Turkey's Race Calendar: A Look at Three Years of Data

My first thought was that this might be a quirk of one year. It isn't. We went back three years, and what came out was more interesting than what I expected.

This is a data piece, not a complaint. Figures are as of 11 August 2026. There will be gaps — some small local runs appear on no central list at all.

Part 1: The calendar has two peaks

Turkey's race calendar isn't spread evenly across the year. It has two peaks, and those peaks have sat in the same place for three years.

All three years share the same shape: a spring peak, a second and larger autumn peak, and two quiet stretches between them — high summer and winter.

To keep the comparison fair we looked at June–December in both years: 239 races in 2025, 249 in 2026. The totals are nearly identical and so is the distribution. This isn't fluctuation; it's a settled pattern.

The cleanest view of that shape doesn't come from our own catalogue but from the Turkish Athletics Federation's activity calendar. 2024 is a closed year, so it can be counted completely:

The federation's data is compiled entirely independently of ours and uses a much narrower definition — sanctioned road races only, no trail, no unsanctioned local runs. It still produces the same shape: 18 in May, 17 in October, 16 in September. Not a single one in December.

When two independently gathered datasets show the same pattern, the pattern is coming from the calendar rather than from how either was collected.

Part 2: This isn't specific to Turkey

Once the pattern was clear, the obvious question was whether other countries look the same.

They do. According to RunSignup's US industry report, the American calendar behaves the same way: the busiest months are September, October and August, while December through March is the quietest stretch of the year. Most of the world's major marathons — Berlin, Chicago, New York — are run in autumn. The spring/autumn double peak is a global feature of running calendars.

The reason is simple and universal: temperature. The ideal window for long distance is narrow, and in most countries it opens twice a year.

So Turkey's calendar isn't an anomaly. The difference is scale. September in the US holds around 3,600 races, spread across 50 states. October in Turkey holds 49, inside a much smaller geography and a much smaller pool of runners.

Part 3: What happens within the month

Sharing a month is expected. What's more interesting is sharing a day.

In June–December 2025 there were 21 dates carrying four or more races. In 2026 there are 25.

The busiest days:

26 October 2025 — 9 races 4 October 2026 — 9 races

Neither is a coincidence. One is Republic Day weekend, the other the first Sunday of October.

The same clustering shows up in our own catalogue — and here we can see not just the count but exactly which events land together:

Those lists matter, because they say something the bare number doesn't. The five events on 24 October are a cycling gran fondo, a half marathon, an orienteering event, a swimming championship and a triathlon. Five events on one morning, but no runner is looking at five options.

Three of the nine races on 26 October 2025 were in the same city: the Zeytinburnu, Gaziosmanpaşa and Beylikdüzü Republic Runs. Three municipalities, one morning, one theme. 2026 looks similar: the Zeytinburnu and Caddebostan Republic Runs on 25 October, thirteen kilometres apart.

Holiday-themed races clustering on the holiday weekend isn't surprising — the date is the whole reason the event exists.

Part 4: When does "the same day" become a real clash?

So far we've said "the same day". But sharing a date means nothing on its own. A runner in Istanbul was never going to Sinop.

For one race to genuinely be an alternative to another, three things have to be true at once: the same date, the same sport, and a travelable distance. We put every same-day pair in the catalogue through those three conditions:

The number falls fast. Half of the 104 same-day pairs are in different sports — one is a swim, the other a run. Of the 52 that remain, most are hundreds of kilometres apart: 40 pairs sit beyond 300 kilometres.

Pairs within 50 kilometres of each other: one. The Zeytinburnu and Caddebostan Republic Runs, thirteen kilometres apart, on the same morning.

So "the calendar clashes" goes from 104 to 1 as soon as you tighten the measure. That is what "same-day races aren't really a problem" looks like when you put a number on it.

Part 5: Which races land on crowded days?

Here we tested an assumption: that races sharing a date are mostly small local runs, and that large events steer clear of each other.

The data half-confirms it.

Of the 351 races falling on crowded days (four or more), 43% are marathons, ultras or internationally-scaled events. Among the 124 races that have a date to themselves, the figure is 46%. There's no meaningful difference — crowded days are not made up only of small races.

But looking at individual flagship events changes the picture:

Kaçkar by UTMB (2025) — the only race that day Mersin International Marathon (2026) — the only race that day Istanbul Marathon (2025 and 2026) — 3 and 2 races that day Cappadocia Ultra-Trail (2026) — 2 races that day

These sit on the calendar's quietest days. Against that:

Eker I Run (2026) — 9 races that day Troya Marathon (2026) — 8 races that day Gelibolu Marathon (2025 and 2026) — 5 races that day

So "the big ones avoid each other" holds clearly for some races and not for others. Kaçkar and Mersin have found themselves wide space on the calendar; Eker I Run is run on October's busiest day.

Strategy may not be the whole explanation. Kaçkar is a UTMB World Series event with a date tied to an international calendar. The Mersin Marathon is in December — an empty month already. Eker I Run falls on the first Sunday of October, which is the window everyone is looking at.

Part 6: The quiet months

This is the least-discussed part of the data. The same stretches are thin in all three years:

December: 14 in 2025, 13 in 2026 January: 13 in 2026 February: 29 in 2026 March: 26 in 2026

The federation calendar makes it sharper still: across all of 2024, the number of sanctioned road races in December was zero.

Southern Turkey is runnable in those months. Our own weather data supports it: the Antalya Ultra, held in late December, has averaged 10–12°C on race day over the last three years — an ideal range for long distance.

That doesn't automatically make winter an open opportunity. Winter events carry their own problems: short daylight, less predictable forecasts, and runners who may not want to travel. But the data does say this is where competition for a date is lowest.

So what does this add up to?

We're not drawing a verdict. What the data shows:

The calendar has two peaks, stable across three years — and two independently gathered sources, our catalogue and the federation's 2024 calendar, produce the same shape. The same pattern holds in other markets like the US, which points at climate rather than anything local. Crowded days aren't made up only of small races — but several of the largest events have clearly chosen sparse ones. There are 104 same-day pairs of events; add the same-sport and 50-kilometre conditions and one pair is left. Winter has been thin for three years running, and December 2024 was completely empty on the federation calendar.

Which of those is a "problem" and which is simply a "condition" depends on where you stand. For a runner, 49 races in October is abundance and 29 in February is scarcity. For an organiser, the same table is one input among many when picking a date.

We're just putting the numbers down.

A note on the numbers

The data in this piece comes at two different levels of solidity.

The figures in the charts can be reproduced directly: the federation's 2024 activity calendar is a published document, and the same-day event lists and the clash calculation are computed live from the RaceTurkiye catalogue. As the catalogue changes, the charts change with it.

The three-year totals in the text — October 49, December 13, the 43%/46% comparison — come from a dataset compiled from third-party calendars, and each was verified when this piece was written. But that compilation wasn't stored permanently, so we can't reproduce it the same way today. That's why those numbers stayed in the prose and didn't become charts: a chart claims more precision than we can currently stand behind for the figure underneath it.

Our catalogue is also forward-looking. It holds no events in January today because it hasn't been compiled that far ahead — not because January is quiet. That's why the catalogue's month-by-month distribution isn't charted here: that curve would measure our collection date, not the racing calendar.

If you want to check your own date

Every race page on RaceTurkiye has a "Nearby Races on the Same Dates" section showing other races within three days and 150 kilometres. The season planner flags it when two races you've picked sit too close together.

The catalogue is public. If you spot a missing race, tell us — small local runs are often absent from central lists, and that's the weakest point in any analysis like this one.

Sources: RaceTurkiye catalogue, Team Runbo race calendar, TAF 2024 season calendar, RunSignup RaceTrends 2025 industry report.