Route maps: See which Kansas City roads will be closed for Saturday’s Garmin KC Marathon
Long stretches of The Paseo, Broadway Boulevard, Ward Parkway and other roads will be closed to traffic Saturday for the Garmin KC Marathon.
Routes for the day’s 5K, 10K, half-marathon and full marathon races will require street closures through the Country Club Plaza, midtown and downtown Kansas City from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Kansas City Police Department will provide traffic control and allow residents to cross the road when there are gaps between the runners and when it is safe, even in instances when the roads are closed.
The marathon starts for all participants at Frank A. Theis Park, across the street from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, but each route differs.
The 5K keeps runners within the Plaza, the 10K stretches to Ward Parkway North and Roanoke Parkway, the half-marathon takes participants into Westport and Gillham roads, The Paseo and 18th and Vine, and the full marathon encompasses all routes.
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The full and half marathon runners start at 7 a.m., the 10K runners start at 7:30 a.m. and the 5K runners start at 7:45 a.m.
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Runners will go by the World War I Museum & Memorial, the Country Club Plaza, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Waldo, Westport, 18th & Vine and other neighborhoods as they complete the marathon.
The full and half-marathon routes will be closed in portions and the whole route will be closed for a period of time due to the difference in the pace of the participants, according to Kansas City police Sgt. Grant Ruark.
“Inevitably with people running sub-five-minute miles and others walking 30-minute miles, at some point, pretty much the whole route will be closed,” Ruark said.
Ruark said a tail car will follow each route and police will open the roads as the tail car passes.
He said the streets along the 5K and 10K routes will be closed completely at the start. This includes Ward Parkway North, W. 47th St., Brookside Boulevard, Emmanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Roanoke Parkway.
The race guide for the Garmin KC Marathon says there is a six-hour time limit for the full marathon course. Participants must keep a 14-minute-per-mile pace to make the course deadline and if they have not reached mile 13 by 10:30 a.m., they will be directed to the half-marathon course to finish.
If runners choose to run the full marathon course after the 10:30 a.m. cutoff time, they will be asked to move to the sidewalk and cannot run on the roads, since security and race support will be dismissed by the police department’s tail vehicle.
For more information, visit the Garmin KC Marathon website: sportkc.org/marathon.
