Races to Watch This Weekend: Athens, Indianapolis, Boston Half, Porto and More (Nov 7 to 8)

The weekend's biggest marathon starts at 1:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, in the town of Marathon. By the time most of the U.S. wakes up, Athens, Porto, Nice-Cannes and Bordeaux will be close to done, and the two Japanese city races will have finished overnight. Indianapolis runs Saturday morning, and the Boston Half and Tucson go Sunday on Eastern and Arizona time. The clocks are simple this week: the U.S. is on standard time, so ET means EST.

Athens

The 43rd edition has its own guide with every start block, the climb and where to watch by metro. The marathon starts at 8:30, earlier than in past years because entries grew. The English week program lists 8:00 in one line, but the organizer's announcement and the start-block schedule both say 8:30. An Oct 29 release expects about ten men under 2:10 and ten women under 2:30, and the organizer hadn't named them as of Nov 4.

The records they're chasing are old on the women's side. Mizuki Noguchi's 2:26:20 from the 2004 Olympics is the course record, and Rasa Drazdauskaite's 2:33:51 from 2010 is the best time in the race itself. Edwin Kiprop holds both men's marks at 2:10:34 from 2023. Winners take $15,000, and the race doubles as the Greek national championship.

Indianapolis Monumental

Every in-person distance is sold out for a race that calls itself one of the 15 largest marathons in the country. The marathon and half leave together from West Street at 8:00 a.m. Saturday.

Monumental posts no elite field, but it has a $10,000-per-gender bonus pool aimed at the 2028 Olympic Trials. It pays by place, from $1,000 each for the top five down to $250 through 20th, to eligible elites who run a Trials qualifying time in the marathon, on top of regular prize money. The page also lists a $1,500 half marathon bonus, though it notes the half's Trials qualifying window isn't open yet.

Boston Half

No woman has won the Boston Half three years running. Fentaye Belayneh of Ethiopia tries on Sunday in the race's 25th year, according to the B.A.A.'s field announcement. The current pro field has Sara Hall (1:07:15) and Emily Durgin (1:07:54) as the fastest Americans. The men's race sets 2023 champion Abel Kipchumba against Habtom Samuel of Eritrea, with U.S. half marathon champion Wesley Kiptoo and Ethan Shuley leading the Americans. Daniel Romanchuk races a wheelchair field that includes defending champions Miguel Jimenez-Vergara and Yen Hoang.

About 9,000 runners start and finish in Franklin Park at 8:00 a.m. The B.A.A. links tracking on RTRT.

Porto, Nice-Cannes and Bordeaux

Porto starts at SEA LIFE Porto at 8:00 and finishes at the Queimódromo, with 15,000 runners across the weekend's races. The race tracks runners through its official app.

Nice-Cannes is sold out and runs along the coast from the Promenade des Anglais, with waves from 8:00 to 9:15. The organizer expects the first finisher in Cannes from 10:07.

Bordeaux starts at 8:00 on the Cours de Verdun and finishing at Place de la Bourse, on a new course across both banks of the Garonne. The half follows at 10:00. The organizer counts more than 27,000 runners across its three races, and the race site is now marathon-de-bordeaux-ag2r-la-mondiale.fr.

Fukuoka and Okayama

Both are mass-participation city races; the elite Fukuoka International is a separate race in December. Fukuoka sends 13,000 runners from Tenjin to the coast at Itoshima, starting at 8:20 after the wheelchair race at 8:10. Spectators can't enter the finish area, so families should pick a spot on the course.

Okayama starts at 8:45 for 15,000 runners. Its guest runners include Okayama-born Yuko Arimori, the Olympic medalist from 1992 and 1996, and Naoko Sakamoto, a 2004 Olympian who is running the full.

Tucson

The Garmin Marathon Tucson sends the marathon, half and 10K off at 6:30 a.m. from Cushing Street downtown. It's a different race from the Tucson Marathon, which runs Dec 13.

Ultras

Ultra-Trail Shudao's 100K starts first, at 9:00 p.m. Friday in Guangyuan, China, which is 8:00 a.m. ET. The top three men and women earn a place in the UTMB World Series Finals, and UTMB Live carries all four races.

Rio Del Lago's 100-miler leaves Beal's Point at Folsom Lake on Saturday at 5:00 a.m. for its 25th running. It's a 2027 Western States qualifier, and the race site lists three YouTube streams for the start and finishes. The Pinhoti 100 crosses Cheaha Mountain, Alabama's highest point, over 100.38 miles the same day; we didn't find a tracker.