2026 Nanjing Marathon - Nov 22

2026 Nanjing Marathon - Nov 22 Countdown

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Race Information

Race2026 Nanjing Marathon - Nov 22
CityNanjing
Date2026-11-22 at 07:30
Field Size~26,000 runners
Time Limit6 hours
Cutoff pace8:32/km
TimezoneAsia/Shanghai
Official SiteNanjing Municipal People’s Government
Fee trend 2025 ¥2002026 ¥200(1-yr +0.0%)
International ¥100 · 0.5× domestic

Race Day Weather

Average Temperature11.4°C / 53°F
Humidity79%
Wind18.5 km/h
Rain Chance26%
Typical ConditionsCold and damp at the gun, mild by the cutoff

What to Prepare: Reanalysis data for November 18-26 across 2015-2025 puts 07:00 near 7.5°C at 85% humidity and 13:00 near 14.3°C at 57% — the last hour of your race runs several degrees warmer than the first. Wet mornings are common enough here that a throwaway shell is worth carrying to the corral. Start in layers you are willing to bin by 10km, and check a dry top into your bag: the finish at Yanziji sits on the open riverfront.

Based on historical averages for race week. Use our Weather Score Calculator and What to Wear Guide for personalized advice.

Wind Impact on Race Day

Wind at 18.5 km/h can affect your marathon pace by 5-15 seconds per kilometer. Headwinds slow you down exponentially — a 20 km/h wind costs more than twice a 10 km/h wind.

Calculate your wind-adjusted pace →

Race-Week Climate

Based on 20 years of race-week weather (2005-2024), MERRA-2 reanalysis

Cooler Typical Warmer
Temperature 7.3°C 11.6°C 15.8°C
Dew point -0.2°C 7°C 13.4°C
Wet-day chance: 26% Runnability: 75/100

Data: NASA POWER (MERRA-2 reanalysis), NASA Langley Research Center

Course Profile

Course TypePoint-to-point
TerrainRoad
ProfilePoint-to-point from the east gate of the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center to Yanziji Riverside Park on the Yangtze, with one out-and-back on Longpan Road near 15km. The official elevation profile never leaves a 4-10m band and peaks near 10m at that turnaround — roughly 6m of relief across the whole 42.195km. The route passes underneath the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge at 33-34km; it does not cross the river.
Boston QualifierYes — Check your BQ time

Course Analysis

Course Overview

The Nanjing Marathon runs its tenth-anniversary edition on Sunday, November 22, 2026 — the city sports bureau confirmed both the milestone and the date on July 23, 2026, and the official course map carries a "10th Anniv." mark. For 2026 the event is a marathon and nothing else: the 6,000-place mini run staged alongside the 2025 race has been cancelled, and the full-marathon field grew by 2,000 to 26,000. The race is point-to-point, starting at the east gate of the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center and finishing at Yanziji Riverside Park on the Yangtze, with three waves at 07:30, 07:45 and 08:00.

Two things make Nanjing unusual for an overseas runner. First, there is a genuine English entry path — the organizers run an official English site, and international sign-ups go through the werun.hk (JoySpeed) platform at a flat USD 100, against CNY 200 for Chinese nationals including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. That is a separate currency tier rather than a conversion, and it moved from USD 60 in 2025, a 66.7% rise in one year. Second, you cannot enter on enthusiasm alone: from 2026 every applicant must show a full marathon finish, or two half marathon finishes, from the 24 months before entries close. On the certification side, the 2026 official course map carries the World Athletics Elite Label badge for road race 2026, where the 2025 map carried a Gold Label badge. Read that in the right direction: World Athletics ranks its road labels Platinum, Gold, Elite, Label, so Elite sits one tier below Gold — 2026 is a step down from 2025, not up. The Chinese Athletics Association technical certification is still printed as pending in the 2026 regulations.

Start to Halfway: the Old City, the Presidential Palace and Xuanwu Lake

Wave one leaves the east gate of the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center at 07:30 and runs east along Jiangdong Middle Road, crossing to the old city on Yingtian Street. The landmarks arrive early: the Ming-dynasty Zhonghua Gate at about 8km, then the Confucius Temple quarter and Laomendong, and the Presidential Palace between 12 and 13km. Aid appears first at 5km and then every 2.5km with no gap anywhere on the course — 15 stations in total.

The only thing resembling a climb sits around 15km, where the course turns up Longpan Road past Taiping Gate and runs a short out-and-back. The official elevation profile puts the high point there at roughly 10m above sea level; the entire 42.195km stays inside a 4-10m band, about 6m of relief end to end. From the turnaround the route drops onto Huanhu Road for the Xuanwu Lake section, roughly 16 to 22km, the flattest and best-looking stretch of the day. Read the map before you plan your halfway split: the 21.1km mat is still on the lake's western side, and the course only leaves Xuanwu Lake at Xuanwu Gate, at about 22km.

Do not read the early cutoffs as slack. Working from the official checkpoint table, wave one has until 08:25 at 5km — a generous 11:00 per km — but only until 10:20 at 20km, which converts to 8:30 per km, already the race-average requirement. The buffer you think you are banking in the first hour is not actually there. Set an honest opening target with our Pace Calculator.

Halfway to Finish: Xuanwu Gate, the Riverfront and Yanziji

After the lake the course exits at Xuanwu Gate and heads north-west through Zhongyang Road and Xinmofan Road before dropping onto the riverside at Jiangbian Road. Zhongshan Wharf comes at about 30km, and the lowest ground of the whole race — near 4m — sits in the 32 to 33km stretch beside the Yangtze.

One correction worth making, because course write-ups get it wrong: the Nanjing Marathon does not cross the Yangtze. The route runs along Baotaqiao West Street and passes underneath the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge at roughly 33-34km. On the official course map the bridge is a roadside landmark, and the regulation phrase about running against the traffic direction after the Yangtze River Bridge describes a change of road direction, not a crossing. The whole course stays on the south-east bank.

The last 8km follow the riverside scenic corridor past the Damo Cave site, reaching Wumadu Square at 38km and Yanziji Park at 41km before finishing in Yanziji Riverside Park. Fuelling matters here: drinks are at all 15 stations, but solid food is at only 10 of them and none before 15km, with cooling water at 7. Two logistics facts to file now — bags at the finish must be collected by 14:30, and the organizers have published no post-race transport plan for Yanziji, which sits in the city's north-east riverside corner, so work out your own way back before race day. Our Negative Split Planner helps you hold rhythm through the flat riverside kilometres.

Race Strategy

Cutoff maths. Each wave gets a flat six hours — 07:30 to 13:30, 07:45 to 13:45, 08:00 to 14:00 — which is 8:32 per km, or 13:44 per mile. The intermediate checkpoints are not evenly spaced against that average. Converted to pace, the tightest is 25km, which demands 8:24 per km, eight seconds per km faster than the finish requirement, while 5km asks only 11:00 per km and 40km eases back to 8:37. Plan to be comfortably clear by 25km rather than racing the final cutoff. Note also that runners from an earlier wave are barred from starting in the five minutes before the next wave goes off.

Wave and corral. Your start wave comes from your best full or half on the China Marathon platform at A1-class races held after September 1, 2024 — a different window from the one used for lottery pools (August 1, 2024 to July 31, 2026), so a given certificate can help you in one and not the other. Waves cannot be changed on race day, and bag drop closes 15 minutes before each wave goes.

Weather. Reanalysis data for November 18-26 across 2015-2025 puts 07:00 near 7.5°C at 85% humidity, rising to about 14.3°C at 57% by 13:00 — cold and damp at the gun, mild and drying by the cutoff. Wet race mornings are common enough here to plan for one. Individual years swing hard, so treat this as a distribution rather than a forecast.

The obstacle most overseas runners miss. Race packets must be collected in person with face-recognition checks; the regulations state the race does not accept proxy collection, and there is no race-morning pickup. Slots are booked through the WeChat mini-program "参赛助手" (Race Assistant) from November 12, in one-hour blocks capped at 2,000 people each, and without a booking you cannot collect. Foreign entrants present a passport or foreign permanent residence card in original form. Sort out mini-program access before you fly and budget an extra day in Nanjing. Given the flat profile and cool November air, this is genuine personal-best territory — see how it compares with another of China's biggest marathons in our Shanghai vs Nanjing comparison.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can overseas runners enter the Nanjing Marathon, and how?

Yes, and there is a dedicated English route. The organizers run an official English site whose Register button points to the international platform werun.hk (JoySpeed), showing the same window as the Chinese site: entries opened July 28, 2026 at 10:00 and close August 28 at 17:00 Beijing time, with the lottery drawn on September 4 and payment due by September 15 at 17:00. The price is USD 100 for foreign nationals against CNY 200 for Chinese nationals including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan — a separate currency tier, not a conversion. One inconsistency to know about: the Chinese-language entry notice lists five sign-up channels and every one of them is domestic (the official site, the Huipao WeChat account, the Race Assistant mini-program, and two Bank of Nanjing channels), with no mention of werun.hk, while the English site links only to werun.hk. Both pages are official. Use the English site's link, and if anything looks wrong the organizing committee publishes a service line on 400-99-42195 ext. 1, staffed Monday to Friday. Nothing in the official documents covers visas or entry to China, so check that separately.

What qualifying result do you need to enter the 2026 Nanjing Marathon?

New for 2026: every applicant must have one full marathon finish, or two half marathon finishes, from the 24 months before entries close. The 2025 edition had no such rule. The regulations also specify what the certificate must show — race date, real name, distance and finish time. The consequence for international runners is blunt: Nanjing cannot be your first marathon. The minimum age is unchanged at 20 by race year (born on or before December 31, 2006). Runners aged 70 and over need a consent form signed online by an immediate family member plus an accompanying runner who has also pre-registered. All entrants need a medical check from the previous 12 months covering blood pressure plus one of a resting ECG, a 24-hour Holter monitor or a treadmill stress test.

How does the A/B/C lottery work, and what are the odds?

Places not taken by direct entry go into a lottery split three ways: pool A gets 20% of the drawable places, pool B 30%, and pool C the remaining 50%. Your pool comes from your best marathon at a Chinese A1-class race held between August 1, 2024 and July 31, 2026. For men aged 34 and under, A is 2:53:00 and B is 3:00:00; for women in the same band, A is 3:08:00 and B is 3:20:00. The A standard eases by exactly one minute per age band and the B standard by exactly five minutes, reaching 3:00:00 (men) and 3:15:00 (women) for A at 65-plus. Everyone else lands in C. You get two calendar days to appeal your pool with a certificate from an A1, World Athletics Label or AIMS race before the draw. The 2026 odds cannot be known yet — the committee has not published its 2026 direct-entry counts and entries do not close until August 28. For scale, the committee's published figures for 2025 showed 194,802 marathon applications and an overall success rate of 9.86%, split 36.96% in pool A against 6.62% in pool B. Winners must pay by September 15 at 17:00; unpaid places are released from September 16 at 10:00 to waitlisted applicants in the same pool.

What is the cutoff time for the Nanjing Marathon?

Six hours flat, measured from your own wave's gun: 07:30 to 13:30, 07:45 to 13:45, 08:00 to 14:00. That works out to 8:32 per km or 13:44 per mile. This is a change worth noting — in 2025 the marathon closed at a single wall-clock 14:00 for everyone, which gave first-wave runners six and a half hours, so the first wave loses 30 minutes in 2026. Intermediate checkpoints are enforced every 5km and are not uniform: converted to pace they tighten from 11:00 per km at 5km to 8:24 per km at 25km, then ease to 8:37 per km at 40km. The squeeze point is 25km, not the finish. Sweep vehicles run the course and can carry runners who miss a checkpoint through to the finish area.

What do I need to collect my race packet in Nanjing?

This is the hardest logistic for an overseas entrant, and it starts with the calendar. Collection runs for three days at Halls 8 and 9 of the Nanjing International Expo Center: Thursday November 19, 10:00-20:00; Friday November 20, 09:00-20:00; and Saturday November 21, 09:00-21:00 — the check-in notice itself advises taking Thursday or Friday to miss the Saturday peak. Collection is in person only — the regulations state the race does not accept proxy collection — and identity is verified one runner at a time with face recognition. There is no race-morning collection. Time slots are booked through the WeChat mini-program "参赛助手" (Race Assistant) from November 12, in one-hour blocks capped at 2,000 people each, and the notice states that turning up without a booking means you cannot collect. Foreign entrants must present a passport or a foreign permanent residence card in original form. Practically: get a working WeChat account and access to the mini-program before you travel, book on the day booking opens, and plan to be in Nanjing at least a full day before the race.

How much prize money does the Nanjing Marathon pay?

The 2026 prize table pays identical amounts to men and women across all eight scoring places: USD 15,000 for the win, then 7,500, 5,000, 2,500, 2,000, 1,500, 1,000 and 500 — USD 35,000 per gender in total. There is a separate award for Chinese nationals of CNY 80,000, 50,000 and 30,000 for the first three, again equal for men and women. Elite athletes are invited directly by the organizing committee and cannot enter through the public lottery.

Are the "Nanjing marathon housing incentives" stories about this race?

No — that is a different event. The property-subsidy story picked up by international outlets concerns Nanjing's Qixia District offering home-purchase subsidies to runners of the Nanjing Xianlin Half Marathon, reported as worth up to CNY 100,000 and limited to a named list of developments. It is a district-level property promotion attached to a separate half marathon, not to the Nanjing Marathon, and nothing in the 2026 Nanjing Marathon regulations, entry notice or check-in notice offers any housing benefit. If you are entering the marathon, the money in play is the CNY 200 or USD 100 entry fee and the refund ladder: full refund if you withdraw through September 30, 80% from October 1 to October 30, and nothing after October 30.

What happened at the 2025 race, and what times does the course produce?

The 2025 edition ran on November 16 and, according to the organizing committee and local media, drew 194,802 marathon applications from 60 countries and regions. A Kenyan runner won the men's race in 2:12:00, with Li Zicheng second in 2:12:39 as the leading Chinese man. The women's race went to an Ethiopian runner in 2:24:10, reported as a course record with the runner-up also inside the old mark at 2:24:12, and Zheng Xiaoqian was fifth in 2:29:07 as the leading Chinese woman — on her marathon debut. Media coverage described 2025 as Nanjing's ninth year and its first as a World Athletics Gold Label race; the 2026 official course map carries the Elite Label badge, which is one tier below Gold. With 6m of total relief and mid-November air, this course rewards even pacing — model your own target with our Race Time Predictor.

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