out of town before vanishing into the night 🐴. This is Kullamannen by UTMB, and here things run by rules slightly different from those of other races 🏃.

Slightly different, yes. Because this race, founded in 2014 on the southern coasts of Sweden, has a personality that few events in the world can claim. It draws on something old, hard to capture in a spec sheet: an atmosphere. That of a Baltic peninsula lashed by autumn storms, haunted by a legend of an immortal knight, and laced with coastal trails that look out over the sea in total darkness 🌚. It doesn’t resemble anywhere else on the UTMB World Series circuit. It’s unique 🌊.

The legend of Kullamannen tells the story of a broken-hearted knight who retreated to the tip of the peninsula to build a castle surrounded by swords, so he would never forget the one he loved 💔. No one really knows who he was, but in every version of the story, he is the immortal who always sides with the weak against their oppressors ⚔️. Just and merciless at the same time. “Rough but fair,” as the Swedes say 🇸🇪. That’s pretty much the perfect definition of this race. And if you want one possible origin for all this: one source traces it back to the Battle of Svolder in the year 999, when the Norwegian king Olav Tryggvason, surrounded by a far larger fleet, chose to throw himself into the sea rather than surrender. Ultras that refused to quit were being staged on these shores long before bib numbers were invented 🛡️;

The Kullaberg Peninsula, the race’s central playground, is no ordinary backdrop ⚓️. Inhabited since the Stone Age, it preserves stone circles, burial mounds, and traces of ancient villages 🏘️. Under your trail shoes, millennia of history compressed into limestone. And at the tip of the peninsula, the Kullen lighthouse, the most powerful in all of Scandinavia, watches over the Öresund, one of the busiest sea lanes in the world 🚢. At some point on the course, you’re running with a view of hundreds of ships crossing between Sweden and Denmark, in the dark, while a northerly wind politely but firmly tries to make you change your mind about being there 🌬️.

The “100 Miles” numbers deserve to be put plainly on the table: 173 km, 2,300 m of elevation gain, passage through 15 nature reserves and two summits, start from Höganäs, finish in Båstad. The elevation may seem modest, and that is exactly the trap everyone coming from alpine races falls into the first year 🙃. The dropout rate hovers between 40 and 60%. By comparison, the UTMB sits around 30%. The reason comes down to two words: “autumn” and “Sweden,” which brings coastal storms in from the southwest, violent winds, and more night than day 🌝. The section everyone talks about is called Dödens Zon, the Death Zone, with no metaphor ☠️. Technical single tracks along the top of the cliffs of Kullaberg, at night, with wind coming off the Kattegat. Kullamannen is nicknamed “Paradise, the sea and hell,” and it’s not just an expression. It’s also a weather report 😜. Outside the 100 Miles, the “Sprint Ultra 100K” (108 km, 749 m D+, 3 Running Stones) is the version for those who prefer to suffer with a little less nocturnal philosophy; the “Seventh Seal” over 53 km takes its name from Ingmar Bergman’s film (the Swedish filmmaker who shot a knight playing chess with Death on a beach), which, decidedly, fits perfectly with the event’s overall vibe 🎬. Finally, the “North Shore” at 22 km follows the Kullaberg coastline for those who want the scenery without getting the weather full in the face 😬.

What truly sets Kullamannen apart in the UTMB calendar is that it fully owns what it is: an obscure race, literally and figuratively, rooted in Nordic folklore. The organizers say it themselves: everyone who shows up on the start line is already a hero 🦸. Because committing to an ultra-trail on the Swedish coast on the eve of Halloween, knowing there’s a one-in-two chance you won’t finish, really does take a certain kind of courage.

The masked knight will be there. The storm, not necessarily—if you’re lucky. Now it’s up to you! 🫵