RUN ON THE WORLD’S ONLY MARATHON ICE COURSE LAID BETWEEN TWO OPPOSITE SHORES OF THE PLANET'S DEEPEST LAKE !
Baikal Ice Marathon offers competitors the unique opportunity to race across the frozen waters of the largest, deepest and biotically richest fresh water lake in the world. The Marathon is a part of a larger Lake Baikal winter games festival, the “Winteriad”, which includes also “Baikal Kamchatka” Ice Fishing and Baikal Ice Golf Tournaments Ice Skating Races and a few other outdoor adventure events.
The surface of the frozen Lake Baikal is covered in fields of ‘hummocks’, small hills of ice rubble. Beneath the ice surface, geothermic springs and seismic activity cause localized melting that weakens the ice to form holes and cracks. Besides, every winter huge ice pressure ridges appear near the marathon course which is flat, but the surface is hard and uneven. Although it is mostly covered in a soft layer of snow, there are areas of highly polished ice that create conditions similar to an ice-rink. Strong winds may often add to the already bitingly cold temperature and provide serious resistance to progress across the Lake.
Baikal Ice Marathon is both psychologically and physically demanding. The utterly featureless landscape gives little or no sense of perspective to competitors, offering them nothing to focus on but how far they are from their goal. It is a long, cold, lonely 42.2 km trail across the barren white landscape, where progress is marked only by checkpoints positioned at 5 km intervals..
Baikal Ice Marathon - Russia’s most exotic foot race run entirely on frozen waters also indicated as one of the world's
- Most difficult foot races by Globe Runners
- Most extreme marathon by Daily & Sunday EXPRESS
- Four Toughest Winter Endurance Races in 2018 by Totally Active Magazine
- Five Major Endurance Races in 2016 by Men's Health
- Five coldest foot races by Frequence Running
- Five most extreme winter races by The Clymb
- Six Best Marathons on Ice & Snow by World ’s Marathons
- Top 7 ultra-marathons in Europe by 7 Senses Travel
- Eight Strangest Footraces from Around the World by Travel Pulse
- Seven hardest winter races by Red Bull
- Ten Most Amazing Courses by Red Bull
- Ten Unbelievable Running Course by Wings for Life World Run
- Top Ten Insanely Hard Marathons by Top Tenz
- Ten hardest foot races by Jogging International
- Eleven most beautiful run courses by Trivago Magazine
- Eleven Thrilling Competitions by Buzz Feed
- Twelve Most Extreme World Marathons by Culture Trip
- Thirteen Toughest Half marathons by Half Marathon Net
- Toughest, Bloodiest and Hardest Challenges by Helen Summer
- Fifteen most difficult races by L'Equipe
- 24 of the most extreme foot races by Extreme Running
- 25 Best Adventure Marathons by Men’s Journal
- Ultimate Winter Endurance Race by Oddity Central
- World's Best Marathons by Active Times
Registration for the XVI edition of Baikal Ice Marathon in 2020
THE MARATHON ROUTE
One of the world’s toughest endurance challenges
120 Participants from 50 countries
The Record time 02 : 53 : 26 sec
Ice thickness from 0,65 meter
NEWS
On September 24 and Sept. 26 our Clean Water Alley that stretches along the shore of lake Baikal in the premises of Baikal Biosphere reserve, near Tankhoy, has been joined by 400 trees more , each a meter high, at least.
The XV-th edition of Baikal Ice Marathon "Clean Water Preservation Run" was successfully held on March, 02, 2019. 126 runners from 28 countries took part in the fastest race we ever had.
BIM Newsletter of Lake Baikal freezing in winter of 2019-2020
