2024 Toronto Waterfront Marathon takes over downtown

When race director Alan Brookes helped start the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 1990, a decade before the event even featured a full marathon, he says there were barely enough organizers to put it on, let alone runners.

"It was me and one other full-time person, and then a bunch of folks from different running clubs," he said. Organizers sifted through mailed-in registration then and did their best to figure out how to hold a race, Brookes told CBC News on Thursday.

"You knew every year something would go sideways."

But the race slowly grew through word of mouth, Brookes said, and the 42-kilometre full marathon was added in 2000 with about 600 runners making the finish line.

This year, the Toronto Waterfront Marathon is celebrating its 35th year with a record-breaking turnout and, for the first time ever, two days of races.

This weekend's event features over 30,000 runners from 70 countries, Brookes said, with 18 full-time staff and 3,000 volunteers making sure everything goes off without a hitch. Brookes says this year's turnout sets an attendance record, as well as a record for the most nationalities registered.

"We could have definitely taken more," Brookes said, adding that registration sold out in August. "It's become a professional race."

The Toronto Waterfront Marathon has some changes this year.

In addition to the men's and women's categories, a non-binary category has been introduced with its own prize money. Races will take place over two days instead of just Sunday, with the 5-kilometre race happening on Saturday. 

Runners have raised over $3 million for over 150 local charities this year, Brookes said Thursday, and expected Saturday to be a celebration of the money collected for good causes. 

For runners like Arthur Qiu, who started running as a hobby during the pandemic, the charitable side of the event is the main driver behind signing up. To support cancer patients like his father, he says he's raising money for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, and matching each donation himself.

"I was never really much of an athletic guy in high school," he told CBC News. "So getting out there to support these charities has been hugely beneficial for me, for my father, for my family, and of course for these charities."

Sunday morning will put the focus back on the long-distance runners, Brookes said, with the half- and full marathons taking place around 8 a.m.

The marathon run will start on University Avenue near city hall. Runners will head north past Queen's Park up to Bloor Street, then head east for a few blocks before heading south on Bathurst Street. Runners will take Lakeshore Boulevard west past High Park, before looping back east until they reach the Beaches. The race will then head back downtown and finish next to City Hall.