Lakeside Marathon

The Lakeside Marathon is the Friday opener of the three-day Lake Tahoe Marathon festival (the 'Tahoe Triple' weekend), now in its 31st year, held each October on the shores of Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border. The point-to-point course starts at Lakeside Beach in South Lake Tahoe, California, at 6,230 feet, climbs to about 7,000 feet at Spooner Summit near the halfway mark, then descends to roughly 6,300 feet before finishing in Incline Village, Nevada; the route runs only a few hundred yards in California and about 99.8% in Nevada. Runners start at 6:30 AM, before sunrise, and are asked to wear a headlamp and safety flashers for the first hour; there is a six-hour time limit. The course follows road shoulders and adjacent bike paths facing traffic, with a lane of the Cave Rock Tunnel and the Glenbrook-to-Spooner-Summit stretch closed off for runners, and at least six aid stations spaced roughly every four miles. The Nevada Half Marathon joins the same route at Spooner Summit and shares the finish in Incline Village. Because the event caps its 'boutique' races at a small field, there are no age-group awards, only an overall award for the first man and woman; every finisher gets a medal, a license plate holder, and a long-sleeve tech shirt distributed at the Thursday expo or at the finish. Runners are responsible for their own return transportation from Incline Village (a $20 shuttle back to South Lake Tahoe is available until noon). The Lakeside Marathon can be entered on its own or combined with the Saturday Cal-Neva Marathon and the Sunday Lake Tahoe Marathon as the Tahoe Triple package, which carries up to a 20% discount; the event's official site formerly labeled this race the 'Emerald Bay Marathon' (a name that still appears in the site's web address), but the race has since been renamed the Lakeside Marathon and rerouted away from Emerald Bay Road — it is a distinct event from the separate Sunday 'Emerald Bay Half Marathon,' which is unrelated aside from the shared festival and a similarly worded name.