A race that started with one footpath
The races are put on by people who live here, run here, and know the hill behind the village metre by metre. We hold two events a year, and we set them up properly.
From 6500 metres to six races
The first edition was a single 6500 metre mountain race one October, with fourteen bib numbers and one arch on the quay. It had rained overnight and the trail was mud.
Each year we added something. A longer loop, then the diathlo in from Agiofili, then the road race down from Porto Katsiki, and last the 20 kilometre mountain race with 700 metres of climbing.
At the sixth edition the programme had six starts across two days and electronic timing on everything. We now run two events a year: the Lefkas Fun Run on 11 October 2026, and the road and mountain weekend on 18 and 19 June 2027.
Handshakes on the square after the race.
Dozens of vests, two days
The races are put up by volunteers from the village, runners who raced here last year, and friends who drive down from Lefkada town for the weekend. There is no professional crew.
Marking goes in the day before with tape and arrows, and comes out the same evening. The hill is left the way we found it.
On the quay before the first finishers.
The people behind the races
Etaireia Touristiki Lefkada
Co-organiser of the races, handling permits, coaches and beds for the packages out of Athens.
Vasiliki professionals association
The shops and rooms in the village that open for the weekend and feed the runners and the crew.
Apollonioi, running
The group that mapped and measured the race courses on GPS and puts the marking up on the hill.
Vasiliki, southern Lefkada
Vasiliki is a fishing village with one of the steadiest afternoon winds in the Mediterranean, which is why the bay fills with sails every summer. The same wind makes an afternoon on the hill bearable.
Ten minutes west by boat is Agiofili, deep clear water over white pebble. The diathlo starts there, and most runners end up back there after they finish.
Agiofili cove.