PORT ANGELES — Registration for the 23rd annual North Olympic Discovery Marathon races is up about 5 percent from last year and 2,200 people are projected to run in the various events between Blyn and Port Angeles on Saturday and Sunday.
Registrants have come from 40 states so far and six countries — The U.S., Mexico, Canada, Australia, Cyprus and the United Kingdom.
Despite some tensions between the U.S. and Canada, 92 Canadians have signed up for the race, exactly on par with the 92 who signed up in 2024.
Title sponsors for the North Olympic Peninsula Marathon are Peninsula Daily News and the Sequim Gazette.
The North Olympic Discovery Marathon is the crown jewel of the Run the Peninsula series. The weekend-long event has three races on Saturday in Port Angeles, a 5K, a 10K and a 1.2-mile kids’ marathon, with the start and finish lines all at Port Angeles Pier. The Olympic Medical Center 5K/10K starts at 11 a.m. Saturday and the kids’ marathon starts with the first wave of kids at 3 p.m.
The marathon will begin at 7:30 a.m. at 7 Cedars Casino in Blyn and follows the Olympic Discovery Trail all the way into downtown Port Angeles. The half-marathon will begin at 8:30 a.m. Sunday at the Agnew soccer fields. Both races finish at the Port Angeles Pier with the top marathon runners arriving around 10:15 a.m. Derek Binnersley of Nanaimo, B.C., has won the marathon the past two years. There is also a team relay marathon with up to five team members.
There will be a beer garden for people older than 21 and live music from 10 a.m. am to 1:30 p.m. from Tuff Puffin at the Port Angeles Pier.
The weather forecast for this weekend is near perfect, perhaps a tad warm for the marathon runners. It is forecast to be 73 degrees Saturday and 74 Sunday with the marathon start time temperatures likely in the upper-50s to low-60s. Winds are forecast to be light at 5 to 10 mph. High winds can present a challenge as the last stretch between Morse Creek and Port Angeles as the Olympic Discovery trail follows close to the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Registration deadline is at the starting line of all the races. People can also sign up at the Jim’s Pharmacy Expo on Friday and Saturday at the Red Lion Inn right near the finish line. To register online, people can go to www.nodm.com/nodm-marathon-race.
Race packet pickup is 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the Red Lion Inn,
The North Olympic Discovery Marathon is put on by the Port Angeles Marathon Association, which also puts on other Run The Peninsula Races, such as the Elwha Bridge run in February, the Sequim Railroad Bridge run in April, the second annual Spruce Railroad run Oct 4 and the very popular nighttime Jamestown S’Klallam Glow Run on Dec. 6.
