Sacramento to host 2025 and 2026 national marathon championships
The national marathon championships are coming back to Sacramento for two years.
The California International Marathon on Dec. 7 — and the 2026 race — will double as the USA Track & Field Marathon Championships for men and women, the Sacramento Running Association announced Monday.
The annual race takes a speedy, net-downhill 26.2-mile route from Folsom to the Capitol Mall. Sacramento has previously hosted the men’s, women’s or both national championships seven times since the California International Marathon was first held in 1983 — most recently in 2022.
Scott Abbott, the executive director of the Sacramento Running Association, which organizes the race, said Sacramento beat out at least three other cities that were bidding to host the 2025 national marathon championships.
While most of the roughly 10,000 runners will not compete in the elite fields for a national title — and the race always features elite contenders — Abbott said the championships boost many participants’ enthusiasm.
“There’s just an excitement of being a part of that, kind of trodding the ground behind the professionals, knowing they’re going through the same thing that you are,” he said.
The men’s and women’s champions will earn $20,000 each in prize money, from a total purse of $116,500 for the top championship finishers, according to a news release from the running association.
The race also offers $500 bonuses to American runners who qualify in Sacramento for the Olympic trials in the run-up to the 2028 Olympic Games, which will take place in Los Angeles.
Race organizers and USATF officials are working to recruit top American athletes to compete in this year’s championships, Abbott said. The national championships cannot necessarily count on attracting the very best Americans for an event that most may only run twice a year.
“CIM is one of the most popular marathons in the country, across ability levels, and is known for its fast times,” Kim Conley, a UC Davis alumna and former Olympian who serves as a USATF official, said in a statement included in Monday’s news release. “The elite athlete experience is superb.”
Athletes have until July 1 to apply to join the championship fields. For women, the qualifying standard is a 2:42 marathon or a 1:15:30 half marathon; for men, it’s a 2:20:30 marathon or 1:05 half marathon.
As for the regular registration process, Abbott said the race sold out last month. But he said spots remain available through charity entries, where runners can earn a spot by donating to local nonprofits.
Brendan Gregg, who has run the California International Marathon five times, including years when it was the national championships, and won it in 2021 (without a USATF title), now serves as its course director. He said the racing tactics are different for championships, with no official pacesetters and more at stake than fast times.
“It’s less robotic,” he said. “Oftentimes we’ll see in U.S. championships years some guy will set out on his own at the front and try to, you know, do it solo. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
The California International Marathon is unusual, Gregg said, in that it does not split runners into waves, instead sending all of the thousands of runners off at once.
This story was originally published June 17, 2025 at 5:00 AM.