Ultimate Trails of Penang 2026

Race Concept

Penang Island is blessed with amazing numbers of trails for many decades. Blazed by the local inhabitants of Penang, these trails link up various heritage sites and points of interests all over the island. Starting from Youth Park and Botanical gardens, the trails spread out from the north to central and southern part of the Island, from Air Itam, Batu Ferringhi, to Teluk Bahang and Balik Pulau.

For decades, Penang people have taken to these trails during many of their weekends and public holidays. Some trails are easy and popular for the leisure weekend hikers, while others are rather hilly and less chartered which provide interesting challengers to serious climbers and trail runners.

Yet, for a long time, most of Penang trails have been a mystery for a lot of people in the Northern parts of Peninsula Malaysia, and Malaysia in general. Many Penang people have not been exposed to the many beauties and challenges of these trails.

Until Sep 2018. Ultimate Trails of Penang is conceived with a passion for nature trails. Following the successful inaugural edition on 23rd Sep 2018, where more than 400 participants signed up despite the late opening of registration 3 months prior to the race date. Participants have given the race a rave review. In 2019, a new 100km distance category with elevation gain of 5500 m was added to the original 3 categories of 20km, 40km, and 60km, we managed to attract over 600 participants from more states and more countries. Since then, UToP has been widely recognized as one of the ttoughest 100km trail race in Malaysia. In 2022, we had nearly 1000 runners from 23 countries. In 2023, we are adding 100 miles to the mix, which makes this race category one of the toughest ultra trail race in Malaysia.

In 2025, we raised the challenge to 200km, going for the 1st time to the southern part of Penang Island, including Balik Pulau and Gertak Sanggul. The cutoff time of 72hrs should however be generous enough

Building on this foundation, UToP has attracted premier brand sponsor,

• Ultimate Trails of Penang (UToP) takes place at Penang Municipal Park or Taman Perbandaran Pulau Pinang which is well known as Penang's Youth Park.