Palermo Marathon

Course & Elevation

The Maratona di Palermo is a city-centre road marathon in the Sicilian capital, held on a Sunday in mid-November since 1995 and organised by the club ASD Media@. The 2026 race is the 31st edition. It is on the FIDAL national calendar with a bronze label, and has been under the patronage of UNESCO since 2017. A half marathon and a 4×10.5 km relay run on the same morning, with the start at 8:30 am. The marathon is two laps of a roughly half-marathon-length circuit that follows Viale della Libertà, goes into the Parco della Favorita, reaches the Quattro Canti and Via Maqueda and the old Cassaro axis towards the Palazzo dei Normanni, and returns along Viale della Libertà; the 2026 edition also reaches the Mondello seafront. Start and finish are in the city centre at Via Libertà and Piazza Ruggero Settimo. The time limit is 5 hours 30 minutes for the marathon, and runners who drop out are carried back to the finish area by shuttle. The men's course record is 2:10:36, set by David Kemboi of Kenya in 1999, and the women's record is 2:31:15, set by Caroline Cheptonui of Kenya in 2004. A FIDAL report on the 25th edition described the course as difficult and muscular but rewarding for its art and culture.