Edinburgh Marathon Festival

The Edinburgh Marathon Festival is a two-day running festival held across Edinburgh on 23 and 24 May 2026, combining mass-participation road races with junior and family events. The weekend is built around a fast, flat marathon course (finishing in Musselburgh) and a mix of shorter city-centre races routed around Holyrood Park and Dynamic Earth. The programme is aimed at a wide spectrum of runners, from first-time half marathoners to experienced marathoners seeking PB potential, and it promotes a lively festival atmosphere for participants and spectators alike.

Across the weekend organisers stage multiple distances including the Marathon, Half Marathon, EMF Relay, 10K, 5K and a set of junior and kids’ races, with the 10K/5K routes using Holyrood Park as a start/finish hub and the marathon starting in the Potterrow area of the city. The event pages note festival-style finish areas, finisher garments and medals for finishers and emphasise scenic city and coastal sections of the courses. Entrants are directed to the official event website for race-specific pages, registration and participant information.