The Canary Islands have quietly become one of Europe's great running destinations, with two of the continent's most respected mountain ultras, a winter road-race calendar that runs while Britain is frozen, and seafront promenades in every resort where you can get an hour in before breakfast. The headline events are Transgrancanaria in late winter and Transvulcania on La Palma in spring, but the islands work just as well for a runner who simply wants to keep training going through January.

The basic appeal is climate plus vertical. Sea-level temperatures sit in the high teens and low twenties for most of the winter, so you can run in shorts in February. And because these are volcanic islands that go from the Atlantic to nearly four thousand metres, a twenty-minute drive puts you in pine forest at a thousand metres or on a bare ridge at two thousand. Very few places offer both within one holiday.

What follows covers the races worth entering, where to run if you are not racing, and the two things that catch visiting runners out: heat and altitude. If you are more interested in walking the same ground slowly, the network of waymarked routes is described in our guide to hiking in the Canary Islands.

Transgrancanaria

Transgrancanaria is the biggest race on the islands and one of the season-opening fixtures of international trail running. The classic distance crosses Gran Canaria from the north-west coast at Agaete to the southern dunes near Maspalomas, running to roughly 125 kilometres with something close to seven thousand metres of climbing on the way. The exact distance and route are adjusted most years for weather, fire damage and permissions, so treat any figure you read — including that one — as approximate until the organiser publishes the current edition.

It is held in late February or early March, and the thing that makes it unlike other races is the start time. The classic sets off around eleven at night, so the first hours are run in the dark up the barrancos of the north-west, and from a viewpoint above the coast you can watch a line of head torches winding into the hills like a slow fuse. The leaders reach the pine forests at dawn and the winners are finishing on the south coast by late morning, while ordinary mortals arrive through the afternoon and into a second night.

There is a full family of shorter distances alongside it — a marathon-length option, a 30-odd kilometre entry race and a short starter event — which is how most first-timers should approach it. They share the finish and the atmosphere without requiring you to run through two sunrises. Much of the course uses the island's established footpath network, described in more detail in our guide to walking on Gran Canaria, and passes under Roque Nublo at the island's centre.

Transvulcania, La Palma

Transvulcania is the more beautiful race and, many runners think, the harder one. It starts at the lighthouse on the southern tip of La Palma at Fuencaliente before dawn, climbs the entire spine of the island along the Ruta de los Volcanes, tops out near Roque de los Muchachos at over 2,400 metres, then drops all the way back to sea level at Tazacorte before a final cruel climb into Los Llanos. The ultra distance is in the region of 73 kilometres with something over four thousand metres of ascent, with shorter marathon and half options on the same spine.

It is usually held in early May. The support is extraordinary for such a small island: the whole population seems to turn out, and the aid station at the pass in the middle of the island sounds like a football crowd. The finish in Los Llanos de Aridane is a street party.

You can run the course any day you like. The Transvulcania route follows the GR-131, a public waymarked long-distance path, not a closed road. Nothing stops you running or walking the same ridge on a Tuesday in November with nobody else on it — which is, in truth, a better way to see it than in a field of two thousand.

The other races worth knowing

Tenerife's big mountain race climbs from the south coast over the flanks of Teide and down to the north, and includes what is reckoned to be the highest point reached by any trail race in Spain. Lanzarote has an entirely different speciality: it is a triathlon island, and the long-course race held there each May is notorious among triathletes for being one of the toughest on the circuit, mostly because of the relentless wind on the bike leg. La Gomera, El Hierro and Fuerteventura all run smaller trail events that are far easier to get an entry for.

On the road, the capital cities put on winter marathons and half marathons along their seafronts, typically in the first weeks of the year, when the weather is close to perfect for a fast time. Entry fields are modest by mainland standards and the flat coastal courses suit anyone chasing a personal best without going far from a hotel. Dates move around, so check the organising club's own page before booking flights — and remember that January on the islands is a busy month for accommodation.

Where to run without entering anything

The resorts are better for running than they look. Las Palmas has a continuous promenade behind Playa de las Canteras that runs for roughly three kilometres of soft morning light and swimmers, and it is the most pleasant city running in the archipelago. In the south of Gran Canaria, the paseo links Playa del Inglés with Maspalomas along the back of the dunes. On Tenerife you can run almost continuously from Los Cristianos through Las Américas into Costa Adeje, and Puerto de la Cruz has a shorter but more interesting coastal path in the north. Puerto del Carmen on Lanzarote gives you a long uninterrupted seafront strip, which is exactly why so many triathletes train there.

Inland, the waymarked senderos that cover every island are open to runners, and the forest tracks in the pine belt — Tamadaba on Gran Canaria, the Corona Forestal on Tenerife, the laurel woods of the north — give shade, soft ground and gradients that will humble you. Take a paper or offline map; phone signal disappears in the barrancos.

Heat, and how much it costs you

The sea breeze lies about the temperature. Running at midday in the southern resorts in summer is genuinely risky, and even in winter the sun at this latitude is stronger than the thermometer suggests. Move your runs to before nine in the morning or after five in the afternoon, carry more water than you would at home, and add salt if you are out for over an hour. Sunburn while moving is the single most common way visitors ruin the rest of the week, and the sun safety advice for the islands applies double to anyone sweating off their sun cream.

The other thing to watch for is the calima, the hot dusty air that blows in from the Sahara several times a year. It raises temperatures sharply, fills the air with fine sand and makes hard breathing unpleasant and occasionally dangerous for asthmatics. When one arrives, take the day off or run at first light.

Altitude: the islands' secret weapon

Here is the detail that explains why you will see suspiciously lean people in matching kit on the mountain roads in winter. The high plateau below Teide sits at around 2,100 metres, which is close to the classic altitude-training band, and there is accommodation up there. Distance runners, cyclists and triathletes from northern Europe use the islands as a winter camp precisely because they can sleep high, train low and do both in shorts — a combination that in the Alps is only available in July.

For a holiday runner, the practical point is the reverse: do not treat a run at two thousand metres as an ordinary run. You will be slower, your heart rate will be higher at the same effort, and the air is dry enough to dehydrate you without you noticing. Give it two or three days before doing anything hard up there, and read our note on altitude on Mount Teide if you are heading for the summit area, which is higher again.

Training through the winter

For anyone building towards a spring marathon at home, the islands solve the problem of January. You can put in consistent weeks in daylight and warmth, mix flat seafront sessions with genuine hill work, and swim in the sea afterwards. Several hotels on Lanzarote and Tenerife are set up for exactly this, with running tracks, pools and physiotherapy on site; the sports complex in the north-west of Lanzarote near Tinajo has been hosting European clubs and national squads since the 1980s and is the best-known of them.

Two adjustments are worth making. Heat-adapt gradually rather than replicating your home sessions in week one, and respect the wind — a headwind on an exposed coast road can turn an easy run into a hard one without any change in pace. Plan out-and-back routes into the wind first.

Practicalities

So, is it worth the trip?

For a race, yes, with a caveat: these are hard mountain courses in a warm climate, and runners arrive every year having trained for the distance but not for the descent or the heat. Respect the cut-offs, walk the climbs early, and treat the first hour as too easy. For ordinary training, the islands are close to ideal — a four-hour flight, no time difference to speak of, and a January morning that feels like a May one at home.

If you are choosing an island on running alone, La Palma and La Gomera have the best trails per square kilometre, Gran Canaria the most variety, and Tenerife the altitude. Our comparison of which island is best for walking maps closely onto the same answer, and La Palma's trail network is where most serious runners end up sooner or later.