[ Arden City Marathon · fourth Sunday of October ]
Four hours.Forty-two K.Zero traffic.
One morning a year, Arden closes every road between the Docklands and
Civic Square and hands the city to 28,000 pairs of shoes. The cannon fires at 07:00.
The buses are free if you're wearing a bib. The rest is up to your legs.
Corrals open 05:30 — the clock doesn't wait, and neither do we.
scroll — the course is downhill from here (it isn't)
42.195
[ The course ]
Six boroughs. One bad hill.
This is the honest profile — drawn from the city survey, not the
brochure. Point at any marker for the elevation, the grade, and what the locals call it.
Reservoir Hill peaks at kilometre 20. Nobody warns you about the Overpass at 34. We just did.
ELEVATION — CITY SURVEY DATUM, 2× VERTICALLOW 6 m · HIGH 72 m · GAIN 187 m
THE ROUTE — POINT TO POINT, DOCKLANDS → CIVIC SQUARE
[ Pace ]
Do the math before the math does you.
Give the calculator a goal time and it hands back every split and the
clock time you'll pass each borough. Or give it your pace and it tells you when you'll hear
the tape. Pick a strategy — the back half of this course rewards patience.
5:41 / km
9:09 / mi · tape at 11:00:00 on the town clock
SPLITS
Projected splits at each course checkpoint
Mark
On course
Elapsed
Clock
5 km
Cannery Flats
0:28:26
07:28
10 km
Millbank Rise
0:56:52
07:56
Half
Aqueduct Arch
2:00:00
09:00
Finish
Civic Square
4:00:00
11:00
Clock times assume the 07:00 gun. Add your corral offset — corral E crosses ~14 min back.
[ Race weekend ]
Three days. One cannon.
Everything below happens within one tram ride of the start. Bib pickup
closes Saturday at 18:00 sharp — there is no race-morning pickup, and the volunteers who
enforce that rule have heard every excuse since 1979.
Friday23 Oct
10:00
Expo opens — Pier 9 Hall. Bib pickup, 60 exhibitors, and a wall printed with all 28,000 names. Find yours.
12:00
Course talks, hourly. Twenty minutes, no slides: where the hills are, where the wind is, where the crowds carry you.
20:00
Expo closes. Go to bed. You won't, but go to bed.
Saturday24 Oct
08:00
Shakeout 5K — Docklands. Easy pace, no timing, coffee at the turnaround. The elites usually show.
09:00
Expo, day two. Last gels, last pins, last chance to buy the shoes you should not race in tomorrow.
18:00
Bib pickup closes. Hard stop. Then long tables in Civic Square — the carb night is free with a bib.
Sunday25 Oct — race day
04:30
Transit runs free for bib holders. Every tram, every bus, straight to the Docklands.
05:30
Corrals open. A through E, seeded by your entry estimate. Bag drop closes 06:30.
05:45
Roads close, city-wide. They reopen rolling, behind the 7:30 / km sweep bus.
06:50
Wheelchair start. The fastest anyone moves through Arden all year.
07:00
The cannon. One shot from the harbour battery. You'll feel it in your chest. Run.
14:30
Course closes — 7 h 30 cutoff. The finish festival in Civic Square keeps going until the last band stops.
[ Register ]
The line starts here.
28,000 bibs, gone in about nine days last year. Entry includes chip
timing, sixteen aid stations, forty-two bands, free transit all weekend, and a finisher
medal cast from a retired tram rail. Really.
Ballot-free — first come, first corralled
Deferral to next year, free, until 30 Sep
$4 of every bib goes to the borough crews who resurface the course