VM Nghe An 2026: The 42km Duel of Mai Trung and Dan Quyet, and the Gems Nobody Has Dug Up

At exactly 3:00 AM on September 27, the starting horn tore through the night at Ho Chi Minh Square. Three runners separated from the pack almost instantly: Dan Quyet, Dao Ba Thanh, and Nguyen Mai Trung. Ten minutes later, the lead group was down to two men running side by side. Mai Trung nudged ahead by roughly 10 meters, his face locked in concentration. Dan Quyet, behind him, was still waving at the cameras, keeping the smile of a man who knows he does not need to accelerate yet. In the women's race, a hometown name surged ahead: My Hien.

Over 42km, a 10-meter gap after 10 minutes means nothing. It is noise. But there was one detail in the VnExpress Marathon Grand Tour Nghe An field that I could not ignore while reading the start list: this is the race with the fewest full marathon runners in the series. For someone whose job is digging through data, a thin field is always the ideal condition for seeing what is really happening.

Context: A course designed for speed

The race is being held for the first time in the hometown of President Ho Chi Minh, with four distances: 5km, 10km, 21km and 42km. All start at Ho Chi Minh Square and finish on Truong Thi Street, at the intersection with Le Van Huu Street. The 42km left the line at 3:00 AM, the 21km at 4:00 AM, the 10km at 5:00 AM, and the 5km at 6:00 AM.

The 42km route runs through Ho Tung Mau, Truong Thi, Le Nin Boulevard, then joins Vinh – Cua Lo Boulevard. After roughly 16km, runners turn onto the Binh Minh road, run along the Cua Lo coastal strip, turn around at Cua Xa, and head back to the city center. The 21km has two cut-off points at km10 (5:40 AM) and km16.9 (6:50 AM), with the course closing at 7:30 AM. The 10km has one cut-off at km6 (6:15 AM), closing at 7:00 AM. The 5km has no cut-off and closes at 7:15 AM.

Operations were prepared from the evening of September 26. Hundreds of volunteers received assignments, installed infrastructure, and finished aid stations and cheering zones. Local police, traffic police and medical staff coordinated traffic control and support along the entire route.

Mai Trung, 35, from Hanoi, works in e-commerce and is a member of Thanh Cong Runners. He is known in the capital's running scene for a time of 2 hours 41 minutes 55 seconds at VnExpress Marathon Hai Phong 2026, placing 69th on the list of fastest full marathon runners in Vietnamese history. My Hien, a hometown runner and member of Nghe An Runners, holds a personal best of 3 hours 07 minutes 39 seconds. Dan Quyet, Dao Ba Thanh and Le Van Huong are other elite names in the field.

The start line also featured hometown clubs such as Nghe An Runner and Ha Tinh Runner in striking pink kits. Before the race, Thanh Meo and Vinh Runner noted this was the race with the fewest 42km runners, making it favorable for competing for places and setting personal bests, with a fairly favorable course and beautiful roads.

Decoding the course and how the two leaders split their cards

Vinh – Cua Lo Boulevard is long, straight, and almost entirely without meaningful climbs. This is the kind of route runners call a fast course: flat surface, few turns, open sightlines. But flat does not mean easy. The Binh Minh stretch along Cua Lo is where sea wind blows head-on, and the wind direction is nearly fixed through the morning. A runner who goes out with a tailwind will face a headwind on the way back, or the reverse, depending on timing. Anyone who understands the course knows how to distribute effort.

With the 42km starting at 3:00 AM, most of the early stretch unfolds in darkness and cool air. The sun rises around 5:30 to 6:00 AM, right as the lead group enters the coastal section and the return leg. Temperatures climb along Binh Minh, where there is no shade from trees, only glare bouncing off the road and sea mist. This is where a 42km race is usually decided, not in the first 10 minutes.

Mai Trung led by 10 meters at the first kilometer. That gap, technically, gives Dan Quyet a small but real advantage: running behind someone at close range reduces wind resistance. At roughly 3 minutes 50 seconds per kilometer, the energy saving is modest, but over 42km it compounds into tens of seconds. Dan Quyet held a relaxed posture. In a marathon, metrics are more trustworthy than expressions. No heart rate or cadence data was published that morning, so one reads indirect signals: stride length, step frequency, knee lift, torso angle under fatigue. A runner about to crack will drop the shoulders, tilt the head back, and lower step frequency while lengthening stride. Those signs usually appear before pace drops, not after.

Mai Trung was locked in. He is 35, working an office job in e-commerce. His 2:41:55 at VnExpress Marathon Hai Phong 2026 places him among the fastest amateur runners in Vietnam, 69th all-time over the full marathon. For someone who does not run professionally, this is a threshold most Vietnamese runners never reach, even after years of training. To hold an average pace under 3 minutes 50 seconds per kilometer for 42km, weekly mileage must stay very high, often above 100km, squeezed between an eight-hour workday.

Age 35 sits at the peak of the amateur marathon curve. Aerobic endurance keeps rising into the mid-thirties, while mental resilience and training discipline have matured. Put another way, if Mai Trung has a window to run the fastest of his life, this is it. Every star was once a piece that sat in the wrong place on a scouting map.

In running analysis, people use the concept of grade-adjusted pace, converting actual speed into the equivalent speed on flat ground. The Nghe An course has little elevation change, so this metric nearly matches actual pace. That means every variation in performance here comes from wind, temperature and tactical decisions, not terrain. For an analyst, this is a clean environment to compare runners' abilities, provided they face the same weather.

My Hien, in the women's race, is the most interesting variable. Her personal best is 3 hours 07 minutes 39 seconds, and she is a member of Nghe An Runners. She runs a course she trains on weekly. Home advantage in a marathon is not an emotional concept: someone who knows exactly where the wind hits, where the gentle slopes are, and where the aid stations stand will save energy at points where rivals have to feel their way. In the women's race, where gaps at the front are usually thin, that edge can be the entire difference.

The cut-off points on the 21km and 10km are operational details but also tactical ones. The km10 cut-off at 5:40 AM and km16.9 at 6:50 AM force 21km runners to hold a minimum speed or be pulled from the course. For 42km runners, no comparable cut-off was published, but the 7:30 AM course closure still puts time pressure on the back of the field. This is why many runners start faster than their true ability and pay for it in the final 10km.

Mobilizing hundreds of volunteers and coordinating traffic police and local medical staff shows the professionalism of the organization. In marathons, the quality of aid stations and the density of medical support on course directly affect front-pack performance: one misplaced station, or a water shortage at km30, is enough to break any runner's plan.

A paradox about courses called easy for record-setting

The familiar remark before every Vietnamese race is that the course is beautiful, flat and favorable for a personal best. That is technically true. But it masks another consequence: flat, fast courses produce the most personal bests, and are also the least reliable places to judge a runner's true ability.

A personal best set on flat ground, with a tailwind and cool early-autumn morning temperatures, is not equivalent to the same number on a hilly course, under harsh sun, or with many turns. The performance tables the Vietnamese running community uses do not distinguish between the two. When a runner climbs high on the all-time fastest list, people rarely ask: where was that time set, what was the weather, how many meters of climbing did the course have.

The detail about the smallest 42km field also needs reading in another direction. For runners, it is favorable for placing. For an observer, it is a signal about the depth of the movement. A race with a thin 42km field will produce high placings for those who finish, but a high placing does not equal a strong field. Across Southeast Asia, the number of sub-3-hour runners remains very small, and most are concentrated in a few major races. A local race whose 42km leaders can be counted on one hand reflects the reality: talent exists, but it has not been fully dug up.

The most notable thing is not at the finish line

Based on my experience covering amateur and youth races across Southeast Asia, never judge the depth of a sport by its front pack. Look at the middle pack. At VnExpress Marathon Grand Tour Nghe An, the middle of the 42km field is where the information lives.

A 35-year-old e-commerce worker training on his own, running 2:41:55, is the kind of talent a system should have found and developed before he turned thirty. A My Hien at 3:07:39 with Nghe An Runners, running her best at home, is the kind of athlete federations should be tracking. These people do not appear on the podium of international races. They sit in the sediment, waiting for someone willing to do the digging.

My shovel is data, and pace and heart rate are the measure that never lies. The grandstand is not only a place where cheers ring out. It is the sediment layer recording how a generation loves the road.

My judgment on this race: the difference between Mai Trung and Dan Quyet will be settled on the Binh Minh coastal stretch at Cua Lo, not in the first kilometer. If Mai Trung holds a steady rhythm past km30 and does not surge early on the way out, he has a high probability of keeping the lead. If Dan Quyet waits until the turnaround at Cua Xa and then accelerates, the picture could flip. The biggest risk for both: temperatures rising quickly after 6 AM and the wind direction along the coast. For My Hien, home advantage and a 3:07:39 best put her in pole position in the women's race, provided she does not misjudge her effort at km20.

There are gems that do not sit at the top of the leaderboard, but beneath the dust of the substitutes' bench. I do not go looking for treasure where the lights shine brightest. I shine my lamp into the dark corners others forget. In Nghe An this time, that dark corner is the middle pack of the 42km, where names that have never made the papers are running faster than many people think. The pandemic summer taught me that what is buried deepest is sometimes what shines clearest. The only remaining question is when someone will finally pick up the shovel.