From the trail to the race
Why it's called Alpe Adria Trail, who dreamed it up before us, and why we run — not just walk — along that same border.
01 A path born in 2012
Before it was a race, Alpe Adria Trail was a path: 750 kilometres and 43 stages from the Grossglockner, Austria's highest peak, to Muggia on the Adriatic — crossing Carinthia, Slovenia and Friuli Venezia Giulia. It was born in 2012 from an Interreg Italy-Austria project, led by PromoTurismoFVG, together with Kärnten Werbung (the Austrian region of Carinthia's tourist board) and Spirit Slovenia. In 2016 the trail made National Geographic's list of the world's ten best hiking routes.
02 From the trail to the race
In 2021 that same PromoTurismoFVG — the body that had steered the trail's birth in 2012 — commissioned ASD SentieroUNO ASD SentieroUNO to bring runners to that same territory too: a project to promote Friuli Venezia Giulia through mountain running, with a presence at major international marathons. It's the direct origin of Alpe Adria Ultra Trail: not an event born alongside the trail or inspired by its name, but its sporting offshoot, created by the very body that has always promoted that territory.
That's where the name comes from, and that's who we're speaking to: not just runners, but also fast hikers — people who walk fast, who mix running and walking, who on that distance would rather arrive on foot than not arrive at all running. It's the same idea behind our philosophy: wide cutoffs and generous maximum times aren't a compromise, they're the choice that's consistent with where we come from.
«The same body that designed the trail in 2012 came back to us, years later, and asked us to bring in the runners. Not heirs by chance: heirs by commission.»
03 One name, two ways to cross it
Most people who search for “Alpe Adria Trail” online are looking for the trail: its 43 stages, its mountain huts, the guides for hiking it over several weeks. That's fair enough — it came first, and it's a bigger project than ours. Our race shares its name, its territory and, in part, its spirit, but it's a different thing: a two-day-a-year sporting event, not a 43-stage trail. If you came here looking for the long trail, the trail's official website is alpe-adria-trail.com. If instead you're after a race — a run, an ultra, a one- or two-day experience on the same mountains — you're in the right place: discover the nine distances, summer and winter.