Athens Marathon. The Authentic, live.

From the plain of Marathon to the marble stadium

The Athens Marathon. The Authentic runs the original route from the town of Marathon to the Panathenaic Stadium, the course that inspired every marathon since.

The 43rd Athens Marathon. The Authentic takes place on the weekend of 7 and 8 November 2026. The marathon commemorates the messenger who carried news of the victory at Marathon in 490 BC, and the distance of 42.195 km entered the Olympic programme in 1896.

The marathon starts at 08:30 on Sunday 8 November from the start area in Marathon, with a loop around the Tymbos, the memorial to those who fell in the battle. The course runs mostly flat from about km 6 to km 10 at Nea Makri, and after that there are long stretches of uphill and downhill on the way into the city. The organiser names the stretch around km 30 to 31 at the Stavros interchange as the hardest point. The finish comes down Vasilissis Sofias and Herodou Attikou, past the National Garden, and the last 170 m are on the track inside the Panathenaic Stadium.

There is an overall limit of eight hours and all finishers must be in by 18:15. Entrants must be at least 20. The shorter races stay in the city: the 10 km starts at 08:00 on Sunday on Vasilissis Amalias Avenue and turns at the Police Academy, and the 5 km starts at 17:00 on Saturday 7 November from the same avenue. Both finish in the stadium.

Runners reach the start in Marathon on the organiser's buses, which leave in the early morning from several points in central Athens, among them the metro stations at Syntagma, Panepistimio and Evangelismos. Every race of the weekend ends on the track inside the Panathenaic Stadium.

On Livebib you can follow a participant who chooses to share their own live position from the phone they carry. This is not the organiser's timing, so the dot on the map is only as good as that phone and its signal. The official results and splits come from the organiser of the Athens Marathon.