Durham is hosting its first Garmin marathon this weekend, drawing 6,000 runners from 46 states and 17 countries to a course that starts at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and finishes at Brooks Field at Duke’s Wallace Wade stadium. Organizers are also setting the stage with a Shake Out Run at CCB Plaza at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and an expo that runs through Thursday and again from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. Friday.
Marcus Manning said the city’s hotels, restaurants and small businesses should feel the effect. Durham Sports Commission said sports tourism generated a $14.2 million total economic impact in FY25, with 48 events supported and more than 93,000 spectators attending those events. The Garmin Marathon Series is being held in Durham as one of three destinations, and Manning said the commission is focused not only on bringing events in but keeping them, too.
Steve Lovell, Garmin International’s director of advertising, said the company researched over 50 different cities before settling on Durham. He said the city stood out as unique and because it did not have large races already running through town. That matters because the Garmin marathon durham debut gives the city a major new event without competing against the kind of crowded race calendar that can make a first-year launch harder to pull off.
The planning also shows the gap between a simple race weekend and the business of staging one. The Shake Out Run is billed as a lighthearted, easygoing run through downtown Durham followed by raffle prizes, a small signal of how much attention is being paid to the atmosphere around the main event. Road closures are set to apply for Saturday’s race, though organizers have not listed them in the information provided so far.
For Durham, the more immediate test is whether this first Garmin marathon becomes more than a one-off. If the turnout holds and the weekend runs smoothly, the city will have a new kind of marquee event to sell, and the people who run it, watch it and work it will be the ones who decide whether it stays.
