Twin Cities Marathon 2026: What Time Does It Start and How Cold Is Race Morning?

Two weeks out — The Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon goes Sunday, Oct. 4 at 8:00 a.m. CT from 615 S. Sixth St. in Minneapolis and finishes at the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul, with the pro wheelchair field away at 7:52 and the athletes-with-disabilities start at 7:55. You need to be through 26.2 in six hours 30 minutes; the finish line closes at 2:50 p.m. And if you do not already have a bib, the marathon, the TC 10 Mile and the TC 10K are all sold out.

This is the point-to-point one. It runs downtown Minneapolis out past the chain of lakes, picks up the Mississippi, and then does the thing everyone warns you about: it climbs Summit Avenue from roughly mile 20 to mile 23 and only lets go near Snelling Avenue by Macalester College. Whatever pace you banked around the water is settled there.

What time does each race start over the weekend?

Saturday's two races both start and finish on the Capitol grounds in Saint Paul, which is also where Sunday's marathon ends. Runners are seeded into one of three corrals from the information they gave at registration, so the number on your bib decides when you cross the line rather than where you choose to stand.

Two stacked-entry options complicate the map. The TC Loony Challenge is the 5K and the 10K on Saturday followed by the TC 10 Mile on Sunday; the Ultra Loony swaps that Sunday ten-miler for the marathon.

Can you still get into the 2026 marathon?

Not through the front door. Public registration for the whole weekend opened Tuesday, March 3, and the marathon page now reads sold out, as do the TC 10 Mile and the TC 10K. Two routes remain: a Twin Cities In Motion Gold or Silver membership, which carries guaranteed entry, and a charity-partner bib, which comes with a fundraising minimum attached.

The TC 5K on Saturday morning is the accessible one. Its pricing runs in seven tiers, starting at $39 for the first 150 entries and topping out at $65 in the late window that runs Sept. 18 through race day, plus processing.

Where do you pick up your bib, and how does gear check work?

Packet pickup is at the Saint Paul RiverCentre on Friday, Oct. 2 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 3 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There is no pickup on marathon morning, so a runner flying in late Saturday needs to land before the doors close at six.

Gear check runs at the start line only, using the clear plastic bag handed to you at packet pickup with the sticker from the back of your bib on the front. It shuts 20 minutes before your corral goes, which for the 8:00 mass start means 7:40, and everything has to be collected from the Capitol grounds by 3:00 p.m.

How much climbing is actually in this course?

Less than the reputation, placed worse than almost anywhere else. FindMyMarathon logs 576 feet of gain against 495 feet of loss for a net of 81 feet, between a low of 788 and a high of 950. On paper that is a gently rolling road race. The problem is distribution: the flat, pretty half comes first, and the bulk of the climbing waits until the legs are 20 miles old.

Runners who have raced it describe the Summit stretch as two moderate rises inside the first mile past 20, then a flatter breath, then a third and steeper pull. Treat mile 20 as the start of the race, and the arithmetic works.

What has Oct. 4 weather actually done in Minneapolis?

Twenty-seven degrees separate the coldest of those mornings from the warmest, and not one of the five had measurable rain in the hour before eight. That is the honest summary of an early-October start in Minnesota: dry, and completely unpredictable in temperature. NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for the date at the airport read 63.6°F for the high and 44.1°F for the low, so the 2024 reading of 45°F was a normal morning and the 2025 reading of 72°F was not.

No forecast reaches race day yet. The National Weather Service grid for Minneapolis, issued 6:02 a.m. CT today, runs only through Saturday night, Sept. 26 — highs 62 to 72, lows 45 to 55, and a 22 percent chance of showers Thursday. Useful for your last long runs, useless for Oct. 4; the grid reaches race morning in the last days of September. We log past race-day observations on our running weather page.

What should you wear to an 8 a.m. start you cannot predict?

Pack for two races and decide Saturday night. A 45°F version wants a singlet or short sleeve under throwaway layers, light gloves and a cheap hat you can shed by the lakes; the sun is up before the gun and the field will warm you. A 72°F version with a 61°F dew point, which is what 2025 delivered, wants the lightest thing you own, a cap, and a plan to drink at every one of the 14 fluid stations rather than every second one.

The 8:00 start is late enough that the temperature climbs while you run, which argues for dressing to the finish rather than the start in every scenario except the cold one. Our kit-by-temperature chart has the bands, and the shoe rotation page covers which pair belongs on a road course with a hill at the end. If a cold morning has you reaching for tights, length is the thing that goes wrong at mile 18 — our sister sizing desk's inseam-by-height chart is the quick fix.

What happens if you fall off 14:52 pace?

A sweep vehicle collects you. The race states that everyone must be capable of 6:30, roughly 14 minutes 52 seconds per mile, and that the finish closes at 2:50 p.m.; runners who cannot hold a consistent pace are picked up and transported. Roads reopen behind the field on a schedule the city sets, not one the race can stretch.

Fourteen fluid stations carry water, lemon-lime Nuun Endurance and toilets, with medical just past most of them from about mile 2.5 onward, and gels appear near mile 18.6 while they last. Carry your own if a specific flavour is part of your plan. Twin Cities In Motion also reserves the right to cancel without refunds if conditions turn dangerous — worth reading before you buy a non-refundable flight.

How does it compare with the other races on the October board?

Twin Cities sits on the same weekend as several races we have looked at this month, and each asks for something different. The St. George Marathon runs the day before with 2,560 feet of descent and a 40°F start at altitude; the Quad Cities Marathon a week earlier is flat and still open; the Erie Marathon, which ran on Sept. 13, is the lap-course version of the same Boston-qualifying pitch. The rest of the fall board and where each one falls in a taper are on our countdown page.

First marathon? Our night-before checklist is for after the expo, the visibility gear notes cover pre-dawn long runs, and the shorter fields are on the half and 5K page.

FAQ

What time does the Twin Cities Marathon start in 2026? The mass start is 8:00 a.m. CT on Sunday, Oct. 4, behind a 7:52 pro wheelchair start and a 7:55 athletes-with-disabilities start.

Is the 2026 Twin Cities Marathon sold out? Yes. So are the TC 10 Mile and the TC 10K. Membership and charity entries are the remaining routes, and the Saturday TC 5K still has tiered pricing available.

What is the time limit? Six hours 30 minutes, about 14:52 per mile, with the finish line closing at 2:50 p.m.

Sources

• Date, start time, start and finish locations, corral and wave times, time limit, gear check, aid stations and packet-pickup hours: tcmevents.org marathon page and its 2026 participant guide, retrieved Sept. 20, 2026.
• Weekend event schedule, sold-out status and TC 5K pricing tiers: weekend index, TC 10K and TC 5K pages, read Sept. 20, 2026.
• Course elevation gain, loss, net and high and low points: FindMyMarathon race detail.
• Week-ahead forecast: National Weather Service gridpoint forecast for Minneapolis (office MPX, grid 108,72), issued 6:02 a.m. CT Sept. 20, 2026.
• Past Oct. 4 observations: Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) records at 7:53 a.m. CDT via the Iowa Environmental Mesonet. Climate normals: NOAA NCEI 1991–2020 daily normals, station USW00014922.