Expo, schedule and race morning

Packet pickup

• Friday, October 16, 2026: 12:00 PM to 7:00 PM
• Saturday, October 17, 2026: 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM

• There is no race-morning packet pickup for the marathon or half unless you paid a $30 service fee for it. If you have not, Friday or Saturday at the convention center is your only option, and the expo closes at 6:00 PM Saturday, roughly 13 hours before the Sunday start.
• Photo ID is mandatory for anyone 19 or older. The race states flatly that a bib will not be handed over without it. Runners 18 and under are exempt.
• Saturday expo hours are useless to Saturday racers. The 5K and 1-mile both go off at 9:00 AM Saturday, the same minute the expo doors open. Those runners either collect Friday or pick up at the Saturday start line at North Bank Park.
• Proxy pickup is allowed but gated: one person may collect for at most two other runners, needs a completed proxy form naming the runner, the proxy and the event, and needs photo ID for themselves plus a copy of each runner's ID (electronic photos of the ID are accepted per the FAQ). Proxies must report to the "Picking Up for Others? Start Here" booth first to get IDs approved and forms stamped, before joining the regular pickup line.
• Bibs, participant shirts and gear check bags all come from the expo. Nothing is mailed.
• The expo sits at the convention center on N. High Street, not at the North Bank Park start line. Two different downtown addresses over the weekend.
• Race changes (switching distance), registration transfers to another person ($30 fee), shirt size changes and estimated finish time edits all close September 18, 2026, or earlier if the event sells out. Nothing on the pages I read suggests a distance switch is possible at the expo.
• Bib transfers or resales outside the official transfer process are prohibited; only the registered runner may use the bib.
• Parking for the expo is directed to the Goodale Garage, 70 E Goodale St.

August 2026

The published weekend schedule

Race weekend is Saturday October 17 and Sunday October 18, 2026, with the expo opening Friday October 16. The homepage bills the event as "October 17-18" while the expo runs from Friday the 16th, so an out-of-towner planning around the advertised dates alone can land after the Friday session has already opened. Marathon and half share the same 7:30 AM Sunday gun off North Bank Park; corrals open 90 minutes prior. Published time limits are 6:30 for the marathon (about 14:53 per mile) and 4:00 for the half (about 18:20 per mile). The Gold Medal Challenge stacks the Saturday 9:00 AM 5K onto Sunday's marathon or half, which means a Saturday morning at the start line and a Friday expo trip, since the Saturday expo opens at the same time the 5K starts. Start and finish sit close together downtown, so a single parking decision covers both ends of Sunday.

Getting there

Assume you will walk, and plan the car out of the picture entirely. The race publishes three closed streets around the start and finish (Long Street between High and Hocking, Spring Street between West and Hocking, and Neil Avenue from Nationwide Boulevard down to the start and finish line) but does not publish closure times for them, so the safe read is that they are gone well before the 7:30 a.m. gun. The corrals open at 6:00 a.m., and the race's own advice is blunt: double your normal travel time, and consider carpooling, bike share or rideshare instead of driving yourself. Two things people plan around that are not there: the free CBUS downtown circulator is currently suspended, and on the OSU stretch of the course all campus bus routes including on-demand service are suspended during the closure window. If you book downtown and walk, none of that matters.

• Which streets close, and what that does to your hotel. The race names Long Street between High and Hocking, Spring Street between West and Hocking, and Neil Avenue from Nationwide Boulevard to the start and finish. Those are the approaches to the Arena District hotels, so a car aiming at Courtyard, Hotel LeVeque or Residence Inn on race morning is aiming at barricades. Get the car into its garage the night before and leave it. No closure start times are published for these downtown streets, which is itself the argument for treating them as closed from early.
• Parking, and the map you have to go get. The race does not name a single garage on its parking page; it tells you to download the Arena District parking map, which it says goes up in August. That means there is no published race-day rate, opening hour or capacity to plan against, and no published towing policy or enforcement time either. Practical translation: park in your own hotel's garage, and if you must park elsewhere, get the map yourself and go early rather than trusting a spot to still exist at 6:30.
• The OSU campus stretch (matters for spectators and for anyone staying north). On the campus portion of the course, streets close from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., affecting sections of Carmack Road, Kenny Road, Woody Hayes Drive, Woodruff Avenue, College Road, 19th Avenue, Neil Avenue, Annie and John Glenn Avenue and 12th Avenue, closing intermittently. All CABS campus bus routes, including CABS On-Demand, are suspended for that window. The Carmack lots on west campus stay reachable via Kinnear Road and Lane Avenue, which is the one published escape route for that side of town.
• Transit and rideshare reality check. The free CBUS downtown circulator, which ran seven days a week and would have been the obvious hotel-to-start shuttle, is not currently in service, so do not build a plan on it. The race's suggested alternatives are CoGo bike share, Uber and Lyft, and it points to OHGO for construction updates on your drive into town. If you use rideshare, name a pickup point outside the closure ring rather than the start line, because a driver cannot reach Neil Avenue below Nationwide Boulevard.
• Getting back to your room after you finish. Walking is the plan, because the finish is inside the same closed ring your hotel sits in and the race publishes no post-finish shuttle. From the Arena District and convention center clusters that is a half mile or less on legs that will not want it, which is a genuine argument for the 0.4 to 0.6 mile hotels over the 1.1 mile ones. If someone is meeting you, have them wait outside the closure ring and walk in; note also that the race bans strollers from the course entirely, which shapes how a family plans the morning.
• Where spectators should actually stand. The race highlights Drexel and Main in Bexley, the park at Livingston and Parsons outside Nationwide Children's Hospital, Schiller Park in German Village, the stretch between Ohio State and King Avenue in Upper Arlington, Grandview Avenue in Grandview Heights, and Neil Avenue near Goodale Park in Victorian Village. Celebration Village at the finish has the race store and an information booth at Spring Street and McConnell Boulevard, which is the practical meeting landmark. Moving between these on race morning means crossing the course, so pick two spots on the same side or accept a long detour.
• Dinner the night before. Marcella's in the Short North at 615 N. High Street is the straightforward answer: Italian, pasta-forward, dinner from 4:00 p.m., and about a mile straight up High Street from the downtown hotel cluster so you get a walk without a car. Going at 4:00 or shortly after avoids the Short North's late-evening crush and gets you back to the room early, which is the entire point the night before a 7:30 a.m. start.

Parking near the course endpoints

These are mapped garages near the course, not a promise of race-day access. Check closures and pre-booking rules with the organizer.

• Express Live Parking Lots4 minute modeled walk to start
• McConnell Garage6 minute modeled walk to start
• Gravity Apartments parking garage7 minute modeled walk to start
• Nationwide Arena Garage7 minute modeled walk to start
• Parking Garage 28 minute modeled walk to start
• Parking9 minute modeled walk to start
• Parking Garage 19 minute modeled walk to start
• Astor Park Garage10 minute modeled walk to start
• Columbus Convention Center - Vine Street Garage10 minute modeled walk to start
• Huntington Center & Double Tree Suites Parking11 minute modeled walk to start

Published entry tiers

Checked 2026-08-26; fees and tiers can change.