The Twin Cities Marathon weekend is October 4-5, 2025. Each year, Twin Cities in Motion (“TCM”) offers fun ways to make it a family event on the first day of the weekend. The Marathon itself sells out fast, but we have ideas for making this a fun and healthy weekend for family whether or not you participate in the long run.
Year-Round Family-Friendly Runs
Start by Printing a Family Training Schedule
Want to be able to run a 5K together (That’s 3.1 miles)? TCM used to offer printable kids 5K training schedules and logs for 12, 8 or 4 weeks. Unfortunately, they’ve deleted those pages from their website. Good news. Mayo Clinic offers a 7-week training schedule for beginners. Get the printable PDF here.
Don’t worry about it being too much, TCM reminds kids (and their parents) to “take it one mile at a time”.
Twin Cities in Motion will be offering other activities all month long. Follow TCM on your favorite social media to get all the details.
Register to Participate as a Family
After training together for the 5K, you can sign up to participate in 2025. Besides the adult races, their are several family races on Saturday during the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon Weekend Family Saturday held at the Minnesota State Capitol grounds. Whether you want to do a family mile, a half mile, the toddler trot or the diaper dash, there is usually for something for everyone and participants receive family-friendly fitness gear to celebrate finishing the race. Registration for 2025 events is open.
- 5K
- Family Mile Race
- Half Mile
- Diaper Dash
Hang out in the Family-Activity Area to enjoy kid-friendly music, live art and entertainment and participate in activities from 8am to Noon.
Cheer on Runners along the Twin Cities Marathon Course
The marathon itself is on Sunday, October 5, 2025. It begins at 8am and is considered an exceptionally beautiful course. The race starts near US Bank Stadium in Downtown Minneapolis and the finish line is at the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul. Two recommended spectator spots are along Summit Avenue in St. Paul or on Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis; but the race course also runs through other parks including Lake Harriet and the Chain of Lakes and along both sides of the Mississippi River, so you should be able to find a cozy place along the marathon route to cheer on the runners and enjoy the scenery and the fall colors. You can probably even park yourself near to a playground.
Take some coffee and cocoa, pick your spot along the “most beautiful urban marathon” and get ready to cheer! You can also find an app to track your favorite athlete and find other race day details by searching “Twin Cities in Motion” in your app store.
Marathon Family Read Aloud
We have a great picture book suggestion to pair with this fun weekend, but beware I have not been able to get through it without a few tears in my voice. Her Fearless Run: Kathrine Switzer’s Historic Boston Marathon, written by Kim Chaffee and illustrated by Ellen Rooney, tells the story about how Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with an official number, the race officials that tried to stop her and the people who helped her succeed. This was an inspirational story for the whole family – boys, girls, adults and children.