The 2019 Shanghai International Marathon will be held on November 17, featuring a total of 38,000 participants, organizers announced yesterday.

About 25,000 runners will compete in the 42.2-kilometer full marathon, 6,000 will run in the 10-kilometer race and 7,000 will take part in the 5.5-kilometer event. All races will start at 7am from the Bund.

The route of the full marathon will cover the city’s major landmarks including Nanjing Road Pedestrian Mall, Huaihai Road, Jing’an Temple and Longhua Temple. The finish line is at the Shanghai Stadium, where runners can enjoy after-race services like massage and ice bucket treatment for their feet.

The organizers have increased the number of supply stations along the route to nine from last year’s eight. Runners will be provided with bananas, cucumbers, chocolate, minicakes and energy bars.

International bands will be arranged along the route to cheer the runners on. The full marathon runners who manage to finish within three hours will be awarded with specially made T-shirts.

“At last year’s event, 720 runners finished the full marathon within three hours, which was a record among all marathon events around the country,” said Zhou Jin, general manager of organizer Shanghai Donghao Lansheng Event Management Company.

“The Shanghai International Marathon has been rated as a golden-label road race by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations). Our next goal is to build the annual event into a platinum-label race, a higher road race category IAAF introduced in 2019.”

Registration opens for general runners from August 1 to 12 at www.shang-ma.com or the event’s official app. Slots will be distributed through a lucky draw and the results will be announced on August 23.

For elite runners, there is a registration green channel to assure them entry. The channel is open until tomorrow.

Elite runners include the top 200 finishers of the 2019 Shanghai International Women’s Half Marathon; the top 600 male and 300 female finishers of the 2019 Shanghai International Half Marathon; as well as top finishers of last year’s Shanghai International Marathon.

The registration fee for the full marathon is 100 yuan (US$14.50) for Chinese and 300 yuan for foreigners. Registration for the 10 kilometer and 5.5 kilometer events is 60 yuan for Chinese and 200 yuan for foreigners.