Start Groups

The UTMB World Series has a ranking system for runners – the UTMB Index. If you have completed an UTMB Index registered trail running race in the previous 36 months, you will have earned an UTMB Index Rating. Most major international and Australian races are now UTMB Index races, including all UTMB World Series races.

During registration, your UTMB Index will automatically allocate you the correct Start Group, according to the guidelines below.

To check if you have completed a UTMB Index registered race and to check your Index Rating, go to the UTMB runner search page. Type in your name and select your nationality. If a profile comes up for you, you will have an UTMB Index Rating if your last race result was within the past 36 months. Check you only have one profile. If your year of birth or nationality was incorrect or your name was spelt differently in any previous run, you may have more than one UTMB profile. It is important to get multiple profiles / incorrect profiles combined into one that matches your exact name, nationality and year of birth in your UTA entry. To do this, you can sign up for a free My UTMB account and then link your multiple profiles into one account.

As UTMB Index Ratings provide the most reliable, repeatable and simplest method to rank runners, it is the preferred method for start group seeding. Any trail running event can register with UTMB.

Note that it can take 1 to 3 weeks for a race to finalise results, send the results to UTMB and for UTMB to allocate performance index ratings. So if you don’t currently have a UTMB Index Rating but would like to use this option for your seeding, your chosen registered race needs to be possibly 3 weeks prior to the seeding cut-off date.

If you have a race result in any official 42.2km road marathon or 21.1km road half-marathon from the past three years, you may select the option ‘Result in a road marathon or half-marathon’.

You can list the name of the race and provide a url directly to your online result certificate or directly to your result on the relevant official event website results page. Refer to the table below to help you choose a suitable start group request.

Please note that trail running results (UTMB Index Ratings) are given a higher statistical importance than marathon or half marathon results and therefore generally translate to a slightly higher start group seeding for a given runner.

If your UTMB Index rating qualifies you for a self-seeded Start Group (or if you do not have a UTMB Index), you will be given the three self-seeded Start Groups to choose from upon entry.