RunRace USA › Pennsylvania › Philadelphia Marathon › The weekend
The city behind the course
A Philadelphia weekend
Start with the places the marathon actually passes.
The route's local signatures
Meet the architecture and landscape along the course. Use these places to get to know the city before deciding how to spend your time on your feet.
Comcast Technology Center
Near mile 0.4
A local landmark beside the course.
Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul
Near mile 0.4
A local landmark beside the course.
Comcast Center
Near mile 0.6
A local landmark beside the course.
One Liberty Place
Near mile 0.7
A local landmark beside the course.
Independence Hall
Near mile 5.2
A local landmark beside the course.
Philadelphia City Hall
Near mile 5.9
A local landmark beside the course.
Two Liberty Place
Near mile 6.0
A local landmark beside the course.
Memorial Hall (Please Touch Museum)
Near mile 11.4
A local landmark beside the course.
A weekend rhythm that protects race day
- Arrival. Base your first walk on the real start and finish geometry, then inspect the final approach in the route map.
- Packet pickup. Go to Philadelphia Marathon Weekend Health & Fitness Expo, Pennsylvania Convention Center - Hall F inside its published window; save the final hours offline.
- The day before. Choose one course landmark, keep the outing short, and finish your feet-up time early.
- Race day. Follow the transportation plan, not ordinary weekend traffic directions.
- After the finish. Let the finish-area access plan decide the meal and meetup, especially on a point-to-point course.
Where the weekend should be based
Everything that matters sits on one axis: the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, running northwest from City Hall to the Art Museum steps. The expo is at the bottom of it (12th and Arch), the start and finish are at the top of it (22nd Street and Eakins Oval). Pick your hotel by where you want to be at 5:45 a.m. on a cold Sunday, because the whole Parkway between 22nd Street and Eakins Oval is closed to cars, no traffic gets into Center City from 4:00 a.m., and anything parked on the route gets towed starting at 1:00 a.m. Walking is the only reliable way in.
Course geometry provenance is stated beside the player; elevation profiles always use the same route loaded there. City geometry is OpenStreetMap, ODbL. Aerial imagery is from USGS and USDA; other images carry their own source credits. Weather figures use Open-Meteo reanalysis for November 18-26 across 2016-2025 at the start line. Schedule, prices and expo hours were checked in August 2026 and are the fields most likely to move: confirm them on www.philadelphiamarathon.com before you book anything. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it fast.