New Balance 42K Porto Alegre

The Race

History

Run Sports built New Balance 42K Porto Alegre from nothing in 2024, and it shows in every decision the race has made since: this was never going to be a marathon that leaned on decades of local affection, because it had none. What it had instead was a flat stretch of land beside the Guaíba, a sponsor with money to spend, and a plan to buy credibility the fast way, with prize cheques large enough to make Kenyan and Ethiopian training camps take notice.

The first edition ran on 28 April 2024, with around 7,000 entrants across four distances and a course from the Monumento ao Expedicionário to a finish at Golden Lake in Cristal. Paulo Roberto Paula won the men’s race in 2:13:11. Viola Chelagat took the women’s title in 2:38:05. Those are solid times for a first edition of anything, but they were only the opening bid.

By 2025, the race had sold out with 10,000 entrants and quietly reshaped its own course to shave off climb until organisers were citing a total gain of around 17 metres, a figure Brazilian running press repeated often enough that it became the race’s whole personality. Johnatas de Oliveira won in 2:12:45. Tiringo Mulu, running for Ethiopia, took the women’s race in 2:29:48, a mark local reporting described at the time as a new best for a marathon run on Brazilian soil. Marilson Gomes dos Santos, twice a New York City Marathon champion, signed on as a padrinho for the edition, lending the race a piece of Brazilian marathon history it had not earned the slow way.

The 2026 edition moved twice: forward from April to a 12 July date built specifically around Porto Alegre’s cooler winter mornings, and physically, with the finish relocating from Golden Lake to the larger Parque Harmonia precinct. The organiser trimmed the course again, cutting the long southern loop and concentrating more of the distance in central Porto Alegre and along the revitalised waterfront. Prize money climbed past R$1 million once record bonuses were included.

The clearest sign of how far the race has climbed arrived on 3 July 2026, when the DSM-Firmenich Running Team confirmed Eliud Kipchoge for the startline, alongside confirmation that New Balance 42K Porto Alegre currently holds World Athletics Elite Label status, the only marathon in Brazil to do so.

Worth noting for anyone tempted to fold this into the race’s own speed narrative: Kipchoge’s fastest South American time was not run here. His 2:08:44 at the Rio 2016 Olympics remains the fastest marathon ever run on South American soil, a continental record entirely separate from the Brazil-soil domestic marks both Porto Alegre races have claimed in different years. The Maratona Internacional de Porto Alegre Olympikus, a separate, older race starting and finishing at BarraShoppingSul, reported a 2026 race record of 2:10:21, described by CBAt as the fastest marathon run on Brazilian soil. This race’s own fastest mark to date is Johnatas de Oliveira’s 2:12:45 from 2025. Three different superlatives, three different races, none of them interchangeable.

None of this makes New Balance 42K Porto Alegre Brazil’s historic marathon. It makes it something more specific and, for a certain kind of runner, more useful: a young, deliberately engineered speed course, timed for winter, backed by money most domestic road races cannot match, in a city most international marathoners have never considered.

The course

The marathon starts beside the Monumento ao Expedicionário, on the edge of Parque Farroupilha, known to everyone in Porto Alegre simply as Redenção. It finishes 42.195 km later at Parque Harmonia, on the Guaíba, a different postcode from the one it left. The 5K, 10K and half marathon avoid this trade-off entirely, both starting and finishing at Parque Harmonia.

The 2026 course was compacted from the previous year’s route, trading a long southern extension for more time in central Porto Alegre and along the redeveloped waterfront. Earlier editions passed Centro Histórico, the Mercado Público, the Monumento aos Açorianos and the area around Estádio Beira-Rio, though these landmarks need reconfirming against whichever map the organiser publishes for the current edition. The surface is mostly asphalt, though central Porto Alegre carries the occasional older, uneven stretch that keeps this from being a laboratory-smooth track.

No official kilometre-by-kilometre elevation table exists. The organiser marketed the 2025 course at roughly 17m of total gain; the 2026 route changed enough that this figure should not be carried forward without a fresh, official number.

Km 0-5: Redenção in the dark. The main marathon field starts at 07:00, confirmed directly by the race itself, with adapted-category corrals likely starting a few minutes earlier. Most of the field is standing in Parque Farroupilha before the city has properly woken up. It is winter here, in the Southern Hemisphere sense, which in Rio Grande do Sul means a genuine chill rather than a token one. Runners shed disposable layers at the gun and the field spreads out fast on wide park roads before dropping into the central grid.

Km 5-15: The old city. This is the section built for photographs rather than PBs: past editions have routed through Centro Histórico and by the Mercado Público, where the buildings crowd the road and the race briefly feels like a proper city marathon rather than a time-trial with a finish line. It is also, ironically, where the race’s flatness does the most damage. Cool air and adrenaline make 5:00 kilometres feel like a jog, and more than one runner has bought that illusion here and paid for it at 32km.

Km 15-28: The Guaíba, wide open.The middle of the race gives up the city’s shelter for broad roads along the water, and this is where the New Balance course reveals its actual character. There are no hills to argue with, but there is nothing to hide behind either. A headwind off the Guaíba can turn a flat road into a long, grinding negotiation, and with no terrain change to break the effort into chapters, pacing discipline matters more here than almost anywhere in the race.

Km 28-37: Where the crowds thin. Support concentrates around the start, the historic centre and Parque Harmonia; the roads in between are wider, more industrial, and considerably quieter. New Balance 42K Porto Alegre sells speed and organisation, not a continuous tunnel of noise. Runners chasing a fast time should treat the quiet kilometres as useful, not disappointing.

Km 37-42.2: Into Parque Harmonia. The finish returns to the Guaíba and into a race village built for the occasion: recovery boots, ice baths, massage tables, a DJ, sponsor tents and a finish that reads more like a festival gate than a roadside line. Awards for the marathon begin at 11:00 on the current schedule, which gives finishers a reason to stay rather than scatter immediately.

No official blue-line or shortest-route guidance has been published.

Elevation profile

Derived from a community-sourced GPX trace of the 2026 course, resampled and smoothed to remove GPS noise. This is not an official, certified elevation chart; no organiser figure exists for the current route, and this image should be read as a shape reference only.

What to wear

July puts this race squarely in Porto Alegre’s coldest month, and the organiser moved the date here on purpose. Average lows sit around 10 to 11°C, with occasional colder mornings when a front comes through, warming toward the high teens by mid-morning. Wind off the Guaíba is the variable to respect more than temperature alone: still cold is manageable, windy cold at 07:00 in a start pen is a different proposition.

An old sweatshirt, a cheap long-sleeve top or a disposable poncho earns its keep in the pen and can be abandoned at the gun without a second thought. Gloves and arm warmers are worth packing rather than wearing by default; if a cold front does arrive, they matter, and if it does not, they cost nothing to carry. Once running, most competitive and recreational entrants should find standard cool-weather kit sufficient, since 42km of effort at pace generates its own heat. Sunscreen is a lower priority than at almost any other race on this site, given the early hour and the southern-hemisphere winter sun, but not something to abandon entirely for anyone still moving after mid-morning.

Entry

Entry runs through the NB Race Series platform via Ticket Sports rather than a ballot, and the 2026 window ran from 1 July 2025 to 12 June 2026, or until the event’s 21,500-place cap was reached, whichever came first. The official page had already shown “inscrições esgotadas” (sold out) before race week, and 2025 sold out with 10,000 entrants months in advance, so this is not a race that rewards waiting.

Marathon and half marathon pricing for 2026 sold in three standard lots, R$259, R$279 and R$299 plus fees, with an extra lot later added at R$399.90 plus fees. At a mid-market rate of roughly R$1 to £0.1448 during research, those figures worked out to approximately £37.50, £40.40, £43.30 and £57.90 before service charges. The 5K and 10K were cheaper across the same lot structure, from R$219 up to a R$349.90 extra lot.

Groups of ten or more athletes could register at a flat R$249 for the marathon or half marathon and R$219 for the 5K or 10K, capped at 3,500 assessoria places overall, a detail worth flagging to any reader travelling with a running club rather than solo.

Elite entry required men to hold a 2:25:00 marathon or 1:09:00 half-marathon mark between 2022 and 2026; women needed 2:55:00 or 1:22:00 over the same window. Qualifying athletes selected the elite pen at registration and emailed an athletic CV to contato@runsports.com.br for a fee waiver.

Discounts of 50% apply for entrants aged 60 and over and for ACD (adapted/disabled) athletes with supporting medical documentation. Standard Brazilian consumer-protection law gives a seven-day cancellation window from payment; after that, the regulation states entry fees are non-refundable. Transfers to another runner were possible by email before 15 December 2025, or in person at kit collection for a R$75 fee; distance changes after the email deadline attracted a R$50 fee plus any price difference.

The practical advice writes itself: register the moment the following year’s page goes live, do not wait for a “final call” that may never come, and check whether the registration platform accepts international cards and non-Brazilian identity documents before assuming it does.

Race Weekend

Expo and Race Pack Collection

The Expo NB 42K Porto Alegre sits at Parque Harmonia, Av. Edvaldo Pereira Paiva 63, the same precinct as the finish. In 2026 the official page listed opening hours of 09:00 to 19:00 on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before the Sunday race, plus a race-day window of 06:00 to 14:00. The regulation, however, states that kit collection specifically runs only from Thursday to Saturday and that athletes who miss that window cannot start the race, which sits at odds with the race-day expo hours on the main page.

Collection itself is straightforward: bring the registration protocol or photo ID. A third party collecting on someone else’s behalf needs proof of payment or registration confirmation, plus a copy of the runner’s own ID. The 2026 kit comprised a New Balance shirt, New Balance socks, the bib number, and the medal, which is issued after finishing rather than at collection. Earlier editions ran a substantial talks programme alongside the expo, featuring Marilson Gomes dos Santos and Adauto Domingues among others; whether this continues should be checked closer to race week rather than assumed.

For anyone flying in, the practical risk is timing rather than language. Arrive by Friday if the schedule allows, collect the kit before Saturday evening rather than leaving it to the last window, and keep a screenshot of the registration confirmation in case venue WiFi or phone signal proves unreliable.

Getting to the Start

Race morning splits neatly into two logistics problems, because the marathon start and finish sit in different parts of the city. The 42K begins at the Monumento ao Expedicionário beside Redenção; everything else, including the finish, happens at Parque Harmonia.

Wave timing had a genuine discrepancy between sources, now largely resolved. The official race page previously listed a staggered schedule (PCD at 06:45, elite and Pelotão A at 06:50, Pelotão B at 06:55, Pelotão C at 07:00, Pelotões D and E at 07:05), while the regulation gave a simpler 06:55 for ACD athletes and 07:00 for elite and general entrants together. The DSM-Firmenich Running Team’s own release confirming Kipchoge’s entry states plainly that the marathon begins at 7am local time, which matches the regulation’s simpler version and should be treated as the authoritative figure for the elite and general field.

Getting to Redenção for a start before 07:00 is the trickiest part of the whole weekend. Trensurb is genuinely useful for airport transfers and for spectators near the Mercado station, but its coverage does not reach Redenção directly. EPTC buses serve the Parque Harmonia corridor reasonably well, but Sunday-morning frequency this early, layered with race-day road closures, is not something to rely on without checking first. For most visiting runners, a taxi or rideshare booked the night before, direct from the hotel to Redenção, remains the simplest solution, and a pre-booked one removes the risk of a 06:15 rideshare surge catching anyone out.

The regulation confirms the basics: kit collection rules, mandatory bib and disposable timing chip, and the six-hour cutoff. It stops short of mapping start-village facilities in detail, so bag drop, toilet numbers and medical post locations should come from the final technical guide rather than this page. What is confirmed is the finish: a genuine event village at Parque Harmonia, with recovery boots, ice baths, massage tables, medal customisation, a photo activation, a DJ stage and sponsor sampling, with marathon awards beginning at 11:00.

Leaving is easier than arriving. Parque Harmonia sits closer to Centro Histórico, Cidade Baixa and Praia de Belas than Redenção does, so runners staying in any of those areas have a realistic walk or short taxi home rather than a second cross-city trip.

Logistics Map

The map below shows the course from the supplied community GPX trace, the Redenção start, the Parque Harmonia finish and expo, and the Trensurb Mercado station. Tap any marker for details.

Nutrition on Course

No official kilometre-by-kilometre aid-station table has been published for this race, in either the regulation or the main event page, which is a genuine gap rather than an oversight in research. Água de Pedra and Powerade appeared among 2024 launch sponsors, but neither should be presented as the current on-course nutrition without fresh confirmation, since sponsor rosters change year to year.

What is confirmed is the finish-area recovery offering: a free zone with compression boots, ice baths and massage tables, alongside medal customisation, an LED timing photo board, a printed photo machine, a 360-degree photo and video setup, a DJ stage and sponsor tasting. The timing chip is disposable, integrated with the bib, and mandatory. A route-service map or final technical guide from the organiser is needed before an aid-station table can be published in full, since spacing is exactly the kind of detail a runner plans a race around.

Spectating

The single most reliable place to watch this race is Parque Harmonia, because it is the finish for all four distances and doubles as the race village, giving spectators food, sponsor activations and a low-risk way to guarantee seeing their runner at least once.

A stronger two-point plan pairs an early viewing in Centro Histórico or near the Mercado Público, if the current route still passes through it, with a return to Parque Harmonia for the finish. In 2025, Runking tracking reportedly updated positions roughly every 5km, which made this kind of plan workable in practice rather than theory; whether the same app is in use for the current edition should be confirmed before relying on it.

A more ambitious multi-point strategy, taking in the waterfront and the area around Estádio Beira-Rio or Praia de Belas, is plausible if the current route touches those areas, but race-day road closures make car-based chasing genuinely unreliable. Spectators without a car should default to walking routes and the finish village rather than attempting to leapfrog the field by taxi.

Crowd density is highest at the start, through any central-city section the route retains, and at Parque Harmonia. The wide waterfront and more industrial stretches run quieter, which is worth setting expectations around rather than glossing over.

Where to Stay

Because this race starts in one part of the city and finishes in another, the usual advice to stay near the finish needs a little more nuance than it does for a loop course.

Praia de Belas and Parque Harmonia

Praia de Belas, Parque Harmonia itself and neighbouring Cristal are the finish-focused choice, cutting post-race walking and expo access down to almost nothing. The cost is a short taxi or rideshare to Redenção on race morning, which is a fair trade for most runners once 42km of fatigue enters the equation.

Centro Histórico

Centro Histórico offers the best all-round balance: proximity to the Mercado Público and the historic core, reasonable access to Trensurb’s Mercado station, and a genuine chance of the race passing nearby if the current route still runs through the centre. It asks a little more care in hotel selection, since the area can feel quiet outside business hours.

Cidade Baixa

Cidade Baixa sits closest to the start at Redenção and offers the liveliest pre-race base, full of cafés and bars that suit a younger, more sociable crowd. Saturday-night noise is the genuine trade-off; anyone needing an early, undisturbed sleep before a 07:00 gun should choose their street, or their room, with that in mind.

Moinhos de Vento, Bela Vista and Auxiliadora

Moinhos de Vento is the comfort option: leafy, upscale, well served by restaurants, but equally distant from both start and finish, which makes it a rideshare-dependent choice rather than a walking one. Bela Vista and Auxiliadora sit in similar territory, slightly more residential in feel, and suit runners who want quiet accommodation over course-day convenience.

For most readers, Praia de Belas or Parque Harmonia itself will matter most if finish-day ease is the priority, Cidade Baixa if the start and a livelier pre-race base matter more, and Moinhos de Vento if comfort outranks both.

Recommended hotels

Booking timeline

This is not a ballot race with a single results date, but it behaves like a sell-out one regardless. The 2025 edition sold out with 10,000 entrants well ahead of race weekend, and the 2026 official page was already showing “inscrições esgotadas” before race week arrived. That pattern suggests hotel demand builds in step with entry demand rather than waiting for a fixed announcement date.

The practical guidance is to book with free cancellation as soon as entry is confirmed, rather than after. Parque Harmonia, Praia de Belas and Cidade Baixa are the areas most likely to tighten first, given their direct relevance to race-day logistics; Moinhos de Vento and Centro Histórico tend to hold slightly more availability for longer, since they trade course convenience for comfort or sightseeing. International flights into Porto Alegre are less commonly booked far in advance than domestic connections through São Paulo or Rio, so flight pricing pressure typically builds later in the cycle than hotel availability does.

See & Do

The finish at Parque Harmonia puts you on the Guaíba waterfront, within reach of Centro Histórico and the city’s central landmarks.

Mercado Público Central

Porto Alegre’s central market, and an easy way to eat and look around without committing to a full sightseeing day. It sits in Centro Histórico and pairs naturally with a short walk through the old core. Avoid peak lunchtime the day before racing if calm legs and a simple stomach matter more than a lively crowd.

Usina do Gasômetro and the Guaíba Waterfront

A former power station turned cultural venue, and one of the better low-effort things to do around this race weekend regardless of how the legs feel. The sunset over the Guaíba is the real draw. Check current opening status for the building itself; the waterfront works on its own even if it is closed.

Monumento aos Açorianos

A course-adjacent landmark near the central waterfront, best treated as a stop within an easy walk rather than a destination in itself. Suitable for tired legs and short attention spans alike.

Parque Harmonia

0 km, the finish itself. Less an attraction here than the entire race-weekend hub. Use it to get expo bearings before race day, meet people after the finish, and sit down somewhere that is not a hotel room. Confirm access restrictions around race setup before planning a Saturday visit.

Estádio Beira-Rio and the Museu do Inter

The obvious add-on for anyone with an interest in Brazilian football, sitting south of the finish in Praia de Belas. Worth combining with a waterfront walk if the legs are cooperating. Check the match calendar and museum hours before assuming it is open.

After the Race

New Balance 42K Porto Alegre runs in July, Porto Alegre’s coldest month, which favours the Serra Gaúcha hill towns and wine country far more than it favours the coast. These itineraries range from a same-day walk along the Guaíba to a four-night extension into Florianópolis.