EMU 6-Day Race

The EMU 6-Day Race is put on at Balatonfüred by the Association for Hungarian Ultrarunners, and 2026 is its fifteenth edition. It is a fixed-time race: the clock starts at noon and stops at noon six days later, and where a runner finishes on the list is decided by distance rather than by a finish line. The loop is 898.2 metres of closed asphalt inside the Balatontourist Füred campsite, lit along its whole length, so the whole race happens inside a few hundred metres of lakeshore with the runners, their crews and their beds all in the same field.

It has become the race where the long marks get set. Matthieu Bonne covered 1,045.519 km here in September 2024, which stood as the men's six-day world record until it was beaten eight months later, and the winners' list since 2021 runs through Gábor Rakonczay, Szabolcs Beda, Viktoria Brown and Zsuzsanna Maráz. It holds the IAU Gold Label, which the International Association of Ultrarunners lists against it on its own race calendar, and it has carried a championship of one kind or another most years: a World Trophy from 2021 to 2023, the Hungarian national championship in 2024 and 2025, and the GOMU 6-Day World Championship in 2024 and again in 2026.

A certified 898.2-metre road loop inside the Balatontourist Füred campsite, 100% asphalt, surrounded by trees, with left and right turns but no change of direction. It is closed to traffic and lit along its entire length, and runners circle it clockwise for the full 144 hours. Laps are counted by a chip worn on the ankle, and the race counts a lap only when the chip has been read by sensor mats at both of the two farthest points of the loop, so a cut lap registers as an error and is deducted. The last partial lap counts too, but it is measured on the ground at the end of the race by an accredited course measurer rather than by the chips.

Entry is through the race's own website and the field is small enough that it sells out months ahead: the 2026 race was full on April 8, after which entries went to a waiting list. Runners must be 21 or over, there is no upper age limit, and a stamped medical certificate is due three weeks before the start. A name appears on the public start list as soon as a first payment lands and turns green once the fee is paid in full, so the queue is ordered by payment rather than by the form.