Portland Marathon

Portland Marathon

This page belongs to the 2026 Portland Marathon. The course leaves downtown for Old Town, NW 23rd Avenue and the Pearl District, crosses the Broadway Bridge to loop the Rose Quarter past the Moda Center and comes back over the same bridge. It passes the start area near mile 8, runs south on Naito and Macadam to the South Waterfront, and crosses the Sellwood Bridge at halfway. From there it goes through Sellwood-Moreland, Eastmoreland and a loop of the Reed College campus, north through Brooklyn and along the Eastbank Esplanade under Tilikum Crossing and the Marquam Bridge, and over the Burnside Bridge with about a mile left.

There are 18 aid stations: every two miles from mile 3 to 15, then every mile from 16 to 26. Pacers run 13 groups from 2:55 to 4:20. The time limit is 6 hours 33 minutes at 15:00 per mile, counted from the last starter; runners behind pace at a mile marker leave the road or ride a SAG vehicle. Anyone reaching mile 24.3 after 12:00 noon, roughly a 5:15 finish pace, is re-routed for the last 1.9 miles around a freight rail line, and the organiser notes that every variation of the course is certified for Boston qualifying.

Spectators cannot stand on the bridges or the Esplanade, so most of the second half is out of sight until the Hawthorne Bridge sidewalk at mile 24. On Livebib the runner’s shared link shows family the position on the course line, distance covered and a finish estimate that updates as the race goes, in a browser with no app — enough to move from Naito at mile 8 to the Hawthorne Bridge in time.