20-Week St. Jude Memphis Marathon Training Plan

Memphis, TNDecember 5, 2026

Start around July 18, 2026. The calendar below gives each phase a real date, then the course guidance shows where to make the build specific to St. Jude Memphis Marathon.

The St. Jude Memphis Marathon exists to raise money, and it does it at a scale that reframes the whole weekend: more than $15.8 million in the last edition, with over 22,000 participants and supporters across the weekend's events. The marathon itself is the smaller piece of that, with 1,973 finishers in 2025.

Race day
December 5, 2026
Start window
July 18, 2026
Runway
20 weeks
Course
Rolling Hills · Mostly Loop
Plan choice
Current training

Does this window fit your starting point?

Use the longer window to make the early build calmer, not to add five months of hard training. The plan should begin close to your current load, hold most running easy, and delay the biggest race-specific work until the middle of the cycle.

  • You want a longer foundation phase before marathon-specific training.
  • Your current mileage is steady but below the load you expect to carry later.
  • You prefer gradual long-run growth with regular step-back weeks.
  • You can sustain a five-month routine without turning every week into a peak week.

The 20-week St. Jude Memphis Marathon calendar

These dates define the job of each phase. Your current mileage, recent longest run, experience, goal, and available days still decide the actual workouts inside them.

Foundation

Weeks 1–6

Jul 19, 2026–Aug 29, 2026

Set the routine, grow easy volume gradually, and finish each week with enough control to repeat it.

Build

Weeks 7–13

Aug 30, 2026–Oct 17, 2026

Extend the long run, introduce race-specific terrain, and keep recovery weeks on the calendar.

Peak

Weeks 14–17

Oct 18, 2026–Nov 14, 2026

Complete the most demanding race rehearsals and settle fueling, pacing, shoes, and clothing before taper begins.

Taper

Weeks 18–20

Nov 15, 2026–Dec 5, 2026

Reduce the load, keep familiar running in the week, and let the work from the previous four months show up on race day.

Make the window specific to St. Jude Memphis Marathon.

Build general durability first. Add the race's hills, flat sustained running, downhill exposure, heat, or humidity in layers after the weekly rhythm is stable, then make the final long runs the most course-specific.

Read the full race guide

How to train for the St. Jude Memphis Marathon

Train for the St. Jude Memphis Marathon on gently rolling ground and get comfortable holding effort while your pace wanders fifteen or twenty seconds a mile. With about 700 feet of climbing spread across a course that never rises more than 87 feet above its low point, this is a race decided by rhythm rather than by any single climb.

The bigger training problem is the calendar. A December race means your long runs happen from August through October, which across most of the country is the hottest, most humid stretch of the year, and then you race in the cold. Your body will be heat-adapted for a race morning near 48F.

Plan for that gap. Make sure the last three or four long runs happen in genuinely cold conditions so your pacing, clothing and fueling get calibrated to the day you'll actually get. Gels behave differently at 48F than they do at 88F, and so do you.

Practically: pick a rolling route instead of a flat one, run the long runs by effort, and add two or three sessions of hilly progression work in the final six weeks so late-race undulation meets legs that have seen it. The rises here are small enough that hill repeats aren't the answer. Continuous rolling is.

St. Jude Memphis Marathon course facts

Course
Mostly Loop · Rolling Hills · Road/Pavement
Elevation gain / loss
703 ft gain, 706 ft loss
Highest / lowest point
306 ft / 219 ft
Marathon finishers
1,973 in 2025 (mid-size field)
Boston qualifier
Certified Boston qualifying course
Finishers running a qualifying time
4.9% in 2025
Typical race morning
48°F at the start, 78% humidity, clear
Race day high / low
55°F / 37°F on average

Sources

Let your current training decide the actual plan.

Current mileage, recent longest run, marathon experience, goal, and available days determine which plans rank first. After you choose and subscribe, Stride dates every workout through December 5, 2026.

Build My Plan

20-week St. Jude Memphis Marathon plan questions, answered.

When should I start a 20-week St. Jude Memphis Marathon plan?

The 2026 St. Jude Memphis Marathon is scheduled for December 5, 2026, so the 20-week window opens around July 18, 2026. Treat that as the outside edge of the window, then line week one up with the plan's normal weekly rhythm.

Is a 20-week plan long enough for the St. Jude Memphis Marathon?

Use the longer window to make the early build calmer, not to add five months of hard training. The plan should begin close to your current load, hold most running easy, and delay the biggest race-specific work until the middle of the cycle. The course does not change the opening load you can handle, so choose from your current mileage and recent longest run before adding race-specific terrain.

How should I prepare for the St. Jude Memphis Marathon course in 20 weeks?

Build general durability first. Add the race's hills, flat sustained running, downhill exposure, heat, or humidity in layers after the weekly rhythm is stable, then make the final long runs the most course-specific. Train for the St. Jude Memphis Marathon on gently rolling ground and get comfortable holding effort while your pace wanders fifteen or twenty seconds a mile. With about 700 feet of climbing spread across a course that never rises more than 87 feet above its low point, this is a race decided by rhythm rather than by any single climb.

What if the 20-week St. Jude Memphis Marathon window has already started?

Do not double weeks or cram missed mileage into the remaining calendar. Use your current mileage, recent longest run, experience, goal, and available days to choose a plan that can enter at an appropriate point while preserving the taper.

Is the St. Jude Memphis Marathon flat?

Not quite. The course is low relief but constantly rolling, gaining about 700 feet across 26.2 miles while staying inside an 87 foot elevation band. There are no real hills, but there aren't many stretches of true flat either, and that undulation is why finishing times run slower than the profile suggests.

Is the St. Jude Memphis Marathon a good Boston qualifier?

Only modestly. 4.9% of finishers ran a Boston qualifying time in 2025, 4.3% in 2024 and 5.9% in 2023. Cool December weather helps, but the constant rolling costs more than the small elevation numbers imply. The course has no net drop, so the BAA's downhill adjustment does not apply to times run here.

Put the 20-week window against your actual race.

Each page counts back from race day, maps the 4 phases to real dates, and applies the window to that course and its typical conditions.