[ RACE.2026 ] 🇸🇪 Stockholm, Sweden
adidas Stockholm Marathon Training Plan
30 May 2026
Stockholm runs two laps through a city built on islands and finishes on the track of the 1912 Olympic Stadium. It is rolling, occasionally warm, and more beautiful than fast - which is a feature, not a flaw.
What the course is actually like
The race covers two laps of central Stockholm - past the Royal Palace, the old town of Gamla Stan, and long stretches of waterfront - before entering the 1912 Olympic Stadium for a final part-lap on the track. The elevation span is modest, but the course rolls steadily: bridges between islands, gentle rises through the city, little sustained flat.
The two-lap format divides opinion and it is worth deciding in advance which camp you are in. You see everything twice, you always know what is coming, and the second lap arrives with full knowledge of exactly where it will hurt. For pacing nerds that is information; for others it is psychological weight.
How to train for it
Prepare for rolling terrain rather than hills: long runs over constantly undulating ground, where you practise letting pace drift a few seconds on rises and recovering it on descents rather than forcing uniformity. Stockholm punishes rigid pacing more than it punishes climbing.
The late-spring date means your longest runs land in April and May - train in the warm part of the day occasionally, because the race can be mild or genuinely warm and the field is rarely heat-adapted after a Nordic winter. And save something for the stadium: finishing on an Olympic track with the stands above you is the kind of closing straight worth arriving at with legs.
Weather and what to expect on the day
Late May or early June in Stockholm typically means mild temperatures and long, bright evenings - but the spread is real, and warm editions happen. The start time and Nordic light make heat manageable; the runners who suffer are those who trained through winter and never saw a warm run before race day.
Hydrate for the day you get, not the day you trained for, and treat the first lap's scenery as the pacing hazard it is - the city is distractingly pretty, and the second lap remembers every second of enthusiasm the first one spent.
Which distance are you running?
Official site: www.aims-worldrunning.org/races/745.html
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