Athens Marathon Half Marathon & Relay

The 13.1-mile course for the half-marathon, much like its 26.2-mile counterpart, is mostly fast and flat with the exception of a fairly steep downhill that descends from the start of the race at the university campus (at South College & East Union Streets) to the second mile marker. From there, the race flattens out all the way to the turnaround point on the canal at the 6.45-mile point, where runners then turn around and head back along the course they’ve just run. Runners get a mix of springtime sun — as well as often still-chilly temperatures — along with a mix of semi-urban course through town with the backwoods bicycle trail known locally as the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway, a 19-mile biking trail along the Hocking Canal named for the Adena Native Americans who lived along the river more than 2,000 years ago. Both half- and full-marathon participants begin their run along the trail just after the 1.5-mile point in the race, and stay on the trail for approximately the next nine miles. The bikeway takes runners along what was once a railroad bed used by the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad lines, though today it’s known for entirely different varieties of vehicles — mountain bikes, rollerblades, wheelchairs and non-motorized scooters, in addition to lots of walkers.