The 2026 Transvulcania festival of races moves into race eve on Friday, with the headline 73km ultramarathon set for a 6am local start on Saturday and the half marathon following at 7:30am. Organisers have published the final entry lists overnight and the men's ultra in particular is the deepest the race has ever assembled, with five athletes carrying sub-7:30 finishing times for the course and at least three more entering with credible recent form on a comparable Sky distance. La Palma's volcanic ridgelines have produced a sequence of dramatic finishes since the race joined the Skyrunner World Series circuit, and the conditions on offer for Saturday point to another tactical, attritional contest.
On the men's side, the names to know are Sange Sherpa Dhiman, fresh from a strong showing at the season opener at Mount Faito, and Patrick Reiterer, who is targeting his first Skyrunner World Series victory after a runner-up finish here in 2024. American Eli Hemming, Sweden's Petter Engdahl and Spain's home favourite Pere Aurell complete a five-deep front group that should be tight at the El Pilar refuge two-thirds of the way through the race. Engdahl, in particular, has spent the spring at altitude in Lanzarote and looks well placed to translate that aerobic block into a strong second half on La Palma's signature long descent into Tazacorte.
The women's race retains the experienced front row that has dominated previews all week. Russia's Ekaterina Mityaeva and France's Manon L'Hirondel have shared three of the past four podiums between them and both arrive in form, with Mityaeva backing up a strong Zegama prep block and L'Hirondel carrying a course-best fastest known time set in training in late April. Britain's Holly Page and Spain's Sheila Aviles complete the projected top four, although as ever at Transvulcania the climb to the Roque de los Muchachos at 2,400 metres above sea level has a way of rearranging expectations.
The weather forecast for Saturday is broadly favourable, with the early kilometres along the southern caldera expected to run in the low teens before the field crosses the cloud line on the climb above El Reventon. Wind on the high ridge is forecast at a manageable 15 to 20 kilometres per hour from the north-east, although organisers will keep watch on visibility around the Roque, where the trail turns into rolling, exposed terrain with several thousand metres of cumulative descent still to come. The technical descent into Tazacorte typically separates the podium from the rest, and that should hold this year too.
Live coverage will be available through the official Transvulcania feed and through iRunFar's text and video updates, with a dedicated tracking link going live at 5:30am local time on Saturday. The combined men's and women's elite starts will share a single front pen for the first time since 2022, a tweak organisers hope will tighten up the early pacing pattern that has previously seen the men's race fragment within the first 10 kilometres. Whatever happens on the trail, the Transvulcania weekend remains one of the headline dates of the European trail-running calendar and a marquee event in the 2026 Skyrunner World Series schedule.