Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is on Kruppstraße at Sportpark Duisburg, the largest sports park in Germany. The route is one long loop rather than a repeated circuit: past the Theater Duisburg, through the Innenhafen and its brick warehouses at kilometre 5, then into the Duisburger Hafen, the world's largest inland port, out along peninsulas such as Pontwert and Kiffward and on to Ruhrort and the Rheinorange steel sculpture.

That is the real character of the race. You are not running a picture-postcard old town but a working port and industrial district, with open water alongside and two Rhine crossings. The Friedrich-Ebert-Brücke opens up the river, and the red-arched Brücke der Solidarität between Rheinhausen and Hochfeld is the moment most finishers remember. It is also where the only notable rise sits: a 300 metre ramp at kilometre 18.3 averaging just over three percent for nine metres of gain.

Everything else is flat. Almost 77 percent of the course counts as level, total ascent is around 150 metres across the full distance, and the whole loop sits within a band roughly 20 metres deep. The run-in passes through the green of the Sechs-Seen-Platte before the last metres turn into the arena and onto the track. The surface is asphalt throughout, closed to traffic by police and marshals, with the ideal racing line painted green on the road and a clock every five kilometres.

Pacing Strategy

On a course that is three quarters level, the race is not decided by climbing strength but by how evenly you run the second half. Set an honest flat-course target and run the first 20 kilometres two to three seconds per kilometre slower than the arithmetic allows. The painted green racing line is worth real time: the official measurement follows the shortest line, so anything you drift wide of it is distance you added yourself.

The decisive stretch runs from the two Rhine crossings to the Sechs-Seen-Platte, roughly kilometres 18 to 35. The bridge ramp at kilometre 18.3 costs nine metres of elevation and is irrelevant as a climb, but it does break the rhythm: many runners push once over it and never settle back into their old cadence.

The genuine trap here is wind. The harbour basins, the riverbank and above all the two bridges are completely unsheltered, and an 08:30 start runs straight into the hours when the breeze picks up over the plain. Sit in a group for the exposed kilometres and run your own race in the shelter of the inner city. Treat the flat opening ten kilometres as an invitation to bank time and the port section will take it back.

Training plan for Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon: 12-week build

For a well-trained age-group runner the Rhein-Ruhr-Marathon takes roughly 3:00 to 4:45 hours depending on level; the cutoff is 5:30. The demand is about as uniform as a marathon gets: a continuous aerobic effort with no anaerobic spikes, with only 12.6 percent of the distance rising gently and 10.5 percent falling. Nothing on the course forces you to change pace, and that is precisely the challenge.

The race is therefore decided not on climbs but over kilometres 30 to 42 on hard, level asphalt. With no descents to unload the legs, the same muscle chain works at the same angle for hours. Long runs on flat tarmac rather than soft forest ground are the specific preparation, and the single most important session in the plan is a long run whose final 60 to 75 minutes are held at goal marathon pace.

Train pace durability rather than climbing strength. Threshold work and long intervals around marathon effort, plus 10 to 20 kilometre blocks at goal pace, match this course far better than hill repeats that the route asks for exactly once, for 300 metres.

On conditions: early May in the Rhine valley means mild morning temperatures but long exposed stretches beside the water. Deliberately practise running into a headwind and running inside a group, and rehearse fuelling for an 08:30 start, because a breakfast three hours before the gun needs as much practice as the race pace itself.