Pyongyang Marathon: running 42 km in the world's most closed country
There are races you choose for the clock, and others you choose for what they say about the world. The Pyongyang Marathon belongs to the second category. Each year in spring, a few hundred foreign runners line up in the North Korean capital for 42.195 km, under supervision like nowhere else on Earth. A legendary race, not for its records, but for its total incongruity.
A race born to celebrate an anniversary
The Pyongyang Marathon was officially born in 1981, under the name of the Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon—Mangyongdae being the birthplace of Kim Il-sung, founder of the North Korean regime. The men's race preceded the women's, which was introduced in 1984. From the beginning, the event was not conceived as a simple sporting event: it is part of the calendar of celebrations surrounding Kim Il-sung's birthday, in mid-April, known in North Korea as the "Day of the Sun."
For nearly twenty years, the race remained an almost exclusively national affair, open to a few foreign athletes invited by the regime. The general Western public ignored it entirely.
2014, the year amateurs could run
The real turning point took place in 2014. For the first time, the marathon opened up to foreign amateur runners, who could register via specialized travel agencies and start alongside professional athletes. That year, 225 amateurs from 27 countries lined up—a tiny figure compared to the world's biggest marathons, but a major diplomatic and symbolic event for one of the most closed-off countries on the planet.
Since then, participation has remained a rare and controlled privilege: registration via an authorized tour operator, a fully organized trip, and the constant presence of official guides. Running in Pyongyang means never running alone.
The most monitored route in the world
The marathon traditionally starts and finishes in Kim Il-sung Stadium, filled with tens of thousands of local spectators who come to cheer on the runners. The course passes through the capital's great symbols: the Arch of Triumph, Kim Il-sung Square, the Juche Tower, and Kim Il-sung University. Four distances are offered—marathon, half-marathon, 10km, and 5km—allowing very different profiles to take part in the experience.
The event has experienced several interruptions, notably from 2020 to 2024 due to border closures, before resuming in April 2025. It remains, edition after edition, one of the most unpredictable on the global calendar: last-minute cancellations, route changes, and sudden closures of the country to foreign visitors are all part of its history.
The proof, once again, with the 2026 edition: this Monday, March 9, North Korean authorities announced the cancellation of the Pyongyang International Marathon, then scheduled for the following April 5, without providing the slightest explanation. The race, which seemed to have regained a regular pace since its resumption in 2025, thus finds itself interrupted once again—a confirmation, if one were needed, that nothing is ever guaranteed with this event, right up until the day of the start.
A race bib, a book, an experience told from the inside
Few Western accounts exist of this race experienced from the inside. French writer Jacky Schwartzmann, author of noir novels, is among the few to have taken the plunge. His bib: number 1071. From this experience came Pyongyang 1071, a book that recounts, with both humor and lucidity, the stages of registration, selection, and then the 42 kilometers covered in one of the most closed countries in the world—guided, disoriented, but above all, highly supervised.
This text illustrates a truth that Spiridon culture has always defended: running remains a tremendous indicator of the world around us, even—and perhaps especially—when it takes place in a context as far removed from the idea of freedom that the act of running usually carries.
To go further
Want to discover this unique narrative in the running landscape? Find Pyongyang 1071, the book by Jacky Schwartzmann, in our selection of books on running.
Franck Tuil - Author - Specialist in running culture