Deutsche Post Marathon Bonn: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The race starts at Belderberg by the Koblenzer Tor. Within the first kilometre the course crosses the Kennedy-Brücke to the right bank and runs through Beuel, before returning to the Bonn side further north and passing the start area for the first time around kilometre ten. From there it heads south along the Rhine embankment to the Rheinaue park, the southernmost point of the lap, and comes back into the centre via Friedrich-Ebert-Allee, the Post Tower and the Museumsmeile. At kilometre 21 the same lap begins again.

Elevation comes almost entirely from the bridge ramps and the short pull back up to the Belderberg. The profile moves between 53 metres at the water and 67 metres in the city centre, more than 82 percent of the course sits in the flat gradient band, and there is no rise the profile would register as a climb. The route carries a licensed WA/AIMS measurement and is record-eligible.

The finish is the most distinctive point of the day: along Sternstrasse straight onto the market square in front of the baroque Altes Rathaus in the middle of the old town. Bonn closes half the city for it; in 2026 the event issued 22,222 places across all competitions and sold out weeks in advance. The surface is asphalt throughout, mid-April in the Rhine valley is mild to warm, and the long riverside sections offer no shade.

Pacing Strategy

The course imposes no structure of its own: 82 percent flat, no real climbs, two identical laps. Target pace is therefore set from the first kilometre, and the job is to hold it over the whole distance rather than build a time buffer in lap one, which on a lapped course does not exist anyway.

The race is decided between kilometres 25 and 35, on the embankment and the run out to the Rheinaue in the second lap. The route there is broad, straight and unsheltered, the field has dissolved because the half marathon and relay runners are long gone, and every corner is already familiar from lap one. Running that section without a group costs pace without any rise in effort.

The biggest trap is the clock. The marathon starts at eleven, which puts kilometres 25 to 35 in the warmest part of the day and, under a six-hour limit, can push the closing kilometres into the late afternoon. A drinking plan that is already working before the first lap closes, and a deliberately conservative opening lap while it is still cooler, are worth more here than any surge through the centre.

Training plan for Deutsche Post Marathon Bonn: 12-week build

For a competitive age-group runner the race lasts roughly 3:00 to 5:00 hours, inside a six-hour limit. The demand is purely aerobic and uniform: no anaerobic spikes, no downhill recovery, just a continuous tempo requirement on flat asphalt over two identical laps.

Because the race is decided in the second lap, long runs with a fast finish belong at the centre of the build: 30 to 35 kilometres with the final ten to twelve at marathon pace. One detail specific to this course can also be trained, namely repetition: running your long sessions as two identical loops rather than point to point rehearses the mental break that arrives in Bonn at kilometre 21.

Conditions are the real training emphasis. An eleven o'clock start in mid-April in the Rhine valley means the second half is run in the day's warmth, on riverside sections without shade. Two or three hard midday sessions, a rehearsed drinking and electrolyte strategy, and a breakfast that carries you through a whole morning before the gun are therefore part of the preparation rather than extras.

This course asks for no climbing strength. More useful are muscular endurance and running economy on hard, level ground, threshold tempo runs of 15 to 20 kilometres, and the ability to hold your own pace over long straight sections with nobody around you.