Changes for 2025: Better Website, Increased Entry Fees, No Lottery Weights

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Check out the improved Mount Marathon Race website — it’s re-organized to be more user-friendly!

The primary change: implementation of drop-down menus in the Entry, Race Info, Results and News & History sections. Let us know how you like it and if there are other areas of the website you’d like to see improved.

The Mount Marathon Race Committee and race director have also made several changes for the 2025 race:

  • Increased entry fees — Race registration fees have been raised $15 across the board, bringing the cost to $100 for adults and $50 for juniors (plus the RunSignup registration charge). The increase is necessary to help offset the rising expense of organizing the complex event.
    The Mount Marathon Race fees still compare favorably with other major events in Alaska and elsewhere:
    – Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon – $119; Cirque Series Alyeska — $129; Lost Lake Run (Seward) — $120; Robert Spurr Memorial Hill Climb (Bird Ridge) — $40; Veins of Gold Mountain Run (Palmer) — $85; Pike’s Peak Marathon (Colorado) — $200-250; Dipsea Race (California) — $115; The Rut Mountain Runs (Montana) – $70-175 depending on distance.
  • Lottery Weights Eliminated — The switch to the new registration platform RunSignup (see news story HERE) can support our lottery, but cannot accommodate one using lottery weights (where runners received an extra “ticket” for every consecutive year of losing the lottery). Therefore, beginning in 2025, everyone entered in the Mount Marathon Lottery will have the same odds and no lottery weights will be used.
    We recognize this change will disappoint some lottery hopefuls. The move is also part of a larger effort to simplify some elements of the race organization, as MMR’s complicated entry structure and many rules has created an extraordinary amount of administrative work and significant programming expense.
    While the elimination of lottery weights removes an advantage that loyal lottery entrants received, the implementation of the Top 50 Percent Age Group rule in 2021 has succeeded in its purpose of creating many additional lottery spots and thus improving lottery odds. Before the rule, lottery odds had dropped to about 3 percent for men and 20 percent for women. Lottery odds the last three years have averaged 42.2 percent for women and 22.7 percent for men. There is certainly hope that those who consistently enter the lottery will get their chance to experience the Mount Marathon Race.
  • Golden Racer Adjustments — To better accommodate Golden Racers, the requirements of having 10 years of experience has been eliminated, making any racer age 70 and above eligible. Also, the Golden Racer cutoff time for the halfway checkpoint (at Junior Race Point) has been increased to 75 minutes (from 60 minutes).