The Tokyo Marathon is one of the World Marathon Majors, which I had the opportunity to run in 2025 and gain my 5th star. While it was overall a great race experience, Tokyo has a lot of rules and challenges that are different from other races that I’ve run. This post breaks down my experience with the race from a logistics standpoint and what you can do to best prepare if you’re racing it. And if you’re wondering how to get into the race, check out this post!

Expo:

The expo is open for 3 days, Thursday-Saturday, and located at Tokyo Big Sight. You can access it via the train. I went on Friday after arriving to Tokyo from Kyoto, which was around 12:30pm. It wasn’t too busy when I went. I waited 2-3 minutes to get my bib and then picked up my charity shirt.

From there I went to wait in the gear line to purchase Asics gear. There is a big screen that says the wait time. I didn’t find this to be very accurate [I waited about 10-15 minutes and the predicted wait time displayed was longer than this]. I wanted a sweatshirt, and I was happy to snag one in my size.

From there, you go to another area for the vendor booths. Most of the big running brands were there, and there was one big area for all the charity booths. I wandered around and stopped by the charity I was running with, Madre Bonita. There was also a small area with Tokyo Marathon gear like bags, chop sticks, magnets, glasses, and more. It wasn’t super obvious, so make sure to look for it if you like to buy non-clothing gear!

If you’re coming right from the airport or have luggage with you, there are coin lockers in the venue you can put it in. I put my heavy backpack in one so I didn’t need to lug it around the expo with me. It was only a few dollars, and I used my Suica card to pay for it.

Gear:

The gear situation for Tokyo isn’t ideal. If you want a chance at getting a jacket, you need to either get to the expo right away on Thursday, order online ahead of time, or get to Tokyo earlier than other runners. While most of the gear was available when I was at the expo on Friday, all of the jackets were sold out.

Online ordering for gear opened sometime in December 2024 for the 2025 race. If you want to go this route, check in with your hotel ahead of time to see if you can ship the gear there and pick up when you arrive if you don’t live in Japan, as you have to ship to a Japanese address.

The Asics stores in Tokyo also had gear, but you’ll need to arrive to Tokyo earlier than other runners [Monday-Tuesday of race week or earlier] if you want a decent selection.

I personally don’t care about race jackets, but this is something to consider if you do!

Shakeout Runs + Popups:

If you’ve run or spectated other Marathon Majors, especially the ones in the States, you’re used to having a ton of shakeouts and brand activations. That’s not the case in Tokyo. Tracksmith and Nike were the brands with the biggest shakeout runs. They also had brand activations. There were other shakeouts hosted by popular content creators and some run crews, but not an overwhelming number. Most of the shakeout runs, minus Tracksmith, were not announced until 1-2 weeks before the race.

I actually liked that I didn’t have to decide between a bunch of different shakeouts like other big races. I went to the one that was closest to my hotel that a few of my friends were attending. It was a loop around the Imperial Palace, which was fun, and then we walked to get coffee near our hotels afterwards.

Tokyo Marathon shakeout run at the Imperial Palace — *Shakeout run with friends at the Imperial Palace*

Hydration + Fuel:

You are not allowed to bring your own hydration on course UNLESS they meet very specific requirements - they need to be “drink boxes, cartons, aluminum foil pouches; unopened, commercially available items; size must be under 250ml or less; and total capacity of 500ml or less.” This is directly from the 2025 race manual. This means you CANNOT bring a handheld water bottle, a hydration vest, or any other water bottle. It’s possible this rule will change in the future, but until the future handbooks come out, train accordingly. They were strict about this in the security line.

The first hydration station was 5K into the race and then they were every 2-3K. The tables were numbered and the last number of your bib corresponded to the table you were supposed to go to for water and Pocari Sweat [the electrolyte drink on course]. In theory this is a great idea, but a lot of runners didn’t read the handbook, so a lot of runners just went to the first table.

It's also worth noting that it was very warm in 2025 – close to 70* F/21* C by the end of the race + sunny, and they ran out of water and Pocari Sweat for runners that were further back. Some of the tables were being cleared even when I was going through some of the later water stations as a middle of the pack runner.

So if you’re a 5:00+ hour marathoner and you have friends/family spectating, you may want them to have water ready at certain points later in the race, just in case this is something they don’t remedy.

In terms of fuel, there were bananas at some stations, as well as little candies and some other random items. I highly encourage you to bring your own fuel to the race that you practiced with during training, so you’re not relying on them to have what you need.

Cutoff Times:

If you are a back of the pack runner, this is something you need to pay attention to. Tokyo is very strict about time cutoffs and there are 9 checkpoints that you must reach by a certain time, or you’ll be pulled off the course.

This is different from any other race (that I know about anyway) – it’s not just an overall time cutoff; you must reach certain spots by certain times, as well. This is so they can reopen the course to cars.

The overall cutoff time is 7 hours, however, this is from the start of the race, not when you cross the start line. So if you’re in the last corral, you will have less time than this.

I’m a solid middle of the pack runner, so this is not something I was worried about, but if you regularly run around 6 hours or slower for marathons, you want to pay attention to these cut off times, which are shared in the race packet ahead of the race.

Finish Line:

If you checked a gear bag, be prepared to walk awhile to get it after the race, especially if you run with a charity. It was at least another mile to walk to get my bag, when all I wanted was to sit down.

There isn’t a ton of food given after the race, so if you want to refuel right away, you should either put something in your gear bag or plan to pop into a convenience store or restaurant soon after the race.

Honestly, I was so hot and tired from the race that I barely remember anything else about the finish area, other than the long ass walk to get my bag.

Tokyo Marathon medal — *Medal pic after finally getting my checked gear bag*

If you’re running Tokyo soon, let me know what questions you have in the comments!

What to know before you run the Tokyo Marathon