Expo, schedule and race morning

Packet pickup

• Friday, October 16, 2026: 1-7 p.m.
• Saturday, October 17, 2026: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

• Mandatory pickup, no race-day option. The site states plainly: 'There will be no exceptions, and no picking up of packets on race day.' If you land Sunday morning you do not run.
• Only two days of pickup, and Friday does not open until 1 p.m. A Friday-evening arrival gives you a 6-hour window; a Saturday arrival gives you until 6 p.m. and nothing after.
• Border-crossing events (Marathon, International Half-Marathon, Marathon Relay) require you to appear IN PERSON. No proxy pickup at all for these. The FAQ says international-race participants must pick up their packet at the expo on Friday or Saturday and must show up personally with proper documentation, no exceptions.
• ID for border-crossing events must be WHTI-compliant: Passport, Passport Card, or an Enhanced Driver's License. Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington are the states listed as issuing an accepted EDL. An ordinary Ohio or other standard driver's license is NOT enough for the marathon.
• Domestic-only events (e.g. Motor City Half, 5K, 1-Mile) accept a regular photo driver's license showing name and date of birth, and DO allow a proxy to collect your packet if the proxy brings a printed confirmation email.
• Children under 16: a parent or guardian may pick up the packet.
• Bibs are assigned dynamically at the expo, not pre-mailed. Most participants get a QR code by email during race week to speed check-in, so watch for that email and have it on your phone. Adaptive Athletes Division, Marathon Relay and Challenge Series participants are the exceptions and get pre-assigned bib numbers.
• The expo runs at Huntington Place during the same hours the Saturday 1-Mile, 5K and kids races are being run, so a Saturday racer has to fit pickup around those events.

August 2026

The published weekend schedule

Dates are Friday Oct. 16 through Sunday Oct. 18, 2026. The hard gate is the corral: access opens 6:15 a.m. and closes 6:55 a.m. for the international races, and the site states 'No late starts will be allowed' - five minutes before the 7 a.m. gun the door is shut, whatever the wave chart says. Gear check is a separate stop at Monroe Street near Campus Martius, open 5:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., so budget the walk from gear check to the corral before 6:55. Time limits: marathon 6.5 hours measured from when the Last Chance Pacer crosses the start line, International Half 4 hours, Motor City Half 3.5 hours, 5K 1 hour 10 minutes. The marathon finish line closes at 2 p.m. with roads reopening incrementally along the course up to that cutoff. Pace teams assemble in the corrals at least 15 minutes before the start. All times and dates come from freepmarathon.com's expo, FAQ and marathon pages; the Saturday race start locations are the site's times without a stated venue.

Getting there

Assume your car is parked and stays parked. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel closes on race Sunday, and the race's own pages give two different windows for it: the current FAQ says the closure "will last from approximately 6:15-10:30 a.m.," while the race's own getting-downtown guide says the tunnel is "closed to vehicle traffic from 6:15 a.m. and will reopen to traffic at 10:00a.m." That tunnel is your mile 7.71-8.89 Underwater Mile, +60 feet, which is exactly why it is shut. The Ambassador Bridge runs on a similar clock, described on the race site as "closed to vehicle traffic from 6 a.m. until the last runner clears the bridge, which will be approximately 9:15 a.m.", while the current FAQ softens that to "restricted traffic." Around all of it, closures on named streets ripple outward: eastbound Fort Street closes at Grand Boulevard, southbound Woodward at Charlotte/Edmund, the Lodge southbound after the Howard Street exit, Lafayette westbound at Iroquois, and northbound streets off Jefferson are limited because of the Larned Street course lines. News coverage of the most recent edition says course roads start closing as early as 4 a.m. Neither the race nor the city published a tow-away enforcement time on any page I fetched, so treat any on-street space near the course as a space you should not use at all rather than gambling on a posted hour.

• Detroit People Mover — runs early enough. This is the one system that unambiguously works on race morning. The race FAQ lists 2026 hours as Sunday "5:30AM – 10:00PM" (Friday 6:30AM-12:00AM, Saturday 10:00AM-12:00AM), which is comfortably ahead of any start time. Its elevated loop sits above the closed streets, so barricades do not affect it. The Financial District, Millender Center and Cadillac Center stations put you in the start, RenCen and Campus Martius/finish areas respectively; the race's older guide describes the same three functional stops as the start-line station, the finish-area station and Cadillac Center. Price is where the race contradicts itself: the current FAQ says "The Detroit People Mover is always free to ride and is a great option for the race weekend," while the older getting-downtown guide lists it at "$.75 cents and free for children under age 5." Carry a dollar and stop worrying about it.
• QLINE — do not plan around it. The race's own two pages disagree on whether the QLINE runs at all. The current FAQ says "The QLINE will have limited service on Saturday, Oct 17, ending at State St and on Sunday, Oct 18, ending in front of Little Caesars Arena during the race," meaning a truncated Woodward line that stops short of downtown. The earlier getting-downtown guide, for a prior edition, says flatly that it "will not be running" on race Sunday. Either way it does not deliver you to the start line, so it is a Saturday tool for reaching Midtown, not a race-morning tool.
• DDOT buses — rerouted, and the transit center stays open. The city's rider alert for a recent edition listed 19 DDOT routes rerouted for the marathon (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19, 23, 27, 29, 31, 42 and 52), with detours beginning "at approximately 2 a.m. Sunday" and normal conditions returning when "All roads are expected to reopen by 6 p.m." Critically, it states "The Rosa Parks Transit Center will remain open for operation," and inbound routes are redirected there. So buses do run early enough, but they will not be running their normal downtown pattern; if you are coming in from outside the core, plan on Rosa Parks Transit Center as your terminus and walk or take the People Mover from there. Note this alert is from a prior year's race, so route numbers should be re-checked against the current-year alert.
• Driving in and parking — four approach zones, booked ahead. The race publishes driving directions organized by where you come from (north, east, west metro) and funnels everyone into four staging areas: Greektown east of the finish, RenCen/Detroit Riverwalk to the south, the Comerica Park/Ford Field area to the north, and Corktown to the west. "RenCen area parking garages" are named explicitly. Coverage of the recent editions says organizers recommend booking parking in advance through SpotHero and tell drivers to park outside the course perimeter and add travel time. A car can physically reach the downtown hotels before closures begin, but the operating assumption should be that you arrive Saturday, garage the car, and do not touch it again until roads reopen.
• Getting back to your room after you finish. Nothing on the race site describes a finish-line shuttle, so the answer is walking, and the layout is built for it. Gear check is on Monroe just north of Campus Martius, open "from 5:30am-2:30pm," and the meeting point is Runner Reunite, "Located on Woodward on the northwest side of Campus Martius" with "signs displaying letters of the alphabet." That means your post-race sequence is finish, walk to Campus Martius for bag and family, then walk to the hotel; from any of the four-minute downtown hotels that is a few blocks on tired legs. If you are further out, the People Mover is running until 10 p.m. and is the low-effort way back. If your car is in a garage inside the course, expect it to be stuck until the roads reopen, which the city alert put at approximately 6 p.m.
• Where to eat the night before. Roma Cafe in Eastern Market is the classic pre-race Detroit answer: long-standing old-school Italian, straightforward pasta and red sauce, a short ride from the downtown hotels and far enough from the course to be reachable Saturday night without crossing any closure. Stated plainly: this recommendation is my own general knowledge, not something I found on a page I fetched, so confirm it is open and taking Saturday reservations before you count on it.

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.

• Ally Detroit Center Garage2 minute modeled walk to start
• Griswold/Larned Garage2 minute modeled walk to start
• Two Detroit Center Garage2 minute modeled walk to start
• 150 W. Jefferson Garage3 minute modeled walk to start
• Financial District Garage3 minute modeled walk to start
• Ford Underground Garage3 minute modeled walk to start
• 1001 Woodward Garage4 minute modeled walk to start
• Courtyard Detroit Downtown4 minute modeled walk to start
• Griswold Capitol Park4 minute modeled walk to start
• 440 E Congress5 minute modeled walk to start

Published entry tiers

Checked 2026-08-31; fees and tiers can change.