The Edinburgh Marathon is an annual marathon event, governed by Scottish Athletics and run in Scotland over the traditional distance of . The first marathon event in Edinburgh was in 1982. Further marathons were held in Edinburgh in 1986 and 1999. Since 2003 the Edinburgh Marathon Festival has been held each year, usually in May. The current route begins in the city centre, moves out of Edinburgh into East Lothian, finishing at Musselburgh, East Lothian. History On 5 September 1982, the Edinburgh Festival Marathon was the first mass marathon event to be held in the city. Starting in Holyrood Park and running through the Grassmarket and down Lothian Road, along Princes Street and down into Leith, along to Cramond and along the coast back through Silverknowes to Leith, up Easter Road and finishing in Meadowbank Stadium. The following year the race was called the Scotway Marathon and got off to an eventful start when a foolish fun-runner brought down the previous year's winner, breaking bones in the latter's hand. An Edinburgh Waverley Market Marathon was held on Sept 2nd 1984 with winner Lindsay Robertson in a then PB of 2:15:55. The Edinburgh Waverley Market Marathon again took place on Sept 1st 1985. Winner was M Carroll in 2:18:41. In 1986 it was called the Commonwealth Games People's Marathon and held in June, a month ahead of the Commonwealth Games. In 1999 the PUMA Edinburgh Marathon was held, leaving from Dunfermline and finishing in Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh Marathon Festival was founded by Geoff Sims and the first year's event on 15 June 2003, attracted just 3,000 participants. The course started at Meadowbank Stadium, taking in Princes Street, Holyrood Palace and the Royal Yacht Britannia. Frank McGowan from Glasgow won the men's race in 2.35 with the slowest man Lloyd Stott taking more than six days to complete the race wearing a deep sea diving suit weighing more than 100 pounds.

In 2007 organisers designed a new route, that headed into East Lothian through, Musselburgh, Prestonpans, Cockenzie, Port Seton to Gosford House, then back up to the finishing line at the playing fields at Pinkie St Peter's Primary School, Musselburgh. With an elevation drop of 40 metres, the average finish time was almost 12 minutes faster than previous year's Edinburgh earned its title of UK's fastest marathon. It was the first year that the event made a profit. Road closures for the new route affected around 130 streets.

In 2010, the half marathon was introduced for the first time with entry levels jumping to more than 24,000.

2011 was the first time the Edinburgh Marathon Festival was hosted over two days. As well as the full marathon, the festival also included a 5K, 10K, two junior races and a half marathon and a team relay race, affectionately named the "Hairy Haggis."

The 2020 edition of the race was postponed to 30 May 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, then again to 29 May 2022.

Men's winners Year Athlete Nationality Time(h:m:s) Notes 1982 2:21:09 1983 2:21:36 2003 2:16:21 2004 2:21:45 2005 2:15:26 2006 2:15:46P 2007 2:31:57 2008 2:25:05 2009 2:18:24 2010 2:26:31 2011 2:19:21 2012 2:19:52 2013 2:15:32 Minshull, Phil (2013-05-26). Lema and Kimaiyo take the honours at the Edinburgh Marathon. IAAF. Retrieved on 2013-05-31. 2014 2:15:33 2015 2:19:36 2016 2:19:55 2017 2:17:13 2018 2:13:33 Course record 2019 2:30:13 2020 postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus pandemic 2021 postponed to 2022 due to coronavirus pandemic 2022 2:17:57 2023 2:21:342024Moray Pryde2:23:122025Marshall Smith2:22:162026Conor Sarsfield2:18:03 Half Marathon

Year Athlete Nationality Time(h:m:s) Notes 2010 Dave Webb 1:04:45 2011 Andrew Douglas 1:06:49 2012 Michael Deason 1:08:20 2013 William Ryan Beattie 1:09:30 2014 Ross Houston 1:07:16 2015 Thomas Porter 1:08:58 2016 Darrell Hastie 1:10:38 2017 Pasquale-Roberto Rutigliano 1:09:39 2018 Severino Gómez 1:10:37 2019 Karl Darcy 1:07:40 2020 postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus pandemic 2021 postponed to 2022 due to coronavirus pandemic2022Kieran Walker1:05:192023Kieran Walker1:05:242024Sean Chalmers1:05:272025Sean Chalmers1:04:592026David Meehan1:08:01

Women's winners Year Athlete Nationality Time(h:m:s) Notes 1982 2:49:34 1983 2003 2:48:06 2004 2:47:24 2005 2:33:36 Course record 2006 2:51:41 2007 2:54:43 2008 2:47:56 2009 2:41:38 2010 2:38:16 2011 2:42:59 2012 2:39:48 2013 2:35:58 2014 2:36:07 2015 2:39:42 2016 2:39:53 2017 2:37:46 2018 2:47:35 2019 2:42:56 2020 postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus pandemic 2021 postponed to 2022 due to coronavirus pandemic 2022 2:45:03 2023 2:39:39 2024Johanna Oregan2:48:152025Melissah Gibson2:38:422026Melissah Gibson2:43:52

Half Marathon

Year Athlete Nationality Time(h:m:s) Notes 2010 Dianne Lauder 1:16:59 2011 Becky Penty 1:15:31 2012 Gabriela Traña 1:15:01 2013 Dianne Lauder 1:24:50 2014 Gladys Ganiel 1:17:26 2015 Gemma Rankin 1:17:21 2016 Tracy Millmore 1:18:41 2017 Avril Mason 1:19:49 2018 Breege Connolly 1:16:07 2019 Molly Browne 1:18:27 2020 postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus pandemic 2021 postponed to 2022 due to coronavirus pandemic2022Rebecca Burns1:17:282023Emma Houchell1:14:482024Jenny Selman1:19:512025Stella Cross1:19:022026Rebecca Ezra-Ham1:18:16

Finisher statistics

Total of runners finishing the original marathon distance

YearMenWomenTotal 2003 2028 754 2782 2004 2114 738 2853 2005 3227 1192 4419 2006 2926 1170 4096 2007 2538 1031 3587 2008 4520 2092 6612 2009 5570 2684 8254 2010 6647 2812 9459 2011 6797 2940 9737 2012 5425 2638 8063 2013 5414 2728 8142 2014 5806 2809 8615 2015 4796 2389 7185 2016 4274 2322 6596

Criticism For the 2014 race, the organisers sent competitors details of their individual times but initially did not publish the full results, only giving times for the top three in each category. Within a few days, EMF events issued an apology via their website and published the full results.

Notes

References

External links