On Saturday, June 27 at 7 a.m., the inaugural Rock 'n' Roll Seattle Marathon & 1/2 Marathon - "A Running Nirvana" will begin. And at some point later in the morning, many of the 25,000 people will be running on a portion of Aurora Avenue. According to the event,
Both the full and half marathon start together on Interurban Ave in Tukwila, south of downtown Seattle. The course runs through Tukwila and makes its way to the scenic shores of Lake Washington for miles 4 through 9. Full marathoners only split off for 2 miles on the floating Lake Washington Bridge. Both courses merge together again, and all participants head toward downtown Seattle on Interstate 90, where the half marathon will split and finish downtown outside of Qwest Field.
The full marathon will continue north onto the Alaskan Way Viaduct, Hwy 99, with views of Elliott Bay, passing the Space Needle and Lake Union as the Alaskan Way Viaduct/Hwy 99 becomes Aurora. Runners will u-turn and head back toward downtown on the highway before finishing outside of Qwest Stadium downtown. There are some rolling hills between miles 15 and 20 in the full marathon course, culminating in mostly flat miles 20 through 26.
The course map and details about road closures, including Aurora Avenue, are available here.
More general information about the marathon is available here.
