Uzbekistan is a new market for Verus, added on the back of T100 Samarkand's first-ever Central Asian edition in 2027. That race is still mostly a date on a calendar — the organiser hasn't published a course, a venue, or distances. What's genuinely established, and worth a guide of its own, is everything around it: a national marathon with a World Athletics Label, a second marathon through one of the world's great historic squares, a real (if quiet) run-club scene, and a triathlon federation that's been building toward exactly this kind of event since 2019.
Uzbekistan's two real marathons
The Tashkent International Marathon is the bigger and more established of the two. It began in March 2019 as a half marathon only, added the full distance, and picked up World Athletics Label Road Race status in 2022 — the first time any Uzbek race has held that status, which requires meeting World Athletics' organisational and anti-doping standards and makes the race a genuine Olympic and World Championship qualifier. The 2026 edition ran on 5 April, starting and finishing at HUMO Arena, with a marathon start at 6:00am, half marathon at 7:30am, 10K at 9:00am and a 5K fun run at 11:00am. Organisers reported more than 15,000 participants from over 30 countries. Registration runs through the ProRun.uz platform or a dedicated Telegram bot.
The Samarkand Marathon is smaller, newer-feeling, and runs through genuinely spectacular terrain: the course starts at Registan Square, Samarkand's UNESCO-listed centrepiece, passes the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, then follows a long, straight 12km stretch out to the Silk Road Samarkand tourist complex — the same complex that hosts T100 Samarkand and Challenge Samarkand. Half marathon runners complete that route once; marathon runners do it twice. The race also offers 10K, 5K, 2km and kids' distances, typically runs in early-to-mid November (the 2026 edition is set for 7-8 November), and charges a modest entry fee — around 350,000 UZS (roughly €23 at the time of writing) for the marathon, less for shorter distances. Verus couldn't find a clearly documented founding year for this race, so treat it as an established annual event rather than a race with a long, storied history.
How these relate to T100 Samarkand
Neither marathon is affiliated with T100 Samarkand, which is a separate, brand-new triathlon event in April 2027 built around the Silk Road Samarkand complex. But the Samarkand Marathon's route gives you the clearest publicly available picture of what running near that complex actually looks like, since T100's own course hasn't been published.
Finding people to run with
The best-documented option is Runshanba, a free, volunteer-run community that meets every Saturday morning in Tashkent's parks for a 5K, open to all abilities, with routes that rotate. On the last Saturday of each month they run it as a timed race and publish results, so regulars can track progress over time — a genuine, structured way in rather than an informal jog. It's a non-profit with over 1,000 members on its Telegram channel and no membership fee. Tashkent Runners is the other named community with a public presence, though it's less documented in English than Runshanba.
Beyond those two, Verus couldn't find further named, currently active run clubs in Tashkent or Samarkand with the kind of weekly-schedule detail that Saudi Arabia or the UAE's clubs publish — this is a genuinely earlier-stage scene, and it's worth saying so rather than inventing a fuller list.
The Uzbekistan Triathlon Federation
Triathlon here has real institutional backing that predates T100 by eight years. The Uzbekistan Triathlon Federation was established by the National Olympic Committee in March 2019 and formally registered that May, with a target development programme running 2019-2024 covering both elite and amateur sport. It runs an annual licence (roughly 285,000 UZS, in the region of $22-23) covering competition eligibility, race and training insurance, and access to World Triathlon, Challenge Family and IRONMAN events, plus a cheaper single-use, three-day licence for one-off races. WomenTriClub, founded in 2020 as the first free project of its kind in Central Asia, and SHE.TRI, a newer regional women's triathlon platform, both sit under the federation and are aimed specifically at growing women's participation.
Samarkand's own multisport credentials are real and growing independently of T100: the city hosted World Triathlon Cups in 2024 and 2025, stepped up to a full World Triathlon Championship Series stage in April 2026 (the first WTCS race ever held in Central Asia), and hosts Challenge Family's Challenge Samarkand — all at the Silk Road Samarkand complex. T100 Samarkand's own page on this site covers that race in full, including the genuine unresolved question of whether the age-group event will actually race T100 distance or something shorter.
Visa and travel practicalities
Most nationalities Verus's audience is drawn from can currently enter Uzbekistan visa-free for stays of up to 30 days: UK, EU/Schengen, Australian, Canadian, Japanese and GCC passport holders, and US citizens as of a rule change effective January 2026. Anyone outside that list can apply through Uzbekistan's official e-visa portal. Visa-free lists do change, so check the current rules against the official portal before booking rather than relying on this or any other guide.
Getting between the two cities is straightforward: the Afrosiyob high-speed rail service connects Tashkent and Samarkand in roughly 2-2.5 hours, and both cities have their own international airports (Samarkand's, SKD, sits about 6km from the centre).
Safety, and the real caveat: Tashkent's air quality
Multiple current travel-safety sources rank Uzbekistan among the safer countries in Central Asia for visitors generally, including solo women travellers, with violent crime against tourists described as rare. Verus is a running site rather than a safety authority, so treat that as a general reputation rather than a personal guarantee, and use normal travel judgement.
The caveat worth taking seriously
Tashkent's air quality is a genuine, well-documented problem, not a minor footnote — the city has repeatedly ranked among the world's most polluted major cities (IQAir placed it 3rd in November 2025), driven by coal and vehicle emissions in winter and windblown dust in summer. If you're training there through a bad-air stretch, an indoor session on a treadmill is a defensible substitute for a day outdoors, not an overcautious one.
Fuelling and pacing for either marathon
Both races are standard road marathons with no unusual course quirks documented — the general marathon pacing and fuelling principles covered elsewhere on Verus apply directly. The one genuinely local variable is the calendar: Tashkent's April date and Samarkand's November date both sit outside Uzbekistan's brutal midsummer, which matters more here than almost anywhere else Verus covers — see the climate guide for exactly how much.