A Arlington weekend

Start with the places the marathon actually passes.

The route's local signatures

Meet the architecture and landscape along the course. Use these places to get to know the city before deciding how to spend your time on your feet.

Central Place Tower

Near mile 1.3

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 119 meters.

1812 North Moore (Rosslyn)

Near mile 1.3

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 118 meters.

Watergate Complex

Near mile 9.7

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 40 meters.

John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Near mile 10.0

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 30 meters.

Lincoln Memorial

Near mile 10.6

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 30 meters.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Near mile 11.9

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 39 meters.

Washington Monument

Near mile 17.0

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 169 meters.

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Near mile 17.1

Built into the flyover as a race-specific local landmark. The model rises about 30 meters.

A weekend rhythm that protects race day

Arrival. Base your first walk on the real start and finish geometry, then inspect the final approach in the route map.
Packet pickup. Go to MCM Health and Fitness Expo and Packet Pick-Up, at the National Building Museum inside its published window; save the final hours offline.
The day before. Choose one course landmark, keep the outing short, and finish your feet-up time early.
Race day. Follow the transportation plan, not ordinary weekend traffic directions.
After the finish. Let the finish-area access plan decide the meal and meetup, especially on a point-to-point course.

Where the weekend should be based

The mistake is booking a hotel next to the start. The MCM start on Route 110 and the finish at the Marine Corps War Memorial are only about a mile apart as the crow flies, but they sit on opposite ends of a road network that is entirely shut down from 3:00 a.m., and the finish is the end you actually care about. You will be at the start for roughly forty-five minutes at dawn and at the finish for hours afterward, in a foil blanket, needing your bag from a UPS truck at Wilson Blvd and N Lynn St and then a shower. Book the finish, not the start, and let MCM's own machinery carry you to the line: a 4:30 to 6:30 a.m. shuttle from Crystal City, Metro opening at 5:00 a.m., and the Pentagon and Pentagon City stations feeding Runners Village. There is one more wrinkle nobody plans for: the expo is not in Arlington at all. It is at the National Building Museum in downtown DC, so whichever base you pick, one day of your weekend is a river crossing. Book through JEMS Hospitality, which MCM names as its only authorized housing agent, and note MCM's own warning that pirating sites impersonate the official block.

Compare the actual hotel geometry →

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 October 21-29 across 2016-2025 at the start line. Schedule, prices and expo hours were checked in 2026-08-26 and are the fields most likely to move: confirm them on www.marinemarathon.com/event/marine-corps-marathon before you book anything. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it fast.