More than 30,000 runners, walkers and wheelchair competitors take part each year in the BMW Dallas Marathon Festival – which features 12 running and walking events over a 3-day weekend.
In 2023, a new Sunday course was debuted which featured less turns and less hills making for a faster overall course.
Both the full marathon and the half share the same starting line in downtown Dallas, on Young Street at the Dallas Police Memorial near City Hall. From there, the course unfolds along a very gradual uphill for the first few miles,with a larger uphill-downhill segment between miles two and three on Olive Street and Cedar Spring Road.
After that, the next couple of miles keep runners alongside Turtle Creek, continuing the uphill climb through Dallas’s ritzy Highland Park neighborhood. This segment is where the peak elevation of the half marathon course occurs, on Monticello Avenue between miles 6 and 7. By this point of the race, runners will have climbed nearly 180 feet in under four miles.
Once they pass the mile 7 marker, it’s (almost) all downhill from there. Long Stretches along Greenville Avenue, Swiss Avenue and Main Street are followed by the home stretch along Canton and Young Streets, back in to the finish line at the Dallas Police Memorial.
