Multi-day races

Here, we’re seriously changing scale 🪜. We’re no longer talking about a single morning of effort, but experiences that stretch over two, three, sometimes six days and much more 📆. The principle never changes: move forward, recover, set off again. And keep doing that all the way to the finish line 🏁. What’s at stake here isn’t just your speed—it’s your ability to last and to endure 😅.

The king format is the stage race. You swallow a portion of the route each day, you sleep in a bivouac or a mountain hut, and you head out again the next day with (slightly) rested legs 🦵. The Marathon des Sables remains the genre reference: around 250 km across the Moroccan desert in six stages, pack on your back and near-total self-sufficiency 🐪. The 4 Deserts series applies the same recipe to the four corners of the globe 🌍, always over 250 km in seven days. And if you prefer fresh air to a furnace, the TransAlpine Run crosses the Alps as a team of two over a week, while the Cape Wrath Ultra heads up wild Scotland over nearly 400 km and eight days. At each stage, the same ritual: eat, take care of your feet, sleep, repeat 🔄. To dig deeper into this terrain, check out our trail and ultra-trail pages.

Not all events are broken down into stages, though ❌. Some are raced in one continuous go… but still swallow up your entire days. The Tor des Géants is the perfect illustration: 330 km and more than 24,000 m of elevation gain around the Aosta Valley, without the clock ever stopping ⏱️. Here, the clock never stops and sleep becomes a tactical weapon: when to sleep, how long, where to lay your head 💤. The Diagonale des Fous, on Réunion Island, follows the same logic: the best finish it in a day, but for most of the field, it stretches well beyond two days, with or without a real night’s rest 😬.

Cycling is not left out—far from it 🚴. 24-hour events have you riding a circuit for as long as possible, solo or in relay, like at the 24 Hours of Le Mans Bike, where laps are counted until the next day. Gravel and bikepacking push the cursor even further: routes of several hundred kilometers to devour self-supported, sometimes over a full week 🤯. The Transcontinental Race flat-out crosses Europe self-supported, with no assistance and no mandatory stages: you sleep when you want, where you can 😜. Enough to turn a simple weekend ride into a real expedition 🗺️. All of that is also waiting for you on our cycling and gravel pages!

And good news: not all these adventures are raced stopwatch in hand ⌚️. Many multi-day formats borrow as much from hiking and walking as they do from competition. You move forward in stages, at your own pace, and the only goal is to reach the finish ⛳️. Here, finishing is already winning, and it’s probably the best gateway into long formats 🥇.

When’s the right time to go for it? All year round 😎. Desert events often focus on the mildest months ☀️, alpine raids settle in for summer when the passes are open ⛰️, and the great cycling crossings run from spring to autumn 🍁. You can start small, with a one-weekend format with accessible stages, before aiming bigger and longer. Whatever your level, from your very first two-day raid to the big self-supported classic, you’ll definitely find the adventure that suits you in the calendar below 👇.

All that’s left is to pack your bag! 🎒