White Nights Marathon
St. Petersburg, Russia
- Marathon, Marathon Relay, 10K
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
Look — magic is everywhere! The city is changing. It’s time to slow down and enjoy the endless sunset along with the ever-changing sky. Run your special race in the special city. Fall in love with Saint Petersburg all over again. The White Nights Marathon is the largest marathon in … MORE
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26.2 in the City of Tsars.
Running White Nights Saint Petersburg Marathon, remains the best way to discover this city steeped in history. It's a fantastic privilege to start and finish this marvelous marathon in the … MORE
Running White Nights Saint Petersburg Marathon, remains the best way to discover this city steeped in history.
It’s a fantastic privilege to start and finish this marvelous marathon in the heart of Saint Petersburg on Palace Square (Dvortsovaya Ploshchad), a stone’s throw from the emblematic “Winter Palace”, seat of the famous “Hermitage Museum” “. The regular and flat course will take you along the Neva and the city canals. The architecture of historic palaces and typical neighborhoods will accompany your stride. This 2018 edition will bring us stormy weather with heat, sun and a single “shower”, which for me will arrive at the 37th kilometer. This marathon Sunday will also be the scene of a great military parade on the Neva, as well as in the air of Saint Petersburg. The last two kilometers of the course will remain an excellent memory with the fervor of the spectators and the magnificent panorama of the banks of Neva and Hermitage Palace.
A marathon to advise for all globetrotters runners, art lovers and tourism.
Reason for runner to visit StPetersburg
As a resident of St Petersburg I love how beautiful our city is and a chance to run through it is worth a lot, even if a part of the … MORE
As a resident of St Petersburg I love how beautiful our city is and a chance to run through it is worth a lot, even if a part of the course goes through some less-pleasant side streets, you just remember that’s the backdrop from Dostoevsky novels, almost unchanged over 150 years, and let that soak in. Also, the course is very flat which gives good PR chances. And – for some reason this feature is not advertised at all! – kilometer marks are young and beautiful girls holding large number cards. Sometimes boys…so I guess just volunteers, but still I have little doubt they try to choose ones for this duty by the looks.
If you’re a runner looking for a marathon destination, you can stop right here and look no further, chances are nothing will go wrong for you. However as a local who did this race 5 times…
– it’s middle of summer, it can get VERY hot, from ‘ruin PR attempt’ hot to ‘health hazard and heat-induced stroke’ hot.
– very few aid stations, one in every 5K. Only 25K one has isotonic drinks, others are solely water.
– race organizers have a history of changing race start time the last moment, failing to record chip times and such.
– race t-shirts are garbage, sometimes it’s not even a tech shirt, just cotton.
– while there is much more spectator support now unlike that other review from ’11, you’re still likely to meet angry drivers when crossing a major street which is closed to traffic to let the runners pass. Especially if you for whatever reason switch to walking at that moment.
What can you say? Sublime to the bizarre
Don't even know where to start on this one. Ran this on our own as a lark. Needed a European marathon for my 7 continents quest that was run during … MORE
Don’t even know where to start on this one. Ran this on our own as a lark. Needed a European marathon for my 7 continents quest that was run during the summer. There were 3 to choose from. After investigating the web sites we just had to run this. The chance to see and run St Petersburg was just to good to pass up. Hell the historical value and the Hermitage Museum alone make it worth the trip.
How can you not run a marathon where the web site promises water and salted rye bread at the water stops and has such classic lines as ‘you run marathons and eat vegetables – they be good for you’. So curiosity peaked we sign up and off to Russia we go (via Paris and Barcelona).
To understand the race you need to understand the people. The people of St Petersburg (and most of the rest of Russia) have been used and abused for the last 75 years. First WW2 and the siege of St Petersburg, then the communist, then the supposedly reforms have left the poor people hardened and leery of everybody. Can’t say I really blame them.
So the race is run in one of the most historic cities of the world and nobody who lives there really gives a damn. So needless to say not to much crowd support. Now for the actual race.
Packet pick up was a breeze. It is a small race and no problem with crowds or any issues. Communications was a challenge a lot of the time – Russia uses the crilik alphabet. There was no half marathon just a marathon and 10k. But for inline skaters there was an inline skater marathon. I guess when in Rome….
The race course was interesting. Starting and finishing at the Hermitage Museum – one of the worlds best museums was really cool (so was actually seeing and touring the museum later on). The rest of the course was pretty flat and boring with the exception of running down Nevetsky Prospeckt (the main shopping street in St Petersburg) then at mile 18 thru 24 running around the Bay of Finland. Pretty cool stuff. The crowd would mostly snarl at you and quite a few drunks to yell at you – yes even at 10 in the morning. What they say about Russians love of vodka is not an exaggeration. Also was sicker than a dog when I ran it. So overall a race that has some world class things in the middle of what seems like 1975 America.
Really hard to describe. Must run it to understand it