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Where to stay
16 hotels inside a ten minute walk of the start. This is the best logistical feature of the race.
Cleveland's downtown hotel cluster sits inside a half mile of the start line, which is unusual for a marathon this size and is the main practical argument for the race. You can walk to your corral in the time it takes most runners to find their shuttle.
Downtown, on the Mall
Under 5 minutes
Everything within a couple of blocks of Public Square and the convention center. Expo downstairs, start line outside, finish line outside, beer garden outside. It is the obvious choice and it prices like it, so book early.
Downtown, east of East 9th
5 to 12 minutes
Slightly cheaper, still walkable, and on the right side of the closures for driving out afterward. You also get to watch mile 4 from your block.
Ohio City and Tremont
Not walkable to the start
The best food and the best beer in the city, and miles 8 through 12 of the course run through both. Great for the weekend, wrong for race morning unless someone is driving you.
Airport and the west suburbs
Red Line, 25 to 30 minutes
Cheapest beds, and the Red Line makes it workable. Check the Sunday morning schedule before you commit: the first trains are early but not infinitely so.
Hotels, by walk to the start line
Hotel list below comes from OpenStreetMap and the walking times are straight-line distance from the start line at 80 meters a minute. We do not rank hotels and we have not stayed in them. The start line is St. Clair Avenue at West Mall Drive. Anything under ten minutes here means you can leave your room at 6:30 and still be in your corral early.
| Walk to start | Hotel | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 min | Cleveland Marriott Downtown at Key Tower | 38 m to start |
| 2 min | Hilton Cleveland Downtown | 153 m to start |
| 3 min | Drury Plaza Hotel Cleveland Downtown | 243 m to start |
| 4 min | Hotel Cleveland, Autograph Collection | 326 m to start |
| 4 min | Hyatt Regency Cleveland at The Arcade | 344 m to start |
| 4 min | Westin | 352 m to start |
| 5 min | Fidelity Hotel CLE | 436 m to start |
| 6 min | Hampton Inn Cleveland Downtown | 485 m to start |
| 6 min | The Ritz-Carlton | 475 m to start |
| 7 min | Holiday Inn Express | 525 m to start |
| 7 min | Residence Inn Cleveland Downtown | 579 m to start |
| 9 min | Aloft Cleveland Downtown | 723 m to start |
| 9 min | DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Cleveland Downtown - Lakeside | 713 m to start |
| 9 min | Hotel Indigo Cleveland Downtown | 702 m to start |
| 9 min | Metropolitan at The 9, Autograph Collection | 755 m to start |
| 9 min | The Kimpton Schofield Hotel | 694 m to start |
| 12 min | Crown Plaza Cleveland at Playhouse Square | 956 m to start |
| 16 min | Hilton Garden Inn | 1272 m to start |
| 17 min | Comfort Inn | 1366 m to start |
| 26 min | J. Palen House | 2060 m to start |
Race weekend hotels on Booking.com ↗ Race weekend hotels on Expedia ↗
Dates prefilled for Friday May 14 to Monday May 17, 2027. Those are affiliate links: they cost you nothing and they are how this guide stays free.
Booking notes for this specific race
- The expo is under Mall B. A downtown room means bib pickup, the start, the finish and the beer garden are all inside four blocks. Very few marathons this size can say that.
- Book a late checkout, or a second night. The 7 hour open-course window keeps parts of downtown closed into the early afternoon on Sunday. An 11 a.m. checkout after a 4:30 marathon is a bad combination.
- East of East 9th is the underrated call. Slightly cheaper, still a ten minute walk, and on the side of downtown that is not inside the course loop, so you can actually drive out.
- If you are flying in, look at the Red Line first. RTA runs from Hopkins straight to Tower City under Public Square. An airport hotel plus a train is a genuinely workable plan here in a way it is not in most marathon cities.
Course geometry provenance is stated beside the player; elevation profiles always use the same route loaded there. City geometry is OpenStreetMap, ODbL. Aerial imagery is from USGS and USDA; other images carry their own source credits. Weather figures use Open-Meteo reanalysis for May 12-20 across 2016-2025 at the start line. Schedule, prices and expo hours were checked in September 2026 and are the fields most likely to move: confirm them on www.clevelandmarathon.com before you book anything. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it fast.