Phoenix Marathon

For years the Phoenix name belonged to a race that had drifted east and eventually rebranded as the Mesa Marathon, which left the state's largest city without a marathon inside its own limits. This one put the distance back. It arrived at full size rather than building up from a few hundred runners, and it landed in the top 40 US marathons by finishers in its debut year. Entry is open and tiered, with prices climbing as slots go, no lottery, and no qualifying standard.

The start sits at the South Mountain Park visitor center with 16,000 acres of Sonoran preserve at the field's back. Five miles run north on Central Avenue through south Phoenix before the route drops onto the paved Salt River path for roughly eleven miles, out east along the south bank and back west on the same corridor. That middle section is flat, quiet, and shadeless, and it is where the race gets decided. The course then climbs off the river through the civic corridor past the State Capitol, runs downtown on Washington and Central, and takes a short rise into Hance Park over the I-10 tunnel late. Third Street carries the last miles north through midtown to a finish loop inside Steele Indian School Park. Overall the point-to-point gives back a couple hundred feet, enough to help slightly and not enough to run on.

Mid-December is the whole reason the race sits on this date. Phoenix normals for the month run near a 65 degree high with lows in the mid-40s, so a 7 a.m. start is genuinely cold by desert standards and the finish is still comfortable. Layers you can shed matter more than any hydration plan here. The exception is the river section: once the sun is up there is no shade on the path, and dry desert air pulls more fluid out of you than the temperature suggests.