Namib Race, live.

250 km through the Namib Desert

The Namib Race is a 250 km footrace in six stages over seven days in the Namib Desert, organised by RacingThePlanet with Swakopmund as the meeting point.

The next edition, the ninth, runs from 21 to 27 May 2028. The Namib Race took over from the organiser's Sahara Race in 2016, and the field is limited to 150 participants, which keeps the camps small.

The total is 250 kilometres. Stages 1 to 4 are each about marathon length, and stage 5 is roughly double that. The highest point on the course is around 550 metres and the total gain is about 2,000 metres, so the challenge lies more in the distance than in big climbs.

The race suits people who have run long distances on several days in a row and who have trained for back to back long days. A week in the desert asks for careful planning of food, feet and recovery, and newcomers to stage racing should start preparing well ahead of the date.

Participants gather in Swakopmund before the race. Most of the course is in open desert, far from towns, so family and friends will mostly follow from a distance during the week.

On Livebib you can follow a participant live when that person chooses to share their own position from the phone they carry during the race. The dot on the map comes from the participant's phone, not from the organiser's timing, and the official results are published by the organiser.