Cal-Neva Marathon

The Cal-Neva Marathon is the Saturday race of the three-day Lake Tahoe Marathon festival, held each October on the shores of Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border. In 2026 it runs Saturday, October 17, with a 7:00 AM start. The course is point-to-point and net downhill: it begins at Spooner Summit Snow Play Area in Nevada, near 7,000 feet, and finishes at Commons Beach in Tahoe City, California, at lake level around 6,229 feet, for roughly 1,400 feet of net elevation loss -- the fastest of the festival's three marathons. The first portion of the route runs through Nevada past Billionaire Row in Incline Village before crossing into California along the lake's north shore; the race's second half doubles as the separate Incline Half Marathon. The Cal-Neva Marathon is a boutique event capped at 200 runners, with limited course support (six aid stations roughly every four miles, Superieur electrolytes, and a 6-hour time limit), and it can be entered a la carte or as the middle leg of the Tahoe Triple, alongside Friday's Lakeside Marathon and Sunday's Lake Tahoe Marathon. Because the course starts before full daylight, runners are asked to wear a headlamp and safety flashers for the first hour. Finishers receive a medal, license plate holder, cinch bag, and long-sleeve technical shirt, with overall awards for the first man and woman and masters awards for finishers 40 and over -- no age-group awards are given at this small race. An optional $30 round-trip shuttle runs from the Golden Nugget Hotel Casino in Stateline to the start and back from the finish, where hot dogs and drinks await. Registration fees increase September 1, 2026.