On December 5 the 2010 Shanghai Marathon will take place, and for the first time the route will go through both Puxi and Pudong. The start will be at Nanjing Road as usual and from there it will go along the Bund and the South Bund to the Fuxing Road Tunnel. After the tunnel the runners will pass the World Expo (at least what’s left of it by then) and continue on along the Huangpu river. The half marathon will then go East in the direction of the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center (where the finish is). For the full marathon the organizers decided to make the last 25 km as boring as possible by including a 12.5 km straight road with a turn at the end from where the participants will have to run back the same 12.5 km. It might lead to fast running times, but it’s not what you hope for as a runner.

If I am in China around December 5 I will probably participate in the half marathon, I likely won’t have enough time to train enough for the full marathon. Next to that I am not a big fan of the new full marathon course, so that makes the decision even easier.

If you are planning to participate, you can sign up for the race starting from September 1 until November 14 (note: after September 27 prices will go up). As usual they discriminate foreigners by charging them more money than Chinese (I wonder if that’s actually allowed in China? I remember that about 10 years ago a law was passed to stop the practice of having different prices for foreigners at for example tourist sites), but the entry fees are still reasonable: USD 45 for foreigners (full marathon), RMB 180 for foreigners living in China and RMB 60 for local Chinese. You can find more information about the registration procedures for the marathon here.

Map credit: http://shmarathon.com/map_cn.html