A Race Built on Generosity
Every penny of profit from your race entry is donated directly to local charities. No middlemen. No commercial layer. No exceptions.
For 2026, those charities are Planet Purbeck, Dementia Friendly Purbeck, and St Edward’s Corfe Castle — three organisations doing meaningful, lasting work in the communities the race passes through.
01. You Register
02. Volunteers Deliver the Race
03. All Profits Go to Charity
04. The Communities Benefit
2012
1,000+
100%
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Our 2026 Charity Partners
Planet Purbeck
Environmental Conservation
The Jurassic Coast, the chalk downland, the heathland of the Purbeck Hills — these landscapes do not sustain themselves. Planet Purbeck works with local landowners, volunteers, and communities to ensure that the places runners and visitors love remain healthy, accessible, and genuinely extraordinary for future generations.
When you run the Purbeck Marathon, you run through the very landscape that Planet Purbeck is working to protect. Your entry fee helps fund that work directly.
Dementia Friendly Purbeck
Community Support
In a rural community like Purbeck, isolation can be one of the greatest challenges facing people living with dementia. Dementia Friendly Purbeck works to reduce that isolation — through awareness, training, community activities, and practical support — so that every person in the area can continue to live as full and connected a life as possible.
Their work is quiet, consistent, and deeply important. The Purbeck Marathon is proud to support them.
St Edward’s Corfe Castle
Community and Heritage
The Purbeck Marathon passes through Corfe Castle on race day, and the sight of the Norman castle ruins above the village is one of the most unforgettable moments on the entire route. Supporting St Edward’s is a natural expression of the marathon’s deep connection to this extraordinary place and the people who have kept it alive across the generations.
A Race That Runs on Something Other Than Money
Every one of the team behind the Purbeck Marathon is a volunteer. The race director, the route planners, the kit check marshals, the checkpoint crew, the registration team, the finish line support — every single one of them turns up on race day, and in the weeks and months before it, without a penny of pay.
They do it because they believe in what this event stands for.
A trail marathon of this scale — two distances, dozens of marshals, mandatory kit checks, first-aid coverage across a remote coastal route — requires hundreds of hours of planning and preparation. Every one of those hours is given freely. That is not a small thing. It is the thing that makes this event different.
When you register for the Purbeck Marathon, you are becoming part of a community that operates on a different set of values — one where the effort of many creates something that benefits everyone, including the local organisations who depend on events like this to do their work.
Every organiser is a volunteer. No one on the race team is paid. Every hour given is given freely, because they believe in the event.
Volunteer hours generate charity donations. For each volunteer who gives their time, the race makes a direct donation to a local community organisation.
Running since 2012. The Purbeck Marathon has been supporting local communities through trail running for over a decade, returning in 2026 after a five-year pause.
Rated 3rd Best Marathon in the UK by Runner’s World magazine in its very first year — a testament to what a volunteer-run event can achieve.
What Happens to Your Entry Fee
You Register
Volunteers Deliver
Profits Donated
Communities Benefit
There is no commercial layer. No middleman. No race company taking a cut. Just a community of volunteers creating something remarkable — and the proceeds going back to the communities that make it all possible.