Getting into the Tokyo Marathon is covered everywhere. This page is about the days around it: where to run easy before the race, which end of the city to sleep in, what to eat, and what to do with your legs afterwards. The Expo, the start and the finish are each paired with the nearest running from this site's own route guides.
From the official Tokyo Marathon site, checked 2026-09-26. If anything here disagrees with the organizers, they are right and this page is out of date.
The start and the finish are on opposite sides of central Tokyo, so no single neighborhood is close to both. Decide whether you would rather walk to the start or walk home from the finish, and book early: 40,000 runners and everyone who came to watch them are looking at the same two areas for the same weekend.
Near the finish
Why: You walk back to your room after 42 km instead of riding a train. The Imperial Palace loop is a few minutes away for the easy runs beforehand, with running stations nearby for lockers and showers.
The catch: Race morning means a train to Shinjuku at the same time as everyone else heading to the start. The JR Chuo Line runs direct from Tokyo Station, so it is one train, not a transfer.
Hotels in Marunouchi and Tokyo Station on Booking.com →Near the start
Why: You can walk to the start on race morning rather than sharing trains with a large share of the field.
The catch: The finish is at Tokyo Station, on the other side of the city, so the trip back is on tired legs. This is also the area every other runner who thought the same thing is trying to book.
Hotels in Nishi-Shinjuku on Booking.com →Staying near the Expo in Ariake is rarely worth it. You go once, collect your packet, and spend the rest of the week somewhere else.
The hotel links above go to Booking.com. If you book through them, Booking.com may pay RunEat Japan a commission, at no extra cost to you. The two areas are here because of where they sit relative to the course; no individual hotel is recommended, because we have not stayed in them. These are the only paid links on the site.
The marathon course itself runs on city streets that are open to traffic the rest of the year, so a shakeout there means stopping at lights. These are the places nearby that are built for running.
Expo · Thursday 4 to Saturday 6 March
Where to run
Where to leave your bag
Start · Nishi-Shinjuku
Where to run
Where to leave your bag
Finish · Tokyo Station
Where to run
Where to leave your bag
Opening hours and prices for each station are on the running stations page.
Japan makes this easy. Rice comes with almost every meal, udon and soba shops are easy to find, and every convenience store sells onigiri around the clock. The problem is the opposite of the usual one: there is so much good food that the last two days are hard to keep plain.
Keep them plain anyway. Rice, udon, bread — food your stomach already knows. Raw fish, fried food and anything you have never eaten before can wait for the celebration, when it will taste better regardless.
What to pick up at a convenience store, and what to walk past, is in the konbini guide and the guide to eating before a morning run.
Check your hotel's breakfast time before race week, not on the morning. If it opens later than you need, buy breakfast the night before or on the way — a convenience store will have something you practised with in training, at any hour.
For getting to the start, the organizers' runner information is the only source to trust. This page deliberately does not repeat it.
A public bath is the best thing in Tokyo for legs that have just run 42 km. Drink and eat first rather than going straight from the finish into water at 41–43°C — the evening, or the next day, loses nothing. The sento guide covers the etiquette, what it costs, and the tattoo question, which still matters at some baths.
This is also where the food you held back belongs. Ramen is a better recovery meal than it has any right to be, and the breakfast guide covers the morning after.
Guided Tour · Launching soon
The Kamakura Sunrise Run is 7.5 km at a conversational 7–8 min/km, an hour south of Tokyo: the temples, the beach and the Great Buddha before the crowds arrive. It suits a morning several days either side of the race — not the day before, and not the day after.
See the tour and join the waitlistHow to get an entry, and race-day logistics — bag drop, start blocks, transport to the start, cut-off times. Those change from year to year and belong to the organizers, so use the official site for them. This page is about everything around the race that the official site does not try to answer.