The Deseret News Marathon returns to Salt Lake City on 24 July for its 56th consecutive year, one of the older continuously staged marathons in the Mountain West and a fixture of Utah's Days of '47 celebrations. The race follows the historic pioneer route down into the Salt Lake Valley, finishing in step with the city's Pioneer Day parade, and this year's edition is expected to draw more than 4,000 runners across the full marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K and 1K distances.
The course traces the path associated with the 1847 arrival of Mormon pioneers into the valley, a detail that gives the race a civic identity distinct from most American marathons of its size. It has been run every year since 1970, and the organisers have leaned into that history rather than away from it, keeping the pioneer-route framing central to the event's marketing and its finish-line ceremonies alongside the parade.
New for the 2025 edition and now in its second year, the Marathon Relay lets teams of two to four runners split the course across four legs: 6.75 miles from the start to Little Dell Reservoir, 9.75 miles from the Emigration Canyon turn-off to Hogle Zoo, 5.25 miles from the zoo to Rice-Eccles Stadium, and a closing 4.25-mile leg into the finish. Early registration numbers suggest the relay format has drawn a meaningfully younger and more social field than the standalone marathon typically attracts.
Salt Lake City's elevation, sitting above 4,200 feet, adds a genuine physiological factor for visiting runners more than it does for the race's largely local field, and course notes continue to flag the descent-heavy profile as a source of fast times for well-prepared entrants. The event's medal design, produced this year in partnership with Utah-based SymbolArts, has become a minor talking point of its own among repeat finishers who collect the full set.
The Deseret News Marathon slots into a busy stretch of the July calendar that also includes the San Francisco Marathon's 49th edition the following weekend, giving American road racers back-to-back options as summer marathon season, typically a quieter period for the discipline, briefly picks up pace.