Tokyo, Los Angeles, Berlin Half, and Then the Majors

Tokyo Marathon was on March 1. Boston is on April 20. London is on April 26. Between those dates, Los Angeles drew nearly as many users as Tokyo with more than twice the side events. Berlin Half Marathon, a half marathon, packed 43 events into four days. And the same handful of brands kept showing up city after city.

Boston and London are still ahead and a lot will happen between now and late April. Here is what the spring has looked like so far.

Tokyo

Tokyo’s race week generated 21,723 pageviews on marathon-weekend.com, the highest single-week spike of any spring marathon this year.

Over the full race window (roughly February 15 through March 8), Tokyo drew 28,589 pageviews from 3,382 unique users with an average session duration of 211 seconds. For reference, NYC Marathon 2025, the biggest race weekend in our data, drew 96,077 pageviews in its race window.

Tokyo produced those numbers with 49 side events and 59 brands. 080TOKYO programmed 8 events. TRUNK HOTEL hosted 6. Tracksmith and Brooks each ran 5. The audience was 42% Japanese, 26% American, with South Korean, Hong Kong, and Thai users filling out the top five.

Forty-nine events is not a small number, but it is roughly half of what Los Angeles had. Tokyo drew more total pageviews anyway.

The events felt organic to the city. Runtrip is a run house next to Yoyogi Park where runners show up in their usual clothes, rent running gear, go for a run, shower, and drink a beer after. The TOKYO MIRAI Pop-Up collaborated with Josh from Notes Running and organized runs with the community. 080TOKYO partnered with Nike, Paramount Running, and Mental Athletic and programmed a gallery, a listening experience, and a magazine launch.

Los Angeles

112 side events. 107 brands. 72 venues. Nine days, from March 3 through March 14, spread across Venice, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Brentwood, and Culver City.

Over its race window (February 22 through March 15), LA drew 20,535 pageviews from 3,241 users. Race week hit 18,005 views. The user count was within 5% of Tokyo’s. The event count was 2.3 times larger.

The breakdown: 35 shakeout runs, 17 cheer zones, 16 parties, 16 pop-ups, 5 talks and panels, 5 recovery sessions, 3 races. Koreatown Run Club programmed 14 events with Long Distance and Bandit. ON had 10. Usal, Satellite and Adidas had 9. The most-visited event pages were the Nike LA Marathon Shakeout Run, Mile Zero Adidas x Satellite Pop-Up, and the New Balance Endorphins Fuel Bar.

112 side events is more than Berlin full marathon 2025 (97 events), more than Chicago 2025 (92), and more than every other spring race we have tracked. Only NYC 2025, at 179, had a larger program.

What stood out was the depth of activations that felt specific to Los Angeles. Koreatown Run Club had a massive program with Long Distance and Bandit. ON did their Lightspray installation with the new Cloudmonster 3 lineup. Adidas partnered with Usal, who already run strong events on their own outside of the Los Angeles Marathon. R.A.D. dropped a unique jersey with SOAR in a very particular blue. For runners looking for a great race weekend who did not get into one of the American majors, Los Angeles, if only for its side-event programming, is a serious alternative.

Berlin Half Marathon

Berlin Half Marathon packed 43 events across 31 venues into four days, March 26 through 29. For a half marathon, that is a lot of programming.

Berlin Braves ran 7 events. Dryll ran 6. Adidas Runners hosted their half-marathon weekend activation. Optimistic Runners organized a 5K fueled by Maurten. Midnight Runners held a shakeout. The schedule included a “Shakeout Dance,” a “Crew Love Dinner for Berlin Braves (Members Only),” “24h Club Runners by Saucony x Zalando,” and a “Nike by Berlin Braves Release Night.”

Half marathons do not get the same budgets. Compare Berlin Half to the Berlin Marathon in September. Nike rented out an entire pop-up location, completely refurbished it, and shuttled runners in G-Wagons to the expo. New Balance, a two-minute walk away, rented an entire corner pop-up and rebuilt it into their Community Clubhouse, which runs for weeks before race week. ON rented out Kraftwerk with a full week of programming. The MAS independent hub partnered with Adidas and Top4Running. Adidas itself had three locations during the week, from an organic setup in a yoga studio with Ante and Hakomi to their 100km Adidas special.

The Berlin Half operates at a fraction of that investment. It still drew 43 events from 48 brands.

The brands

Nike and Hyperice activated at four of the five race weekends: Tokyo, Los Angeles, Berlin Half, and Boston. The rest were more selective. Tracksmith appeared in three: Tokyo, Boston, and London, all World Marathon Majors. Bandit in two: Tokyo and LA, the weekends with the most independent crew programming. Adidas in two: LA and Berlin Half, where local crews like Usal and Berlin Braves anchor the scene. Lululemon, Maurten, and New Balance each appeared in three (Tokyo, LA, and Berlin Half). Goodr and Endorphins Running each in two (LA and Boston).

Boston and London

Boston Marathon is on April 20. Three weeks out, its traffic is following the familiar pre-race ramp. Twenty-three events and 21 brands are published so far. The most-viewed pages: Rabbit Boston pop-up shop, Tracksmith Saturday Shakeout, Tracksmith’s Trackhouse weekend, Boston Road Runners Shakeout.

London Marathon is on April 26. The current count is thin: 8 events, 2 brands. London 2025 had 59 events and 38 brands, including Tracksmith, Lululemon, New Balance, Saucony, SOAR, Run Dem Crew, Track Mafia, and Bandit. We will be updating the London and Boston pages as new events come in.

All traffic data sourced from marathon-weekend.com analytics. All event, brand, and venue counts from the marathon weekend data. Race-window traffic measured using comparable pre-race-through-post-race windows for each marathon.