Nara Marathon 2026

Nara Marathon 2026 is a major two-day road running event in Japan's ancient capital, combining a large mass-participation marathon with a World Heritage 10K, pair relay and Mini Nara Marathon. The marathon field is capped at 11,750 runners, while the 10K has 4,000 places, giving the weekend significant scale as well as a strong destination-race character.

Saturday 12 December is centred on the Mini Nara Marathon, which starts at 14:00 on a special course inside Rohto Nara Konoike Park. The main programme follows on Sunday 13 December. The marathon and pair relay start at 09:00, with the World Heritage 10K at 09:30. The marathon starts and finishes at Rohto Field Nara and runs out towards Tenri before returning to the stadium. Official course material highlights Nara's historic landscape, including the Heijo Palace Site, and the 10K uses a Nara City out-and-back route.

The marathon has a six-hour limit and eight official cut-off points, with the final finish deadline at 15:00. The pair relay uses the same overall distance, with a relay point at 25.7 km and a 12:35 relay-point deadline. The 10K has a 95-minute limit and a cut-off at about 7.5 km. Start blocks for the marathon, relay and 10K are assigned using the estimated finish times supplied at entry. Net time is used for event results, while Japan Association of Athletics Federations certified records use gun time.

The marathon participates in the Abbott World Marathon Majors Wanda Age Group World Rankings, giving eligible runners aged 40 and over the opportunity to earn age-group ranking points.

All runners must complete packet collection on Saturday. There is no race-day check-in. Rohto Field Nara is around a 20-minute walk from Kintetsu Nara Station and organisers advise using public transport because venue parking is unavailable on race day.

Registration closed and important 2026 runner notices

Entries are closed across every category. The organiser announced that the World Heritage 10K had filled by 15 June 2026, the full marathon and pair relay by 27 June, and all remaining entries were closed by 10 July 2026, ahead of the originally advertised 14 July application deadline. Do not mistake the scheduled application end date for current ticket availability; only a new announcement from the organiser could establish additional entries.

Action for confirmed entrants: in an official notice dated 14 October 2026, the organiser asked participants who registered through RUNNET to check their registered email address and spam-filter settings by 23:59 JST on Friday 6 November 2026. The organiser plans to email advance instructions around mid-November, including details needed to obtain the athlete-bib exchange voucher for Saturday's check-in. Allow mail from send@runpassport.jp. The organiser says those emails cannot be resent; participants who miss the message can later consult its website for bib-voucher instructions. These notices are important because there is no race-day bib collection.

Official updates: https://www.nara-marathon.jp/news_detail.html?id=624 (10 July registration-closure notice) and https://www.nara-marathon.jp/news_detail.html?id=641 (14 October runner-email notice).