Getting In · Pilgrimage race
Marathon du Médoc
The Marathon du Médoc runs through the great wine estates of Bordeaux, offers you twenty-three tastings along the way, serves oysters at 38 kilometres and steak at 39, and expects you to be in costume. It is the least serious marathon in the world and one of the hardest to actually finish.
- Distance
- 26.2 miThrough the châteaux
- Wine stops
- ~23
- Cutoff
- 6h30
- Field
- ~8,500
- Costume
- Effectively compulsory
- Registration
- Spring, sells out fast
Every year has a theme and the costumes are elaborate, competitive, and entirely non-optional in spirit. The course loops through Pauillac and the Médoc châteaux, and the aid stations serve Bordeaux from the actual estates you're running past. Bands play. Locals picnic. It is, by consensus, the most fun day in road running.
The catch is that there is a genuine six-and-a-half hour cutoff, and 23 glasses of red wine in September heat is a physiologically hostile act. Every year a meaningful number of runners do not finish, and the reasons are exactly what you'd expect.
How to get in
- Open entryGeneral registration
Entries open in the spring and sell out within days. It's a straightforward online registration with no lottery, but you need to be paying attention on the day it opens.
- Tour operatorTravel packages
Operators hold guaranteed entries bundled with accommodation, which solves the Bordeaux lodging problem for race weekend at the same time.
Questions runners actually ask
Is the wine actually mandatory?
No, and plenty of runners skip most of it. But turning up without a costume marks you as someone who has misunderstood the assignment.
What is the cutoff?
Six and a half hours. It sounds generous for a flat marathon and it catches out a surprising number of people who spend too long at the châteaux.
Go to the source
Entry rules, dates, standards, fees, and odds change every single year, and the interesting races change them the most. Use this guide to build the plan; use the official site to confirm the details before you book anything.
If this is your kind of thing
Need the races in between? The hard part of a bucket list year is everything else on the calendar: the qualifier, the tune-up, the long run with a bib on.