Ultra Top 8 · Rev
Ultra Marathon Cutoffs, Race by Race, From Comrades to Run Rabbit Run
What separates a 50K bolted onto a road marathon from 100 miles in the Rockies is not the distance. It is the cutoff structure, the spacing of aid, and who is still out there after dark.
Run Rabbit Run sells two entries to the same 100 miles at the same price. Hares pay $595 plus $42.17 in processing and get 30 hours to finish.
Tortoises pay $595 plus the same $42.17 and get 36. Enter as a Tortoise at 60 and over for men, 50 and over for women, and an early start stretches that to 38.
The course does not change — the same 21,000 feet of climbing above Steamboat Springs either way. What changes is the clock you agreed to at checkout.
Ultra marathons get sorted by distance on every race calendar, and distance is the least useful number on the page.
Steamboat Springs, United States
1Run Rabbit Run 100: Tortoise 36 hours or Hare 30, same price
September 18, 2026, northern Colorado. The 100-mile field leaves the Steamboat Springs ski area base at 9:00 on Friday, roughly 6,900 feet up; the 50 Miler goes at 6:00 the next morning. The route climbs Buffalo Pass at about 3,139 meters and takes in Emerald Mountain, swinging between a low point near 2,042 meters and a high point of about 3,211 meters, for around 21,000 feet of total gain over the 100.
Altitude acclimation is not optional here, and the field is split into Tortoises and Hares. Tortoises carry a 36-hour limit that closes at 9:00 Saturday evening; Hares carry 30. The two 100-mile entries cost exactly the same, $595 plus $42.17 in processing, while the 50 Miler is $375 plus $27.87.
Registration closes September 15. Packet pickup doubles as the race director's pre-race briefing, with the time and place published only on the official site. There is no shuttle on the official race information page, and the local city bus, fare-free as it is, does not run to the trailhead — a car or a ride is part of the entry whether or not anyone tells you so.
For a first attempt at the distance, the Tortoise entry is the rational purchase. Six extra hours, no surcharge, and the mountain does not care which word is printed on your bib.
Run Rabbit RunFri, September 17, 2027 · D-308 · Steamboat Springs, United StatesSee race details
2Dallas 50K: the mile 18.5 cutoff at noon is the one to plan for
December 13, 2026, and everything leaves Dallas City Hall Plaza at 8:00 — half, full and 50K together, at Marilla and South Akard. One gate applies to all of them: mile 7.8, at Richmond Avenue and Greenville Avenue, closes at 10:45. That is 2 hours 45 minutes for 7.8 miles, roughly 21 minutes per mile, which almost nobody misses.
The 50K's own gate is the one to read. Mile 18.5, at Winsted Drive and the White Rock Lake Trail, closes at noon: 4 hours for 18.5 miles, just under 13 minutes per mile, and it arrives after the long loop around the lake rather than before it. The marathon circles White Rock Lake once; the 50K adds an out-and-back on the Santa Fe Trail.
Entry is $199 for the 50K, $189 for the marathon and $169 for the half, with registration open since May 1 on Race Roster and the price stepping up as the date approaches. Bibs come from the expo at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, Friday 11:00 to 18:00 and Saturday 9:00 to 18:00. There is no race-morning pickup, which for a December ultra means arriving in the city a full day early.
Dallas MarathonSun, December 13, 2026 · D-30 · Dallas, United StatesSee race details
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
3Comrades: 12 hours for 88 kilometres, and five hills
June 13, 2027 is the centenary running, a down run from Pietermaritzburg City Hall to Durban over roughly 88 to 90 kilometres. The start sits near 655 meters and the finish at Kings Park Stadium near 8, which reads as a descent and runs as anything but: Cowies, Field's, Botha's, Inchanga and Polly Shortts are the five climbs that decide the day. The limit is 12 hours, and intermediate cutoffs remove runners long before that final gun — early pace discipline is the whole race.
Finishers are sorted into medal bands by time rather than placing, gold through bronze. Entry is priced by where you live: 1,200 rand for South African runners and 2,000 for the rest of the continent, both 2026 reference figures, against 4,500 rand confirmed for international entrants in 2027. June is winter in KwaZulu-Natal, cold at the dawn start and warm by late morning, so layers you can throw away.
One caveat on the record: comrades.com blocks automated access, so the 2027 dates here were cross-checked against secondary reporting rather than read off the official page. Expect the centenary field to fill faster than usual.
Comrades MarathonSun, June 13, 2027 · D-212 · Pietermaritzburg, South AfricaSee race details
4EcoTrail Paris: four aid stations across 80 km
October 17, 2026, and the 80 km leaves the Île de Loisirs de Cergy-Pontoise in waves between 11:00 and 11:15. The limit is 12 hours, which means the clock runs to 23:00 and the back half of the field finishes on trail in the dark. Entry runs 110 euros until June 8, then 120, then 140; the 50 km is 90, 100 and 115, and the 20 km is 45, 50 and 56.
Each distance starts somewhere different, so check your own venue rather than the event's. Registered runners get free public transport to the start under the organizer's environmental policy. The course is built to finish at the Trocadéro esplanade, though the organisers have not yet published the finish point for this edition.
Bibs are collected at the Centre Sportif Émile Anthoine in the 15th on October 15 and 16, 11:00 to 20:30, with ID and the emailed number and QR code. Published support on the 80 km comes to one water point and four aid stations, roughly one stop every 16 kilometres, and very few races in this group publish their aid spacing at all. On this course that spacing is the plan.
Salomon EcoTrail ParisOctober 2027 · expected · Paris, FranceSee race details
Apollo Bay, Australia
5Great Ocean Road: 44 km point to point, 5:15 a.m. shuttle
May 15 and 16, 2027, on the southwest coast of Victoria. The festival runs a 60 km ultra, a 44 km marathon — not 42.195 — a 23 km half, a 6 km, walks and a 1.5 km kids' event. The marathon threads Lorne, Wye River, Kennett River and Skenes Creek into Apollo Bay, one-way along the coast road, off an 8:00 start in the previous year's schedule.
None of those three towns has a railway station. The organizer's shuttle leaves both Apollo Bay and Lorne at 5:15 and links the towns, at 15 Australian dollars one-way last year, booked alongside the entry. The return service out of Thomson Street in Apollo Bay stops at 14:30.
That is not a cutoff and it appears on no results sheet, but for anyone without a car it works like one, and it is the number the 60 km field should plan backward from. Bibs post out to Australian addresses registered before early April; everyone else collects on the Friday or Saturday at the Lorne or Apollo Bay race week office. Point-to-point ultras quietly hand the logistics problem back to the runner.
Great Ocean Road Running FestivalSun, May 16, 2027 · D-184 · Apollo Bay, AustraliaSee race details
Hinckley, United States
6Run with Scissors: 52 miles in four laps
October 25, 2026, at Ledge Lake Lodge inside the Cleveland Metroparks Hinckley Reservation. One lap is the half, two is the marathon and four is the double marathon at 52 miles. Each lap carries about 1,600 feet of climbing, so the fourth lap lands a runner at roughly 6,400 feet of gain.
Surface is rock, root and open field — moderate rather than technical. The start is 7:00; half and full runners have until 22:00, and the double marathon gets a 16-hour clock. Entry is $100 through May 31, $110 through August 31 and $120 until registration closes October 22, which makes it by far the cheapest route past 50 miles in this group.
There is no transit anywhere near it. The lap format is the argument for it: a drop bag you reach four times, and a decision point every lap rather than one irreversible commitment at mile 20.
Run with ScissorsOctober 2027 · expected · Hinckley, United StatesSee race details
7Cowtown: the ultra's own time limit is not published
February 28, 2027 in Fort Worth. Saturday holds the 10K and the 5K; Sunday sends the half, the full and the ultra out together, with the marathon off at 7:00. The published limit belongs to the marathon — 7 hours 30 minutes from the last corral — and the ultra's own limit has not been published.
The route takes in the Trinity River Trails and the Cultural District and returns to where it started. Packet pickup and the health and fitness expo sit in the Amon G. Carter Exhibits Hall at the Will Rogers Memorial Center, running 10:00 to 18:00 two days out and 6:00 to 17:00 the day before last year.
Marathon entry climbed from about $137 early to about $244 near the close, with in-person entry open until midnight the night before. The nearest stop is Camp Bowie and Will Rogers on Trinity Metro routes 2, 52 and 53, about four minutes on foot.
The Cowtown MarathonSun, February 28, 2027 · D-107 · Fort Worth, United StatesSee race details
8San Francisco: $521.54 ultra entry, no published time limit
July 25, 2027, the most expensive bib of these eight. The ultra costs $521.54 against $409.34 for the marathon, $291.64 for the first half and $212.44 for the second. The event is USATF-certified and a Boston qualifier, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge with the start and finish at the Ferry Building.
The time limit for every distance here, the ultra included, has not been published. The Embarcadero shuts from 00:01 to 15:00. Ticketed race-morning coaches run from six BART stations — Bay Fair at 3:50, Walnut Creek at 3:55, Daly City, El Cerrito Plaza, MacArthur and Millbrae at 4:05 — all arriving by 4:30, because BART itself does not start early enough to make the gun.
Fog and cool air are normal for late July. The 2026 marathon sold out into a free waitlist rather than a lottery.
The San Francisco MarathonSun, July 25, 2027 · D-254 · San Francisco, United StatesSee race details
Editor's pick
If this is the step after 42.195 km, take Run with Scissors. Fifty-two miles for $120, four laps of the same 1,600 feet, a drop bag you touch four times, and a 16-hour clock that ends at 22:00 for the shorter fields and later for yours. One lap in, you already know precisely what the next three will cost you, which is not true of any point-to-point on this list.
Nothing about it is glamorous, and that is the argument: a first ultra should be the one where a bad patch costs a lap, not a 20-mile commitment with no way back to the car. For a road version of the same logic, BMW Dallas at $199 keeps you inside a city, on a marathon's aid pattern, with a crowd — as long as you can clear mile 18.5 by noon. Comrades and Run Rabbit Run are not first ultras.
They are the reason people keep entering after the first one.
Eight races, eight clocks, and the entry form rarely explains any of them. Before paying, find three numbers: the finish limit, every intermediate cutoff with its actual clock time, and the distance between aid stations.
Dallas publishes all three. EcoTrail publishes the aid.
Cowtown and San Francisco publish neither one for their ultra, and both sell the entry anyway. Ask before you buy.
Entry period · Accommodation
| Races | Itinerary | Entry period | INFO. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run Rabbit Run | Fri, September 17, 2027 | Sun, December 6, 2026 ~ — | Accommodation · See race details |
| Dallas Marathon | Sun, December 13, 2026 | Fri, May 1, 2026 ~ — | Accommodation · See race details |
| Comrades Marathon | Sun, June 13, 2027 | Wed, September 9, 2026 ~ Tue, September 22, 2026 | Accommodation · See race details |
| Salomon EcoTrail Paris | October 2027 · expected | Not yet open | Accommodation · See race details |
| Great Ocean Road Running Festival | Sun, May 16, 2027 | — ~ Sat, May 15, 2027 | Accommodation · See race details |
| Run with Scissors | October 2027 · expected | Not yet open | Accommodation · See race details |
| The Cowtown Marathon | Sun, February 28, 2027 | — ~ Fri, February 26, 2027 | Accommodation · See race details |
| The San Francisco Marathon | Sun, July 25, 2027 | Open | Accommodation · See race details |
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