DNB Oslo Maraton, live.

Three starts, one square, one long Saturday

Oslo’s city marathon, first run in 1981, puts three distances on the same streets on one Saturday in September, all starting and finishing at Rådhusplassen.

The organiser describes DNB Oslo Maraton as one of Norway’s largest street races, with over 28,000 participants. In 2026 it was run on Saturday 12 September, and the day was built as a relay of starts at Rådhusplassen in front of the city hall: the marathon at 09:00, the half marathon from 13:00 and 10 for Grete from 16:20. The marathon, the half and the 73 km Oslotrippelen, which runs all three back to back, were sold out.

The marathon runs the half-marathon loop twice. The organiser gives about 350 metres of ascent for the marathon, about 175 for the half and about 50 for the 10 km, so the longer loop is not a flat one. Drinks are served roughly every five kilometres. 10 for Grete is run in honour of Grete Waitz, who helped found the charity AKTIV mot kreft; the organiser’s history page also records her unofficial half-marathon world best in Oslo in 1982, 1:07:50.

A two-lap marathon in a crowded city is easy to follow badly: a spectator at the right corner on the wrong lap sees nothing. If the runner shares their Livebib link, family and friends open it in a browser, with no app and no account, and see the position on the course line, the distance covered and a finish estimate for Rådhusplassen that updates as the pace changes. Between tall buildings, where the GPS fix gets noisy, positions that are estimated are marked as estimated, never shown as measured.