Expo, schedule and race morning

Packet pickup

• Thursday before race day: 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
• Friday before race day: 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

• Packet pickup is a separate operation from the expo floor: it runs in the DECC Arena at Entrance A, Thursday 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Friday 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
• Pickup is mandatory and there is no race-morning option. The site states there is absolutely no race packet pickup on race morning, with no exceptions.
• Bring photo ID. It is used only to match your first and last name to your registration.
• Someone else can collect your packet, but only with the authorization form from your bib number email, printed and brought along.
• William A. Irvin 5K and Great Grandma's Challenge entrants must have their packets by 12:30 p.m. Friday, because the 5K goes off at 1:00 p.m.
• Mailed packets are an option for the marathon and half only, $30, requested by May 20.
• 100 or more vendors, plus a two-day speaker schedule that includes a virtual course tour with two-time champion Doug Kurtis, a yoga class, an elite athlete Q and A, and pre-race talk shows with former champions.
• Practical consequence for a point-to-point race: you must be in Duluth by Friday evening at the latest. A Saturday-morning arrival is not possible.

August 2026

The published weekend schedule

Race day is the third Saturday in June. The weekday structure never changes: expo Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, the William A. Irvin 5K and the kids races Friday afternoon, the half and the full Saturday morning. The dates the official site is currently posting, checked August 2026, correspond to a Saturday June 19 race day, which is the following edition; confirm the exact calendar dates for your year. Note the split start: the half goes off at 6:00 a.m. and the marathon at 7:45 a.m., so the two races have loading windows nearly two hours apart.

Getting there

There is no negotiating this part. The race states that all marathon and half marathon participants must take the provided transportation to the start line, that there is no access and no parking anywhere near either start, and that individual drop-offs at the start are strictly prohibited. A car gets you to a loading lot and no further. Once you are inside Duluth, Canal Park and downtown are easy to cover on foot, and the DTA plus a seasonal trolley fill in the rest, but public transit is not what gets you to Two Harbors on race morning; the buses are.

• The buses, and what time you are actually getting up. Eight loading locations. The Duluth locations, meaning the DECC, UMD, Miller Hill Mall and Duluth East High School, load the half from 4:15 to 5:00 a.m. and the marathon from 5:30 to 6:15 a.m. Proctor Sports and Events Center and UW-Superior run fifteen to thirty minutes earlier: half 4:15 to 4:45 a.m., marathon 5:15 to 6:00 a.m. Two Harbors High School loads the marathon latest, 6:00 to 6:30 a.m. Working backwards from the DECC window, a marathoner staying in Canal Park is setting an alarm around 4:30 a.m. for a 7:45 a.m. gun; a half marathoner is setting it around 3:15 a.m. The instruction is to arrive as early as possible in your window, not at the end of it.
• If you miss the bus. The site publishes no grace procedure, and given that drop-offs at the start are prohibited and there is no parking there, a missed bus realistically means a missed race. Build in a buffer: aim for the front of your loading window, not the back.
• The train option, marathon only. The North Shore Scenic Railroad runs from 350 Harbor Drive, boarding 5:00 to 5:45 a.m., as an alternative to the bus. It is explicitly not available for the half marathon, seating is limited and first come first served, and it is expected to reach the start no earlier than 7:10 a.m., which leaves a thinner cushion before the 7:45 a.m. start than the buses do.
• Gear bags. Official clear plastic bags only, with the tag attached; backpacks and unofficial bags are not permitted. For the marathon you drop your bag near the corral entrance at the start in Two Harbors and it cannot come into the corral with you. For the half it is stricter: no gear bags on the buses at all, so your bag must be dropped at the loading location before you board. Bags are returned in the finish chute area in Canal Park.
• At the start line in Two Harbors. The marathon start is 893 Scenic Drive, Two Harbors, with the staging area at the Sonju Two Harbors parking lot. There are plenty of portable toilets, water and medical aid, but the race warns to expect congestion and long lines, particularly for the toilets. Depending on your loading location you may be standing around for an hour or more in a lakeside field before the gun, so pack a throwaway layer.
• Getting back after the finish. Free return shuttles run continuously from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on race day, serving UMD Kirby Student Center, Miller Hill Mall, Duluth East High School, Proctor Sports and Events Center, UW-Superior Wessman Arena and Two Harbors High School. Everything except Two Harbors departs when full; the Two Harbors buses depart on the hour, so factor in up to an hour of standing around if that is where your car is.
• Parking and driving in Duluth. Canal Park lots and downtown on-street, surface pay lots and ramps are the options; the outlying loading lots at Miller Hill Mall, UMD, Duluth East and Proctor are the ones with real capacity. The race warns that traffic is heavier on marathon weekend, especially heading north on Friday and south on Sunday, which is worth knowing if you are driving up from the Twin Cities Friday afternoon into an expo that closes at 8:00 p.m.
• Getting to Duluth without a car. Duluth International Airport is about ten minutes from downtown, with nonstop Delta service from Minneapolis-St. Paul and United Express from Chicago. From MSP, Groome Transportation drops directly at the DECC and surrounding hotels, and Landline runs to the airport. In town, the DTA operates 18 routes across Duluth, Proctor and Superior, and the seasonal Port Town Trolley loops downtown and the waterfront every 30 minutes from early June through Labor Day. Uber and Lyft both operate here. None of these run early enough to substitute for the race buses.
• Dinner the night before, in Canal Park. Grandma's Restaurant Canal Park, 522 S. Lake Avenue, is the obvious and correct pick: it is the restaurant the race is named after, it is a five-minute walk from the finish line and most Canal Park hotels, and it is a race sponsor. Book or go early, because the whole field has the same idea. If you want the sanctioned carb-load instead, the Michelina's All-You-Can-Eat Spaghetti Dinner runs 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Friday in the DECC Lake Superior Ballroom, right next door.

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.

• South Ramp5 minute modeled walk to finish
• North Ramp6 minute modeled walk to finish

Published entry tiers

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