Twin Cities Marathon Fueling Plan: Mile-by-Mile Strategy

Short version: carry every gram of carbohydrate you plan to take, hold 75 to 90g per hour on a fixed clock, and get your last real gel down at the mile 19 station before the Franklin Avenue bridge. Twin Cities gives you fourteen fluid stations and almost no fuel, and it saves its only serious climb for mile 20, when whatever you failed to absorb earlier is no longer recoverable.

The course reputation is the problem. Nineteen miles of lakes and river parkway, flat to gently rolling, a route people describe as fast and scenic. All of that is true, and it sets up the last 10K badly. You spend two thirds of the race being told the course is easy, and then it asks for a three mile climb.

There are two things to plan around at Twin Cities, and they compound. The first is the shape of the course. The second is that the on-course drink is Nuun, and Nuun is not a fuel source.

The Nuun problem

The 2026 drink is Lemon-Lime Nuun Endurance, which carries about 16 grams of carbohydrate per 16 ounces. A race cup holds four to six ounces. Do that arithmetic and the on-course drink contributes about five grams of carbohydrate per stop. Across all fourteen stations you might collect 55 to 85 grams if you drained every cup, which nobody does.

At most big-city marathons the sports drink is a real line item. You can skip a gel, take two full cups, and stay roughly on plan. That option does not exist here. If you are targeting 75 to 90g per hour over a 3:40 marathon, you need somewhere near 275 to 330 grams of carbohydrate total, and effectively all of it has to be in your shorts at the start.

Sodium runs the same direction. Nuun Endurance delivers roughly 380 milligrams per 16 ounces, which is thin for a heavy sweater working for four hours, and the course offers no higher-sodium alternative. If you finish long runs with salt crust on your face, bring your own capsules. The hydration calculator will give you a sodium target by body weight and duration so you know how big the gap actually is.

One fuel point exists on the whole course, a maple syrup packet around mile 18.6, and it is not something most runners have practiced with. More on that below. Plan as though the course provides fluid and nothing else, because functionally it does.

Miles 1 to 4: the first gel comes early

The race runs west out of downtown Minneapolis past the Basilica and the Walker, then turns up Douglas Ave, which climbs about 30 feet in mile 2. The first fluid station sits at Douglas Ave near mile 2.2, and you should take your first gel there.

The reason is spacing, not hunger. After Douglas there is no water until mile 4.8 on W Bde Maka Ska Pkwy, a 2.6 mile carry. If you wave off the first station because you feel fine at mile 2, which most people do, you are dry for twenty minutes and your first gel slides to mile 5. That is a small error at the time and a compounding one by mile 20.

Miles 3 to 8: the lakes, where the race gets given away

Lake of the Isles, Bde Maka Ska and Lake Harriet. Gently rolling, a small rise into mile 6, and the fastest-feeling running of the day. Splits come easy here and the temptation is to fuel on feel, which at mile 6 means not fueling at all.

Stay on the clock, and set the clock by your gel size. A 40g gel every 30 minutes runs about 80g per hour. A 25g gel wants something closer to every 18 minutes to land in the same place. Either way, anchor the doses to stations rather than to round mile numbers, because the longest carry on the course sits right here: 2.9 miles between Lake Harriet at 6.9 and the next station at 9.8. Take a gel at the mile 5 station and again at Lake Harriet, not out on the dry stretch past it.

Miles 8 to 13: Minnehaha Parkway and the best absorption of the day

From mile 8 out to the Lake Nokomis loop at 12 and 13, this is the flattest running on the course and the stations bunch up at 9.8, 11.3 and 13.2. Effort is steady, terrain is quiet, and your gut is as cooperative as it will be all morning.

Halfway falls on Lake Nokomis Pkwy. Use it as an audit. At 75 to 90g per hour you should be around 140 to 165 grams by that point. Divide by your own gel to get the count. This is also the stretch where GI trouble announces itself, and the one place you still have time to respond to it. If your stomach is turning, drop to smaller doses more often now, while you have twelve miles to recover. Trying to solve the same problem at mile 22 does not work.

Miles 14 to 19: the last loading window

Mile 14 climbs about 20 feet back onto Minnehaha Parkway and mile 15 drops roughly 25 through Minnehaha Park onto Godfrey Pkwy. From there to mile 19 the course runs north along the Mississippi on West River Parkway, shaded, quiet and close to flat.

Treat these five miles as the deadline they are. Whatever you take in between mile 14 and mile 19 is the carbohydrate you will actually have available on Summit Avenue, because absorption runs 15 to 20 minutes behind ingestion and slows further once effort climbs. Two doses, one at the mile 17 station and one at the mile 19 station, and then you are done loading.

Around mile 18.6 you pass the Organic Pure Fuel maple syrup point, about 27 grams of carbohydrate in a one ounce pouch of pure maple syrup. As real food it is legitimate, a glucose and fructose blend arriving in exactly the right place. It is also thicker and stickier than a gel and it behaves differently going down. If you have rehearsed with it, take it. If race day would be the first time, skip it and take your own gel at mile 19.

Miles 19 to 23: the bridge, the low point, and Summit Avenue

Mile 19 ends with a short ramp onto the Franklin Avenue bridge. You cross the river and descend to the lowest point on the course at mile 20, around 756 feet. Get your carbohydrate in before the bridge rather than on it.

From mile 20.3 the course starts climbing: three short risers on East River Road, then a left onto Summit Avenue near the University of St. Thomas. Between mile 20 and the crest at Summit and Snelling at mile 23 you gain about 190 feet, roughly 80 in mile 21, 67 in mile 22 and 41 in mile 23. On paper that averages barely over one percent. At mile 21 of a marathon it does not feel like one percent.

Take your gel at the mile 21 station at the base, then hold steady through 22 and 23 instead of trying to catch up. Stations sit at 22.2, 23.2, 24.2 and 25.2, which is generous spacing for the hardest part of the course, so use it for small frequent amounts. Gastric emptying slows as effort rises, and a full gel plus a full cup on a sustained grade at mile 22 is a reliable way to be walking at 24.

Miles 23 to the Capitol

After the crest at Snelling, Summit rolls gently down with one short one-block riser near mile 25. Mile 26 drops about 40 feet past the Cathedral and down John Ireland Boulevard to the finish at the Minnesota State Capitol.

Still moving well at 23? The mile 24 station is the last dose that will do anything for you. Past that point you are eating for a race you have already finished.

Weather: the widest swing on the fall calendar

The fifteen year average start is 48°F at 81 percent humidity, close to ideal, and on that kind of morning you should be running the top of the 75 to 90g range. The average hides a lot, though. Starts have gone off as cold as 30°F, the 2025 race started near 70°F, and the 2023 race was cancelled on race morning ahead of a forecast 91°F high.

Cold years. Absorption is good but your hands are not. Open gels before you reach the stations, and drink on schedule rather than on thirst, because cold suppresses the thirst signal and Summit will still cost you fluid.

Warm years. Cut solid gel carbohydrate by roughly 10 to 15 percent, push fluid up 15 to 20 percent, and take water at every station from mile 2 instead of every other. Run the numbers through the heat adjustment calculator the week of the race. The specific danger is that the Summit climb from 20 to 23 is fully exposed, right after four shaded miles along the river. Heat, grade and mile 21 is the worst combination this course can produce.

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