Dmitriy Cherny won the men’s standings at Sun with an average pace of 3:50 per kilometre. He ran only twice in this race and didn’t reach first place until 28 September, two days before the end. Before that, Dmitriy Gavrilkin had led for two weeks, and on 28 September Konstantin Volkov held first place for 1 hour 52 minutes. Volkov finished second at 4:13 and Gavrilkin third at 4:20. In the women’s race Natalia Sokol went top on 7 September with a 5:09 average and stayed there to the end, with Anna Egorova two and a half seconds per kilometre behind. Ekaterina Gavrilova kept third place by a third of a second: Elena Lobanova joined the league two days before the race ended and stopped just short of her.
Sun is the first race in the league’s new space series. Its first edition has seven medals, and Sun opens the set: you can’t reach a star, but you can take home its medal. The distance is 30 km over 26 days, from 5 to 30 September. The format is Multirun: you can build up the kilometres over any number of runs, and among those who complete the distance, average pace decides the standings. The next race in the series, Quasar, started on 1 October: 50 km over a month.
The results list 106 athletes — 68 men and 38 women — with 373 runs and 3,230 km. Eighty-eight completed the distance: 55 men and 33 women. A third of all kilometres were run in the first week, up to 11 September. Most people ran in short bursts: half the field ran on three days or fewer, 37 ran on no more than two, and four completed the distance in a single run. The men finished earlier: 14 of the 55 completed the distance in the first week and only eight in the last five days. Among the women it was the other way round: 16 of the 33 finishers completed the distance between 26 and 30 September. Forty-one athletes joined the league after the race had started, and 34 of them completed the distance.
Men’s race: eight days for Chikov, two weeks for Gavrilkin, two hours for Volkov
The first to complete the distance was Andrey Karlov on 6 September: 32.1 km at an average of 5:34, almost exactly his usual pace. An hour later Georgiy Chikov replaced him at the top, running the full 30.2 km in one go at 4:27. Chikov has been in the league since 7 August and is fourteenth in the global ranking. His usual pace over the last three months is 5:05, so this run was well quicker than his everyday running. Chikov stayed first for eight days and ended up fifth. Karlov finished twenty-fourth.
On 14 September Gavrilkin took the lead. He has been in the league since 6 August, is eighth in the global ranking and has six completed races. He started the race carefully: on 5 September he ran 5 km at 4:33 and wrote: “No speed today, still haven’t recovered from the gastritis flare-up…” After that Gavrilkin kept running the same distance, about 8.3 km, at between 4:16 and 4:22. By 10 September he had 29.85 km at an average of 4:21, just 150 metres short of 30 km. On the 14th he added another 8.3 km at 4:15, completed the distance with 38.1 km at an average of 4:20, and moved seven seconds per kilometre ahead of Chikov. Gavrilkin’s usual pace is 4:40, so here he was twenty seconds faster. He stayed first for fourteen days.
On 25 September two new contenders arrived at once. Cherny ran 17.2 km at 3:20 — the fastest run of the whole race among the men. His usual pace is 4:17, so those kilometres came almost a minute faster. He was still 13 km short of 30 km and not yet on the list of finishers. Cherny is a league ambassador and has been running in the league since December 2024, with 18 completed races and two outright wins. Ilya Kosmach joined the league on 23 September, and on the 25th he ran 10.7 km at 4:04 and 19 km at 4:41, finishing the day 280 metres short of 30 km. On the 26th he added 15 km at 4:22, completed the distance with 44.7 km at an average of 4:26 and moved into second, pushing Chikov down to third.
It was all decided on 28 September. Volkov had opened on the 26th with a 10K at 3:44, and on the 28th he ran two more, at 4:38 and 4:19. That gave him exactly 30.0 km and an average of 4:13, 6.6 seconds faster than Gavrilkin. Volkov has been in the league since 9 August, with three completed races and only 141 km in total; his usual pace is 4:20. He led for 1 hour 52 minutes. Then Cherny ran 13 km at 4:29. Together with his run on 25 September, that made 30.2 km at an average of 3:50, 23 seconds per kilometre faster than Volkov. Kosmach dropped to fourth that same evening, after exactly two days in second. The top five didn’t change over the last two days: Cherny 3:50, Volkov 4:13, Gavrilkin 4:20, Kosmach 4:26, Chikov 4:27.
Just outside that top five was a runner who had the pace but not the distance. Dmitry Bulatov has been in the league since November 2024, with 22 completed races and one outright win. In Sun he logged 27.5 km at an average of 5:10. That pace would have made him fourteenth, but he finished 2.5 km short of 30 km. He captioned his last run, 12.3 km on 27 September, in three words: “Dark, cool, windy.”
Women’s race: Sokol from 7 September
The first woman to complete the distance was Ekaterina Kritikova on 6 September: 30.0 km at 6:09, exactly her usual pace. The women’s lead stayed with her until the next day. She finished twelfth.
On 7 September first place changed hands twice. Egorova completed the distance with two runs of 12.2 and 18 km, both at 5:11, for 30.2 km. Her usual pace is 6:10, so here she ran almost a minute faster. Egorova held first place for just under three hours. Then Sokol, who had 15 km at 5:21 from 6 September, ran 18.2 km at 4:58 and completed the distance with 33.2 km at an average of 5:09. Sokol has been in the league since 5 August, with four completed races and two outright wins; her usual pace is 5:12. The gap to Egorova was 2.6 seconds per kilometre, and after 7 September neither of them ran in this race again. Thirty-one women completed the distance later, but none came within 26 seconds per kilometre of them.
September was a busy month for Egorova: in the same weeks she finished second at Petrov-Vodkin and sixth at Buenos Aires.
Third place: a third of a second
The women’s third place was a race of its own. After Kritikova, Natalia Papina held it from 12 September, Evgenia Solovyova for a few hours on 22 September, and Elena Sharova from that evening with 38.1 km at an average of 5:44. Sharova lasted less than two days there and finished seventh.
On 24 September Gavrilova moved into third. She has been in the league since December 2025, is fifth in the global ranking, has 11 completed races and a usual pace of 6:11. In Sun Gavrilova got faster with every run: 10.6 km at 6:13, then 5 km at 5:48, 4.6 km at 4:49 — a run she captioned “Running with the dog” — and another 4.6 km at 4:32. Before her final run she had 24.7 km at an average of 5:34. On 24 September she completed the distance with a 10K at 5:47. Her average slipped to 5:38, which was still enough to finish six seconds per kilometre ahead of Sharova.
Lobanova joined the league on 28 September, two days before the end of the race. She ran three 10Ks in a row — at 5:47, 5:39 and 5:28 — and finished with 31.2 km at an average of 5:38.0. Gavrilova’s average was 5:37.7. Lobanova finished fourth, a third of a second per kilometre behind. This was her first completed race in the league, and she ran it faster than her usual 5:52.
Fifth place went to Tatiana Gudz, who logged 70.5 km, more than anyone in the race, men included, and finished on 29 September with a marathon at 5:32 pace.
Kross Natsii, Riga and the sun at the end of a session
For many in the field, Sun came alongside first races and first distances. Anna Koroleva joined the league on 11 September and completed the distance on the 26th with a 10K at Kross Natsii, Russia’s nationwide running day. She wrote under the run: “Know Yourself and Kross Natsii, ran 10 km for the first time, turns out it’s great, especially considering that six months ago I was afraid to run 2 km.” With 31.1 km she finished twenty-sixth, and it was her first completed race in the league.
Maxim Sviridov joined the league on 9 September. The next day he captioned a run “My first 10K in training,” and on the 19th: “My first time in a race, We Run Riga 2026, a modest 5 km in a modest 26:22. Happy with myself.” Denis Khlebnikov explained why he kept running faster than planned: “I just really want to RUN after a year when all I could do was walk.” Both completed the distance.
Anna Brodskaya completed the distance in a single run on 7 September and captioned the route: “Pushkin — St Petersburg.” Andrey Popov also needed just one outing: on 28 September he ran 42.2 km at 4:52 and finished eighth among the men. And on 11 September Irina Doga left the caption that suited this race better than any other: “Symbolic: the sun came out at the end of the workout.”
Sun ended on 30 September, and the next day the series continued with Quasar. In the same weeks Hyperdrive 50 ran until 20 September and Petrov-Vodkin from 10 September. After two weeks of Gavrilkin in front, the men’s race was decided in a single evening on 28 September: first Volkov’s three 10Ks, then Cherny’s 13 km, which together with his run on 25 September added up to 3:50. Sokol had won the women’s race by 7 September, and nobody matched her pace over the following three weeks. The closest fight was for third place among the women, and it was settled by a third of a second per kilometre.
