Next edition: 27 September 2026
The fastest mass marathon course in the world, run in 2025 at 27.6 °C — the hottest edition on record. The course did not change; what has to change is the assumption people bring to it.
Figures from 2025.
Read these as a hard year rather than a normal one: 2025 was the heat-record edition. A third-party count (Runify) additionally gives 7,797 runners under 3:30 and 17,394 under 4:00, plus 2,384 under 3:00 — slightly different from the official timing figure. Different sources, not merged.
6 hours 15 minutes from your own start mat. That is the only thing the official texts agree on.
The intermediate cut-offs do not agree, and we print all three rather than pick one:
Anyone behind is put on the broom bus; there is no provision for continuing outside the race. Plan against the strictest of the three and confirm with the organiser before you travel.
City loop starting and finishing by the Brandenburg Gate, in the Tiergarten. This is where most recent world records have been set, and its defining feature is the absence of features: wide, straight, without a single named climb. Certified and Boston-qualifying.
The organiser publishes no official elevation figure and we adopt none of the ones in circulation. For the thing that matters — how to plan pace — every version says the same: nothing on this course forces a gear change. That does not make the race easier; it means a pacing error has nowhere to hide.
There is no kilometre-by-kilometre description here worth writing, and that is a fact about the race rather than a gap in this page.
Start and finish, Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten. The most recognisable point of the marathon and, in practice, a long straight corridor into the finish.
The rest is a city loop, on wide avenues, with few turns and no stretch that the specialist press treats as the decisive one — there is no Berlin equivalent of Heartbreak Hill.
What you do have to read is your block's clock. With six starts spread between 8:45 and 10:27, two runners of the same standard can run the same race eight degrees apart. The course is identical for everyone; the day is not.
The organiser publishes no per-kilometre elevation table and this page does not reconstruct one from third-party GPS files.
Berlin breaks on heat, not on profile, and the example is recent.
2025 started at 27.6 °C, the hottest edition on record — the previous high was 25.0 °C in 2009. At the front, Sawe still won in 2:02:16; behind him, the top-ten average went to 2:07:36 against 2:04:37 the year before. The elite lost three minutes. A five-hour runner does not lose three minutes; they lose half an hour.
The failure mode is documented and it has a name. Arriving with a plan built on "Berlin is flat, so I go hard early" and meeting a day above 25 °C. The course invites exactly that: there is no climb to force you down at km 10, no tight corner to remind you where you are. There is a straight avenue and a decision of yours, every kilometre.
And the start block multiplies it. Drawn into the 10:27 start, your last fifteen kilometres land in the hottest part of the day.
Late September in Berlin is usually ideal weather for running fast, which is why the warm years land so hard. The recent reference to carry is 2025: 27.6 °C, the race's all-time high.
That is not the average and we do not present it as one. It is the proof that the margin exists, and that a pacing plan which only works at 12 °C is half a plan.
Six staggered starts in 2026, subject to change: blocks A-C at 8:45, D-E at 9:05, F-G at 9:33, H at 10:02, J at 10:12 and K at 10:27. An hour and a half separates the first block from the last, and in a warm September that hour and a half is the difference between running at 18 °C and running at 26 °C.
Public lottery, opening in late September or early October — that is, in the weeks after the current year's race — with results at the end of November.
Public lottery, with a fast-runner route, charity places, tour operators and club quotas
No qualifying time is needed to enter the lottery, but a fast-runner route does exist that bypasses it — the exact tables are published when each edition opens.
And one requirement catches people out: any claimed time under 3:15 has to be documented to start in the front blocks.
Your block comes from your best or expected time, and can be changed in your account until 27 August, 23:59. You may start in a slower block than the one assigned, never a faster one.
The lottery success rate is around 20% according to the organiser, who does not publish applicant numbers. The fee is charged only if you are drawn: around €205 for 2026.
Entry and conditions verified on 11 September 2026. The organiser is the source for any date that moves.
One question decides this block: does your pacing plan survive a 25 °C day?
Train the heat, even though you are running Berlin for its reputation for cold. Part of the long runs in the last six weeks should be done mid-morning rather than at dawn. The point is not to suffer; it is to know your real pace in heat, because that is the number you will use at km 5 to decide whether today's plan is the plan you wrote.
Write two pacing plans, not one. One for the perfect day and one ten to twenty seconds per kilometre slower for the warm day. The choice is made in the first five kilometres and not revisited. This is specifically what failed across the mass field in 2025.
A featureless course demands pacing discipline, not strength. No climbs regulate you and no corners slow you, so the block's quality work has to be long and continuous: 20-to-30-minute marathon-effort blocks inside the long run, not short intervals. The skill you are training is holding an exact number for hours with no external reference.
And check your start block before you write anything. A 10:27 start has a different thermal profile from an 8:45 one, and the fluid plan and target pace are calculated on your clock, not the broadcast's.
The race is 16 days away. These blocks no longer fit this edition — they are for the next one, and for arriving at it with the base already built rather than starting from zero.
Three levels, two durations, heart-rate based. Choose by the volume you can sustain, not the volume you would like to run.
Entries closed Entries are not open right now: the 2026 lottery closed in November 2025; the 2027 draw opens in the weeks after this September's race. These blocks still apply if you already have a place, or if you are chasing the qualifier.
You do not need to be exactly 12 or 18 weeks out. A specific block is not started from zero — you arrive at it already active, and these plans are the last part of that road.
On the order of things here: the following year's lottery opens a few weeks after each race and is drawn in November, so almost nobody trains for Berlin already knowing they are running it. These blocks are for arriving at the draw already fit — the one part of the equation that is up to you.
Leave your email and we'll help you pick the right plan for your goal and your date. Free, and not required to buy.
On a course with no climb anywhere to force you down, the only thing regulating your race is you, every kilometre, for three or four hours.
A calendar plan does not know which corral you drew, how last month went, or what to do when the week falls apart. If what you have just read about this race changes your approach, that is a conversation, not a PDF.
Tell me your goal