The Most Beautiful Thing (TMBT) Ultra Trail Marathon

The TMBT Ultra-Trail® Marathon is Malaysia’s oldest Ultra-Trail® Marathon with the inaugural race held in 2011. The acronym stands for “The Most Beautiful Thing”, and makes reference to the iconic Mount Kinabalu, which at 4,100 m is one of Southeast Asia’s highest peaks and world heritage site. The TMBT course is set over the ridges and river valleys around the base of Mt. Kinabalu, with the highest elevation on the race course just under 2000m.

The event takes runners from the native villages at the foothills on the western side of Mount Kinabalu towards the Southern side of mountain with the 30k and 50k categories finishing at the viewpoint to Mt. Kinabalu at the town of Pekan Nabalu. The 100k category continues around the base of Mount Kinabalu and to the South-Eastern ridges of Mount Kinabalu to finish in the village of Kundasang.

The routes are challenging but beautiful and give runners an opportunity to experience remote villages and follow village trails through a varied landscape of forest, paddy fields and over steep ridges clad in pineapples and with amazing views to Mt. Kinabalu and over the surrounding ridges and valleys often shrouded in clouds. The trails cross numerous streams with refreshing water on a hot day, while most larger rivers are crossed via hanging, bamboo or log bridges. Part of the trails follow the old heritage trails that used to be a part of the old buffalo trading routes linking villagers from Kota Belud to Bundu Tuhan.

The race has a reputation for being challenging to complete with a combination of steep terrain and technical trail sections, and the weather usually being hot in the first part of the day with a good chance of tropical showers in the afternoon.