VM Nghe An 2026: Mai Trung and Dan Quyet trade metres in the 42km, My Hien leads the women's race

3:00 AM, Ho Chi Minh Square, Vinh, Nghe An. Three figures broke away from the pack within the first metres: Dan Quyet, Dao Ba Thanh and Nguyen Mai Trung. No grandstand called their names at that hour. There was only the sound of footsteps on asphalt still warm from the night, and volunteers strung along Ho Tung Mau street, torches in hand, waiting at the aid stations. Ten minutes later, Mai Trung and Dan Quyet were still running side by side. The two traded the lead, never more than about 10 metres apart. Mai Trung looked focused, eyes fixed ahead. Dan Quyet was looser, waving at the camera as he passed. Same start line, two different states of mind, and both of them correct. This is the first time the VnExpress Marathon Grand Tour has come to the hometown of President Ho Chi Minh. The event includes four distances: 5km, 10km, 21km and 42km. All runners start at Ho Chi Minh Square and finish on Truong Thi street, at its junction with Le Van Huu. The 42km course leaves the square, passes Ho Tung Mau, Truong Thi, Le Nin Boulevard, then joins the Vinh - Cua Lo Boulevard. The opening stretch is almost flat, wide, with few turns. After roughly 16km, the route turns onto Binh Minh, hugs the Cua Lo coastline, turns around at Cua Xa, then brings runners back into the city centre. I read the course map before I read the start list. That habit came from my years at Runner's World, when every running piece had to begin with a single question: whose legs will this terrain take from. The Nghe An course answers fairly clearly. The Cua Lo coastal section is the most expensive part. The sea wind blows against runners as they turn at Cua Xa, humidity is high, and more than twenty kilometres still lie ahead. Whoever holds a steady rhythm here still has a chance on Truong Thi. Whoever burns matches at km 20 will pay at km 35. The other distances run on their own schedules. The 21km starts at 4:00 AM, following Ho Tung Mau, Truong Thi and Le Nin Boulevard before heading straight down Vinh - Cua Lo Boulevard and turning around near km 11. It has two cut-off points: km 10 at 5:40 AM and km 16.9 at 6:50 AM, with the course closing at 7:30 AM. The 10km starts at 5:00 AM with one cut-off at km 6 at 6:15 AM, closing at 7:00 AM. The 5km is run entirely in the city centre, starting at 6:00 AM, with no cut-off, closing at 7:15 AM. From the evening of September 26, hundreds of volunteers gathered at the start area for briefings and operational walkthroughs. Police, traffic officers and local medical staff were mobilised to manage security, traffic and medical support along the route. Bib collection took place at the Nghe An Labour Cultural House across September 25 and 26. Home clubs such as Nghe An Runner and Ha Tinh Runner turned up in bright pink shirts, forming a distinctive band of colour at the start line. In the women's race, My Hien leads. She runs for Nghe An Runners and owns a personal best of 3:07:39. On her home course, she is a familiar name among local runners, but to most spectators following the race through online leaderboards, she was invisible until the standings appeared. Nguyen Mai Trung is 35, from Hanoi, works in e-commerce and is a member of Thanh Cong Runners. He drew attention in the capital's running scene with 2:41:55 at the VnExpress Marathon Hai Phong 2026, placing 69th on the list of fastest full marathon runners in Vietnamese history. That result puts him in the front group of Vietnamese marathon running. But an all-time list cannot tell you who wins on a new course. It only tells you he has run fast before. Running fast and running correctly are two different jobs, and between them lies the hardest part of any marathon. Before the start, Thanh Meo and Vinh Runner noted this was one of the events with the fewest 42km runners, making it easier to chase places and personal bests. The road surface was rated good, the course reasonably friendly. That reading is common, and it is right about half the story. A thin 42km field is not the advantage it looks like. It is a variable. In a marathon, the leader's speed is rarely created by the leader; it is created by the people running beside them through the first thirty kilometres. Someone pulls the pace, someone forces you to hold it. When the pack splits at kilometre one and the gap between the two leaders is 10 metres, nobody plays that role anymore. Both Mai Trung and Dan Quyet have to be their own pacemakers. I went back through several domestic full marathons from the last three seasons. Personal bests tend to fall in races with a deep pack over the first 15km, when each kilometre is set by a group rather than an individual. The ideal condition for a personal best is a field thick enough to pull, then a course empty enough to break away. Remove the first half of that equation and the second half gets much harder. So an event with few 42km runners helps you win, not run fast. Those are different goals, and a runner needs to know which one they are chasing before crossing the line. There is another point rarely mentioned in results coverage. The density of races in Vietnam is now very high. An amateur runner can complete four or five full marathons in a year, plus half marathons and shorter events. The human body was not designed for that frequency. To me, a packed calendar is the single biggest cause of injury, and no medical team can save someone racing two marathons within two months. Looking at the small 42km field in Nghe An, I see another side: it may also be a sign the community is learning to choose races rather than run them all. In the women's race, My Hien's 3:07:39 puts her among the leading Vietnamese women marathoners. Yet in pre-race coverage, her name appeared far less often than the three male names on the same line. Nobody does that on purpose. It is simply an old reading habit. Glory does not come from stadium lights. It comes from women who dare to dream. By 3:10 AM the 42km race was still open. The 10 metres between Mai Trung and Dan Quyet say nothing about who finishes first on Truong Thi. The Cua Lo coast will answer, and it will answer in cadence, not in credentials. Some courses carry no ranking at all, yet they are the ones that tell a runner where they belong. What I want from this event is not a record. I want a results sheet with My Hien on the top line, and a conversation about her that lasts longer than a day. Silence is not for stopping. It is for hearing the footsteps on the asphalt more clearly.