Toronto Waterfront Marathon Fueling Plan & Pace Chart

Toronto Fueling Strategy

Toronto sells itself as flat and fast, and from mile 4 to mile 19 it absolutely is. The problem is the 453 feet of climbing does not live there. Roughly 80 feet of it is in the first 1.9 miles going north on Yonge and west on Bloor, another 36 feet is the grade up into The Beaches between miles 19 and 20.5, and the last 32 feet is the rise on Front Street and Bay Street inside the final 1.4 miles. Between those bookends the course sits between 250 and 270 feet for fifteen straight miles. Build the plan around that shape and not around the word flat.

Start with what is actually on the tables, because Toronto's is unlike almost any other big marathon and it will quietly wreck an otherwise good plan. The drink at all twelve stations is Organika Extra Strength Electrolytes, and it contains zero carbohydrate. One gram per serving, all of it fibre, sweetened with stevia. It is a salt tablet in liquid form. A cup gives you somewhere around 250 to 350 milligrams of sodium at label dilution and nothing else. If your plan assumes the cups are worth 20 or 30 grams an hour the way Gatorade Endurance is at Chicago or Boston, you will arrive at mile 22 about 100 grams down and have no idea why. Treat the drink as hydration and sodium only. Carry every gram of carbohydrate you intend to eat.

The on-course gel is Hornet Energy, 33 grams of honey and pink Himalayan salt, 27 grams of carbohydrate and 130 milligrams of sodium per packet. Honey is close to a one-to-one glucose to fructose split, so the ratio is actually good for absorption. The catch is that it is thick, undiluted sugar and it needs water with it. The bigger catch is placement. There are only three gel stations on the entire course: Colborne Lodge Drive at mile 7.3, the Bayview Extension at mile 14.3, and Coxwell at mile 18.9. Nothing after mile 19. The last 7.3 miles of this race are gel-free unless you brought your own. If you have not trained on honey gels, do not find out at mile 14.

Take your first gel by mile 2, before the top of Bloor. That feels early and it is meant to. The first aid station is not until mile 1.5, the course is climbing 62 feet in mile 1 with 20,000-odd people funneling down a four-lane Yonge Street, and the moment you crest at Bathurst you are handed a 120-foot descent. If you wait for the descent to feel like a good time to eat, you are eating at mile 3.5 while running 20 seconds a mile faster than goal, and then you are in the longest dry stretch on the course. Which brings up the second thing: there is nothing between mile 3.0 and mile 5.7. Four point two kilometres, no water, straight down Bathurst. Drink at mile 3 whether you want to or not.

Do not chase mile 4. It drops 84 feet on its own and it will hand you free speed at exactly the moment you are least equipped to spend it. The cost is quad damage that shows up on the Bay Street rise and a stomach that stops cooperating on the Lake Shore. Run it controlled and fuel on the flat once you turn west at Fort York.

Miles 4.5 through 12.5 on Lake Shore Boulevard are the engine room. Elevation never moves more than a few feet, stations come every 2.4 to 3.4 kilometres, and there is a gel station at mile 7.3 near the Parkdale turnaround. This is where you bank carbohydrate for the second half. It is also, honestly, boring: a wide exposed road, a turnaround, the same road back. Boring is when people forget to eat. Set an interval alarm before the gun. At 75 to 90 grams an hour you should have four to five gels down by the time you come off Lake Shore around mile 12.5.

Miles 13 through 19 are the last easy place to eat. Front Street through the St Lawrence Market, the Bayview Extension out-and-back, then Eastern Avenue through Leslieville. Flat, well stocked, and it hits both remaining gel stations at mile 14.3 and mile 18.9. Take the mile 19 gel even if you do not feel like you need it. Lake Shore Boulevard East starts rising into The Beaches immediately after, and you want carbohydrate absorbed before you get on the grade, not while you are on it. There is no third chance.

The last 7 miles are where an under-fueled Toronto comes apart, because after the turnaround at Queen and Balsam there is almost no terrain left to blame. You give back the Beaches climb by mile 22, then run four flat, thinly spectated miles back along Lake Shore and Eastern into Front Street. Your final carbohydrate has to be in you by mile 24, because there is no gel on offer and because Front Street tilts up around mile 25 and Bay Street climbs 21 feet in the last four tenths. That closing rise is genuinely uphill at the worst possible moment, with streetcar tracks and downtown corners, and it is a fair test of whether you ate enough on the Lake Shore.

Weather is usually the best thing about this race and occasionally the worst. The ten-year average is a 51 degree start at 77 percent humidity with an 8 mph southerly, which is close to perfect and argues for running at the top of the 75 to 90 gram range. But 2018 started at 36 degrees and 2025 started at 67 and topped out at 72, and the Boston qualifying rate fell from 13 percent to 6 percent across those warm years. On a cold year, keep gels against your skin and pre-tear the tabs, because honey gels stiffen badly in the cold. On a year above 65, raise fluid 15 to 20 percent and pay attention to sodium, because the only sodium on offer is the drink at roughly 300 milligrams a cup and a gel at 130. If you are a salty sweater, carry capsules. Last note, and it catches Americans every year: this course is marked in kilometres only. There are no mile markers. If your fueling plan is built on mile splits, convert it before race morning or run it off a watch timer.