Race day
Kyoto Marathon 2027
京都マラソン 2027
Start at Takebishi Stadium Kyoto, Nishikyōgoku. Finish at Heian-jingū Shrine.
The six-hour limit is not six hours
Six hours on paper, enforced across eight gates that close at fixed clock times rather than at six hours from wherever you happen to be standing. Starting in the last block costs roughly 20 to 25 minutes of shuffling before you cross the line, so the honest budget is 5:35 to 5:40 of actual running. You already know this clock: in 2024 it took you off this course at 35.4 km, with the gun on 5:01:30 and 6.8 km still to go. Osaka took 5:46:29 of running — from the back at Kyoto, six to eleven minutes short of the final gate. There is no margin to inherit here, and sub-5:00 is what creates one.
Weather is on your side
Kyoto in late February is roughly 3–10°C. Bangkok evenings are 30°C and humid. That difference is worth 20–35 seconds per kilometre to you, and it is the single biggest free gain in this plan.
The course
Kyoto is not a flat marathon and it is not a hilly one — it is a badly ordered one. You are 92 m up by 16 km and the high point of the day is behind you before halfway. Then the course hands the height back over twelve kilometres, lets you get comfortable, and asks for 21 m between 37 and 39 km when there is nothing left to pay with.
Measured between kilometre markers, so anything that rises and falls inside one kilometre is invisible to it. Your watch logged 198 m over the first 35.4 km alone in 2024 — treat these figures as the shape of the course, not the bill.
Altitude at every kilometre
Read off the official 2027 course altitude chart, one value per kilometre marker, so each figure is good to about ±4 m and the finish at 42.195 km sits just past the last sample. Your own GPS trace from 2024 agrees with it to r = 0.97 over the 35 km you ran, which is as close as two different measuring methods get.
The course on the ground
This is your own GPS from 2024, which is the only trace of this course that exists here — so the line stops at 35.4 km, where you were taken off it. The last 6.8 km are drawn on no map on this page.
- 0–7 km
Settle down
- Altitude
- 25 → 46 m
- Up
- +21 m
- Down
- −0 m
- Peak
- 46 m
Crowded and barely uphill out of Nishikyōgoku — 25 m to 33 m across the first six kilometres, which is as flat as this course ever gets. Every runner here goes out too fast. Do not be one of them.
- 7–10 km
The first rise
- Altitude
- 46 → 79 m
- Up
- +33 m
- Down
- −0 m
- Peak
- 79 m
Thirty-three metres of climbing in three kilometres, and the only part of the day where the ground is steadily against you before you are tired. No single stretch is steep. It still costs, and it is the first place a too-fast start shows up.
- 10–19 km
Arashiyama
- Altitude
- 79 → 88 m
- Up
- +39 m
- Down
- −30 m
- Peak
- 92 m
The hardest climbing of the day comes early, through Arashiyama and the Kinukake-no-michi temple road. The high point of the whole marathon is here, 92 m at 16 to 17 km, and it arrives as a sawtooth rather than one hill — a 17 m drop at 13 km, then straight back up. Run it by effort, not by pace. Losing 30 seconds here is cheap.
- 19–29 km
Kamo river
- Altitude
- 88 → 75 m
- Up
- +12 m
- Down
- −25 m
- Peak
- 88 m
The course eases and flattens along the river: ten kilometres that give back 13 m, gently and untidily. This is where you bank the race — smooth, even, fuelled.
- 29–35 km
The long descent
- Altitude
- 75 → 46 m
- Up
- +0 m
- Down
- −29 m
- Peak
- 75 m
Twenty-nine metres down over six kilometres, the longest continuous drop on the course. It is free speed and it is a trap: take it at the pace you were already running, not the pace the hill offers, because the bill arrives at 38.
- 35–38 km
The far side of 2024
- Altitude
- 46 → 58 m
- Up
- +12 m
- Down
- −0 m
- Peak
- 58 m
Low and flat, 46 m to 58 m. It is also where a marshal stopped you in 2024, at 35.4 km, with the gun clock on 5:01:30. Everything past this point is course you have never run, and the plan exists to make these three kilometres unremarkable.
- 38–40 km
The sting
- Altitude
- 58 → 63 m
- Up
- +13 m
- Down
- −8 m
- Peak
- 71 m
A late rise when there is nothing left — 13 m up to a crest of 71 m at 39 km. The official chart puts it exactly where the story says it is. This is the section the whole training block is really for. Osaka fell apart at precisely this point on a flatter course.
- 40–42.195 km
Heian-jingū
- Altitude
- 63 → 50 m
- Up
- +0 m
- Down
- −13 m
- Peak
- 63 m
Twenty-one metres down to the line, which is the one piece of luck the course gives you. Finish in front of the great torii. You will have run the second half you have never run.
Pacing for Sub-5:00
Slightly conservative through the Arashiyama climbs, then even. The last column is the clock on your own watch as you pass each marker — the gate clocks by the road will read 20 to 25 minutes more than that, because they started at the gun and you did not.
| Segment | Pace | Split | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5 km | 7:20 | 36:40 | 0:36:40 |
| 5–10 km | 7:15 | 36:15 | 1:12:55 |
| 10–15 km | 7:10 | 35:50 | 1:48:45 |
| 15–20 km | 7:05 | 35:25 | 2:24:10 |
| 20–25 km | 7:00 | 35:00 | 2:59:10 |
| 25–30 km | 7:00 | 35:00 | 3:34:10 |
| 30–35 km | 7:00 | 35:00 | 4:09:10 |
| 35–40 km | 7:05 | 35:25 | 4:44:35 |
| 40–42.195 km | 7:00 | 15:22 | 4:59:57 |
Fuelling
- Breakfast three hours before: the exact meal you rehearse in week 20. Nothing new.
- A gel every 40 minutes from the 40-minute mark. That is six to seven gels. Carry them all.
- Water at every station. Sports drink at alternate ones.
- Practise every single one of these on long runs from week 9. Osaka was a fuelling failure as much as a pacing one.
Before you go
Confirm entry
Overseas allocation is first-come; the domestic lottery result lands 5 October 2026.
Book flights and accommodation
Kyoto sells out fast for race weekend.
Replace race shoes
Boston 13 will be well past 800 km by February. Buy the race pair by week 14 and run them in.
Cold-weather kit
You have never raced in single-digit temperatures. Test gloves, sleeves and a throwaway top.
Confirm your start block
The whole cutoff arithmetic hangs on it. Once the block is known, time the gun-to-line delay on race morning and write it on your hand.
Read the gate cutoff times
Published in the guidebook as clock times, not elapsed. Subtract your start delay from every one of the eight and know every number before the gun.