Mai Trung Leads Dan Quyet by 10 Metres as My Hien Surprises in the Women's Race at VM Nghe An 2026

At exactly 3 a.m., the starter's signal cut through the night in Vinh. Hundreds of pairs of legs surged onto Le Nin Boulevard, and within ten minutes the men's 42km race had narrowed to a two-man duel: Nguyen Mai Trung and Dan Quyet, roughly ten metres apart. The leader kept his head down, locked in concentration, barely aware of the cameras. The man chasing waved to the lens, smiling easily. Those ten metres, at the tenth minute of a 42km journey, said nothing about who would win. But they said a great deal about how two people walk into the same long pain.

I followed this race from Da Nang, through a screen, exactly the way I followed esports finals more than a decade ago. One thing has never changed: I still hear my own heartbeat keeping time with someone else's stride. From the virtual grandstand, I hear my heart beat in rhythm with the race — except this time the "match" is 42km long, and there is no Baron steal that can flip the outcome, only footsteps that must be paid for one by one.

Context: a major race comes to the homeland of Ho Chi Minh

VnExpress Marathon Grand Tour Nghe An 2026 is the first time this event has been held in the homeland of President Ho Chi Minh. The event features four distances: 5km, 10km, 21km and 42km. All athletes start at the Ho Chi Minh Square area and finish on Truong Thi Street, at the intersection with Le Van Huu Street. The organiser distributed bibs at the Nghe An Labour Culture House across 25 and 26 September, and from the evening of 26 September, hundreds of volunteers were already at the start area for assignments and operational briefings.

The course is the most interesting part. The 42km distance starts at 3 a.m., the earliest of the four. From Ho Chi Minh Square, runners pass Ho Tung Mau, Truong Thi and Le Nin Boulevard before joining the Vinh - Cua Lo Boulevard. After roughly 16km, the course turns onto Binh Minh route, runs along the Cua Lo coastal area, and makes a U-turn at Cua Xa. The 21km distance starts at 4 a.m., following Ho Tung Mau - Truong Thi - Le Nin Boulevard and then straight along Vinh - Cua Lo Boulevard, turning around near km 11, returning to the centre and finishing on Truong Thi Street. The 10km starts at 5 a.m., turning around near km 5. The 5km takes place entirely in the city centre, starting at 6 a.m., with no cut-off, closing at 7:15 a.m.

These timing markers are not minor details. For a race, the clock shapes tactics. The 21km has two cut-off points at km 10 (5:40 a.m.) and km 16.9 (6:50 a.m.), with the course closing at 7:30 a.m. The 10km has one cut-off at km 6 (6:15 a.m.), closing at 7 a.m. In other words: by around 7 a.m., the sun is already up over central Vietnam, and anyone still on the course is running under the first heat of the day. A 42km runner who starts at 3 a.m. will finish somewhere between 5:40 and 7 a.m. if they are elite. Most amateur runners, however, will finish after 7 a.m. — meaning they run the second half in the sun.

Analysis: what ten metres at the tenth minute actually means

Nguyen Mai Trung, 35, from Hanoi, works in e-commerce and is a member of Thanh Cong Runners club. He caught the attention of the capital's running scene with a time of 2 hours 41 minutes 55 seconds at VnExpress Marathon Hai Phong 2026, placing 69th on the list of the fastest full marathon runners in Vietnamese history. Dan Quyet, Dao Ba Thanh and Le Van Huong are other familiar names at this year's start line.

In the first three minutes, Dan Quyet, Dao Ba Thanh and Mai Trung broke away from the pack. Ten minutes later, only Mai Trung and Dan Quyet remained side by side, trading the lead. This is more meaningful data than it appears. Over 42km, breaking away in the first ten minutes does not prove these two are stronger than the rest — it proves they accepted risk earlier. A marathon is decided in the final 30km, when muscle glycogen is nearly gone and the brain starts negotiating with the legs. A ten-metre gap at the tenth minute can be erased in three strides, and erased entirely by a single stop at a water station.

More telling is the psychological contrast. Mai Trung is focused, head down, controlling his rhythm. Dan Quyet is relaxed, waving at the cameras. In distance-running physiology, early ease is usually a sign of someone who trusts their base — or of someone who has never been hurt at km 35. Tactics are what people see; the soul is what we need to feel. And at the tenth minute, the souls of both men are still intact.

The Vinh - Cua Lo stretch plays the decisive role. After around 16km, runners turn onto Binh Minh route, run along the Cua Lo coast and U-turn at Cua Xa. This coastal section offers almost no cover. Sea wind blows across, and when a runner turns around, the wind becomes a head-on opponent. For a leader, turning around means losing the psychological edge in an instant — the chaser suddenly sees their rival clearly, no longer a back fading into the distance. For a chaser, the turn is an opportunity. Ten metres at the tenth minute can become meaningless at km 28 if the sea wind shifts and the leader cannot hold a steady heart rate.

This is why I do not trust any leaderboard read out during the first 20km. Marathons are rarely written by starting speed. They are written by the capacity to endure monotony — because for the next two-plus hours, there are no spectators, no commentators, no one to tell them they are on the right road.

The women's race: a local runner leads

In the women's race, My Hien is leading. This runner holds a personal best of 3 hours 7 minutes 39 seconds and competes for Nghe An Runners club — meaning she is racing at home. In running, home advantage is not about crowds or cheering; it is about course memory. Someone who knows that a gentle slope follows this bend, that km 30 has a rough patch of asphalt, that the fifth water station sits at a particular spot, saves a meaningful amount of mental energy. My Hien's surprise in the women's field is therefore not really a surprise of fitness — it is the surprise of a runner daring to turn course knowledge into an early lead.

Before the start, the line also featured "home" clubs such as Nghe An Runner and Ha Tinh Runner in striking pink shirts. Those colours created a particular atmosphere: a provincial race, but with a local community behind it. In a pre-race chat, Thanh Meo and Vinh Runner noted this was a race with the fewest 42km runners, making it favourable for competing and setting personal bests, and that the Nghe An course is fairly favourable and the roads are beautiful.

That remark sounds like praise. It is also a fact worth reading carefully.

Contrarian angle: a race with few 42km runners is not always good news

When an event has few athletes in its longest distance, there are two opposite readings. The first: this is an opportunity. Few rivals, beautiful roads, cool morning weather, and if you are good enough, you can reach a high placing or a new personal best. The second: this is a sign of a running market that is not yet dense. A 42km distance only carries real sporting value when there are enough fast runners to create pressure. When only a handful of elite names exist and the rest are amateurs chasing a finish, the race at the front becomes a private duel, and the rest of the event becomes a community gathering.

Both readings are true at once, and this is where I want to be blunt. That a provincial race has few 42km runners is not a failure of the event — it reflects the reality that marathon remains a demanding sport: training time, travel costs, and a body able to absorb high volume. But if we romanticise that small number into "opportunity", we are fooling ourselves. A medal in a race with ten rivals carries less weight than a modest placing in a race with hundreds of rivals at the same level.

My Hien leads as a home runner, and that is beautiful. But that beauty must be verified by finish time, not by a temporary position at the tenth minute. Where the light does not reach, dreams are training — and those dreams are only confirmed when the clock stops.

The operational side also deserves mention. To serve the race, the organiser deployed hundreds of volunteers working alongside operations teams at many positions. Local police, traffic police and medical staff were also mobilised for security, traffic control and medical support on the course. From the evening of 26 September, volunteers received assignments and learned procedures, then were distributed to points along the route to install infrastructure, complete water stations and cheer zones. This is the part spectators never see on the course, but without it, the ten metres between Mai Trung and Dan Quyet would mean nothing at all — because there would be no course to run.

What I learned from a morning in Vinh

I grew up on the athletics track, and I once thought I understood everything about the pain of running. Then I moved into writing about esports, where the pain lives in fingers and reflexes, and I assumed the two worlds could not speak to each other. Years later, at 27, I realised they speak the same language: the language of decisions made when nobody is watching.

Mai Trung and Dan Quyet ran ten metres apart at the tenth minute. In esports, that gap is a lane push, a minion advantage, a small edge that a single gank can erase. In a marathon, it is a promise of a fight far longer than that. Both men know that from km 30 onward, no tactic will save anyone. Only the person who prepared their body more carefully across mornings no one witnessed.

My Hien knows this better than anyone, running on the very road she trains on every week. If she holds the lead to Truong Thi Street, it will not be a miracle. It will be the inevitable consequence of knowing every metre and not burning all her energy in the first 10km.

The stadium is empty, but the echo of passion never runs dry. A race in Nghe An at 3 a.m., before the city opens its eyes, may have no spectators along the road. But it has hundreds of volunteers staying awake, medical teams waiting at stations, and people at home tracking every update like me. And it has ten metres between two men, at the tenth minute of a journey two hundred times that distance.

When I was a "layman" stepping into the sports world, I thought I needed to understand every rule before I could write. Now I understand a writer does not need to know everything. A writer needs to ask the right question: what brought these two men to the same start line at 3 a.m., and what will keep one of them from quitting at km 35?

What to watch

The men's 42km race will not be decided by ten metres at the tenth minute. It will be decided by which of the two dares to run slower in the first 20km in order to run faster in the last 10km. For My Hien, the question is whether home advantage is enough to hold her rhythm once the sun rises and the coastal stretch heats up.

I will watch until the clock stops. Not to know who wins — but to know who kept their promise to themselves across two hours nobody saw. Every stride has an untold story, and on that morning in Vinh, the story was still being written in sweat along the Vinh - Cua Lo Boulevard.