Who Is Participating In 2026 Grandma's Marathon Weekend Races?

By now, you most likely know that this year's Grandma's Marathon is a big deal. The race is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the event's milestone is drawing a big crowd of participants and spectators to the Northland.

The marathon, half-marathon, and 5K all sold out in record time this year, further extending the string of hype around this big, small town race weekend.

While the weekend's races have the largest amount of participants from its host state of Minnesota, there is representation from each of the 50 United States as well as numerous countries around the world.

Here's a look at where the field of participants is all from and some other highlights about this year's events.

Where are this year's participants from?

Between the weekend's three events, a total of 22,148 Americans are part of the field of participants. This is by far the largest national representation in the race, unsurprisingly, but there are participants from a total of 73 countries in this year's events.

Top countries represented, besides the United States, include:

Canada: 139 registered participants
Mexico: 40 registered participants
United Kingdom: 23 registered participants
India: 20 registered participants
China: 16 registered participants
Brazil: 14 registered participants
Germany: 13 registered participants
Kenya: 13 registered participants

Top states represented besides Minnesota's 14,187 registered participants include:

Wisconsin: 2,284 registered participants
Illinois: 549 registered participants
Iowa: 505 registered participants
Colorado: 386 registered participants
Texas: 343 registered participants
North Dakota: 330 registered participants
California: 270 registered participants
Florida: 265 registered participants
New York: 259 registered participants
Michigan: 209 registered participants
South Dakota: 199 registered participants
Missouri: 139 registered participants
North Carolina: 133 registered participants
Ohio: 128 registered participants
Massachusetts: 121 registered participants

There are participants from each state in the country, with the least-represented states including:

Alabama: 3 registered participants
Hawaii: 3 registered participants
Rhode Island: 5 registered participants
West Virginia: 5 registered participants
Mississippi: 6 registered participants

Who is participating in this year's events?

Of the 22,576 registered participants, here's how this year's field of registered participants breaks down:

Women have the edge in this year's number of participants, with 11,561 women registered, followed by 10,932 men, 64 non-binary participants, and 19 undisclosed.

A vast majority of the participants are between the ages of 18 and 54, but the field of participants this year spans well beyond that.

269 children 12 and under are part of this year's events, followed by 611 teenagers between 13 and 18 years old.

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On the other end of the spectrum, 1,692 of this year's participants are 60 or older, with 40 of those being 80 or older! Awesome! Here's how this age group breaks down:

	Men	Women	Non-Binary	Total
60-64	428	384	3	815
65-69	272	201	-	473
70-74	166	107	-	273
75-79	60	31	-	91
80+	26	14	-	40

No matter who they are or where they're from, good luck to all of the participants in this year's events!

Here's a look at some photos from last year's half and full marathon:

2025 Grandma's Marathon & Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon Photos

After strong thunderstorms overnight, this year's races started a half hour later than originally scheduled. While some clouds and fog kept things relatively cool early in the races, humidity and warmer temperatures quickly took hold with the full marathon underway.

Despite that, history was made with the first American winning Grandma's Marathon since 2009. He is also the first person to have ever won both Garry Bjorklnd Half Marathon (which he did in 2023) and Grandma's Marathon this year.

Gallery Credit: Nick Cooper - TSM Duluth