Mid-May, every year · Start and finish in City Park
Where to Stay for the Colfax Marathon
The short version
The Colfax Marathon starts and finishes in Denver's City Park, on the east side of Ferril Lake, at 6am. Road closures run from 5am to 1pm on a rolling basis. Those two facts should decide where you book: a hotel you can walk from beats a hotel you have to drive from, because at 5:15 on race morning the course is already closing around you. Uptown and Capitol Hill are the walk. The 2027 race weekend is May 15 and 16, with the 5K on the Saturday and everything else on the Sunday.
Where to book
Uptown — the smart book for this race
Closest to the City Park start with a real choice of hotels, and 17th Avenue's restaurants for the carb-loading dinner the night before. On race morning you walk to the start line instead of negotiating a course that is already closing.
Capitol Hill — value, and still walkable-ish
The best value close in, with more character than anywhere downtown. A little further from City Park than Uptown but still on the right side of the closures, and the neighborhood is on the course anyway.
Downtown — more rooms, but plan the morning
The widest choice of hotels and the finish-line celebration is a short ride afterwards. The catch is race morning: the course runs through downtown, closures start at 5am, and a 5:30 drive to City Park is not the simple journey it looks like on a map.
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When is the Colfax Marathon?
A weekend in mid-May every year. The 2027 race weekend is May 15 and 16 — the Colfax 5K on Saturday, and the marathon, half marathon, Urban 10 Miler and marathon relay on Sunday. The 2026 race Sunday was May 17. 2027 is the event's twenty-first year.
The Health and Fitness Expo runs on the Friday and Saturday before, which is where bib pick-up happens. If you are flying in, that pushes your arrival to Friday rather than Saturday evening — a detail that catches out-of-town runners who booked two nights and needed three.
What time does everything start?
The marathon and the first leg of the relay go at 6am from City Park, east side of Ferril Lake. The half marathon follows at 6:30am from the same place. The Urban 10 Miler starts in waves between 7:45 and 8:45am from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. The Saturday 5K is at 9am.
Every race finishes in City Park, in the Finish Line Festival area between the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Ferril Lake. The Urban 10 Miler covers the last ten miles of the marathon course and has a two-and-a-half-hour limit.
| Race | Start | From |
|---|---|---|
| Marathon | 6:00am Sunday | City Park, east side of Ferril Lake |
| Marathon Relay, leg 1 | 6:00am Sunday | City Park, east side of Ferril Lake |
| Half Marathon | 6:30am Sunday | City Park, east side of Ferril Lake |
| Urban 10 Miler | 7:45–8:45am Sunday, by wave | Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design |
| Colfax 5K | 9:00am Saturday | City Park, behind the museum |
Which roads close, and which stay open?
Closures run 5am to 1pm on a rolling basis — each street reopens once the runners are past. The organizers publish the open corridors, and they are the most useful thing on the whole website: I-25 stays open north-south, as does Colorado Boulevard and everything east of it — with the exception of Colorado southbound between 29th and 17th — plus Kipling and everything west of it. Traveling east-west, stay south of Colfax on 14th or lower, or north of 29th on 30th or higher.
This is why the hotel choice matters more here than for any other Denver event. A car trip that looks like ten minutes on a map becomes a detour through the open corridors, at five in the morning, with a start time you cannot move. Booking somewhere you can walk from removes the entire problem.
It also means spectators need a plan. Pick one or two points on the course, get there before 5am or walk, and stay put — hopping between mile markers by car does not work on this course.
What is the course actually like?
It runs through Denver and Lakewood along Colfax Avenue, which the organizers describe as the longest main street in America and which is the whole reason the race exists — by their account it was created by the cities of Denver, Lakewood and Aurora to mark it. The marathon passes through Empower Field at Mile High twice and runs through Denver Fire Station Number 1.
Beyond those, the route takes in the State Capitol, Civic Center Park, 16th Street, the Cherry Creek bike path, Confluence Park, Sloan's Lake, the Denver Zoo and Elitch Gardens, with roughly seven miles alongside rivers, lakes and bridges. The half marathon is billed as the only half in the country that runs through a fire station.
One thing worth taking seriously as a visiting runner: Denver sits at 5,280 feet. That is below the threshold at which altitude illness becomes a concern, but it is high enough to matter over 26.2 miles if you arrived from sea level two days earlier. Adjust your target, not your training.
How big is the field?
More than 28,000 runners across the weekend, including over 1,100 relay teams — the organizers describe it as the largest marathon weekend in the Rockies and the second largest marathon relay in the United States. Nearly 6,000 of those runners are in the corporate and government relay divisions.
The relay is a five-person, five-leg format with corporate, government, public school and open divisions, and it is what gives the event its atmosphere: a large share of the field is running as a team from a Denver employer rather than chasing a time.
The charity thing is real
The race is run by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and its charity partner program works with more than two hundred nonprofits — the organizers describe it as the second largest in the country. Partner charities have collectively raised over $5 million through runner fundraising.
The marathon itself donates more than $175,000 a year, including $150,000 distributed through the relay team competitions, where corporate, government and open teams compete for prizes of up to $2,500 that they designate to a nonprofit. If you are picking a spring marathon on grounds other than the course, that is a fair reason to pick this one.
Keep reading
How this guide got made
A mix of things: Google ratings and review counts, weighted so a 4.5 with two thousand reviews beats a 5.0 with eleven; walking distances routed over real sidewalks rather than measured as the crow flies; and a decent amount of opinion from someone who lives here and has been in most of these lobbies.
Hotels move, though. Rooftop pools close for the winter. Parking that was free in March costs $50 by June. A dog policy grows a weight limit. Everything here was checked in August 2026, and we go back through it every quarter — but the hotel is the only one who knows what's true today. So if one specific detail is the reason you're booking — the pool, the shuttle at 4am, whether the dog comes — take ninety seconds and call them. Then go enjoy Denver.
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Frequently asked questions
When is the Colfax Marathon 2027?
Race weekend is May 15 and 16, 2027. The Colfax 5K runs on Saturday May 15, and the marathon, half marathon, Urban 10 Miler and marathon relay all run on Sunday May 16. The Health and Fitness Expo, where you collect your bib, runs the Friday and Saturday beforehand.
Where does the Colfax Marathon start and finish?
Both in Denver's City Park — the start line is on the east side of Ferril Lake and the Finish Line Festival sits between the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the lake. The one exception is the Urban 10 Miler, which starts at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and finishes in City Park with everyone else.
Where should you stay for the Colfax Marathon?
Somewhere you can walk from. Uptown is the closest neighborhood to the City Park start with a real choice of hotels, and Capitol Hill is the value version. Road closures begin at 5am against a 6am start, so a hotel that requires a drive turns race morning into a navigation problem you do not need.
What roads close for the Colfax Marathon?
Closures run from 5am to 1pm and reopen on a rolling basis as runners pass. The organizers publish the corridors that stay open: I-25 north-south, Colorado Boulevard and everything east of it apart from the southbound stretch between 29th and 17th, Kipling and everything west of it, and east-west travel south of Colfax on 14th or lower or north of 29th on 30th or higher.
Is the Colfax Marathon hard because of the altitude?
Denver is at 5,280 feet, which is below the CDC's threshold for altitude illness but high enough to show up over a marathon distance if you flew in from sea level. The course itself is not brutal — it is a city marathon through Denver and Lakewood, with about seven miles alongside rivers and lakes. Most visiting runners adjust their target rather than their training.
How many people run the Colfax Marathon?
More than 28,000 across the weekend, including over 1,100 relay teams. The organizers call it the largest marathon weekend in the Rockies, and the five-person relay the second largest in the United States.