Tateyama Wakashio Marathon

The Tateyama Wakashio Marathon is a long-running winter road race held in Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, on the southern end of the Bōsō Peninsula. Known for its coastal scenery, seasonal flowers and views across the water toward Mount Fuji on clear days, the event offers runners a distinctly seaside alternative to the much larger urban marathons around Tokyo. The course travels along Tateyama’s coastline, including stretches of the Uchibō Nagisa Line and Bōsō Flower Line, combining ocean views with the rural and subtropical-feeling scenery for which southern Chiba is known.

The event is organized by Tateyama City, the Tateyama City Board of Education, and the Tateyama City Sports Association, with the Tateyama City Athletics Association serving as the managing athletics body. The start and finish are at Fukuhara Arinobu Ground Tateyama (Tateyama Municipal Sports Ground) in Tateyama City.

Although the full marathon is the headline event, Tateyama Wakashio is actually a multi-distance running festival. The program includes the 42.195 km marathon, a 10 km race and a 2 km Fun Run. For the marathon, runners have a generous six-hour time limit, while the 10 km has a 90-minute limit and the Fun Run a 20-minute limit. The marathon course includes a series of aid stations stocked with water and sports drink as well as Japanese race refreshments such as bananas, salt tablets, sweets, shio yokan, local milk crackers and warm barley tea at later stations.