Runningman Festival Sets September Dates for Its Fourth Year at Kingston Downs

The Runningman Festival has confirmed it will return for a fourth year, taking place September 18–20, 2026, at Kingston Downs in Rome, Georgia, about an hour outside Atlanta. Tickets are on sale now through the festival's site, with three-day passes that include a self-supported camping spot and limited single-day race passes available for Saturday.

Co-founded by entrepreneur Jesse Itzler and fitness entrepreneur Devon Lévesque, Runningman isn't a traditional race. Its centerpiece is a "choose your own distance" event run on a one-mile grass loop, where participants pick any distance from a 5K to a 50K and have a full eight hours to hit their goal, earning a medal for whatever distance they complete. The format puts first-time walkers, casual runners, and seasoned ultramarathoners on the same course at the same time.

Around the race, the festival packs in breakout sessions, inspirational speakers, yoga and breathwork, live music, cold plunges, and what it bills as the world's largest sauna. The 2026 edition is set to expand its capacity, footprint, and roster of brand partners across fitness, recovery, nutrition, and lifestyle. Past and featured guests have included ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter, Rich Roll, five-time CrossFit Games champion Mat Fraser, musician Mike Posner, and Spanx founder Sara Blakely. The event is 18 and over, and is now eligible for HSA/FSA reimbursement through a partner.

Runningman is riding a clear cultural shift in fitness. As competitive formats like Hyrox and the CrossFit Games boom on the strength of rivalry and leaderboards, Runningman deliberately goes the other direction — trading competition for reflection, customizable challenges, and community. That positioning has resonated: the 2025 edition drew more than 1,500 participants who collectively logged over 13,000 miles on the loop, and the 2026 event is scaling up on the back of that momentum.

The model also reflects where wellness spending is heading. Runningman bundles a race, a music festival, a recovery retreat, and a wellness expo into one ticketed weekend, capturing the experiential-fitness consumer who wants more than a finish-line medal. Its eligibility for HSA/FSA reimbursement is a notable wrinkle, effectively letting attendees use pre-tax health dollars toward a festival ticket which is a sign of how blurred the line between "event" and "health investment" has become.

The festival sits at the center of the booming "social wellness" trend, where Gen Z and millennial consumers increasingly treat fitness events as community and lifestyle experiences rather than pure competition. The sauna lines, cold plunges, and brand activations are as much the draw as the race itself, and that's by design as Runningman has built its identity around being the anti-race, a place where the point is connection and fun rather than a personal record.

It's also a strong signal for fitness and wellness brands watching where to put marketing dollars. Runningman's experiential expo has hosted dozens of partners across supplements, beverages, recovery tech, and apparel, making it a live testing ground for product discovery with an engaged, high-intent audience. As experiential fitness events claim more space on the wellness calendar, Runningman's continued expansion suggests the format has staying power well beyond its Burning-Man-for-runners origins and that the festivalization of fitness is still accelerating.