Tokyo Marathon, live.

Three turnarounds between Shinjuku and Marunouchi

The 20th Tokyo Marathon is run on Sunday 7 March 2027: 40,000 runners, a 9:10 start in Shinjuku and a finish on Gyoko-dori in front of Tokyo Station.

The start is at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building No.1 in Shinjuku. The wheelchair race goes at 9:05 and the marathon at 9:10; the organiser’s schedule has the last runners crossing the start line around 9:40. Official time runs from the gun, the time limit is 7 hours and the finish closes at 4:10 p.m., with additional cut-off points along the way for traffic and race operations. The course is certified by JAAF, AIMS and World Athletics, and the race is part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors.

From Shinjuku the course runs east past Suidobashi to its first turning point at Ueno-hirokoji (10.6 km), back through Kanda and Nihombashi, up to Asakusa and the Kaminarimon Gate, over Kuramae Bridge to Ryogoku at halfway, and out to the second turn at Tomioka Hachimangu in Monzen-nakacho (23.95 km). It recrosses Kuramae Bridge at 28 km, runs through Nihombashi and Ginza to the third turn at Tamachi Station (37.5 km), and comes back via Hibiya to the finish at the Wadakura-Gate intersection.

Those three out-and-backs are what make the race easy to watch from the kerb: Kuramae Bridge sees the field at 20 and 28 km, and Nihombashi and Ginza are passed in both directions. On Livebib the runner shares one link; family and friends open it in a browser, with no account and no app, and see the position on the course line, distance covered and a finish estimate that updates as the race goes. Among Tokyo’s towers the phone’s signal can wander, so the position is carried along the course and marked as estimated when it cannot be measured, rather than jumping off the road.