Yesterday, the official pacer list for the 2025 Beijing Marathon was published, along with the specific pace time slots.
This year the Beijing Marathon has a total of 13 pacer groups, in order: 2 hours 45 minutes, 2 hours 55 minutes, 3 hours, 3 hours 10 minutes, 3 hours 20 minutes, 3 hours 30 minutes, 3 hours 45 minutes, 4 hours, 4 hours 15 minutes, 4 hours 30 minutes, 5 hours, 5 hours 30 minutes, and a 6 hours 15 minutes cut-off pacer.
Compared with last year's nine groups at the Beijing Marathon (2 hours 50 minutes, 3 hours, 3 hours 10 minutes, 3 hours 30 minutes, 3 hours 45 minutes, 4 hours, 4 hours 30 minutes, 5 hours, 6 hours 15 minutes), this year's pacer groups not only increased by four in number, but the target finish times for many pace slots have also changed.
Last year Beijing Marathon's fastest pacer group was 2 hours 50 minutes; this year it has been upgraded to 2 hours 45 minutes. Races offering a 2 hours 45 minutes pacer are becoming increasingly common — last year's Xiamen Marathon and this year's Xi'an Marathon both had pacers at that pace. Wuxi Marathon is even more competitive, even featuring a 2 hours 31 minutes pacer who meets the men's National Class I qualifying standard.
An interesting setup at the Beijing Marathon is that the intervals between groups before the 4-hour mark are very short — only 5–10 minutes — whereas the usual spacing is typically 15 minutes. Take the upcoming Xi'an Marathon as an example: from 2 hours 45 minutes up to the cut-off, all groups are spaced 15 minutes apart. At another well-known domestic race, the Shanghai Marathon, last year the pace slots from 3 hours to 4 hours 30 minutes were also 15 minutes apart, but at Beijing this time the 2 hours 55 minutes and 3 hours slots are only 5 minutes apart, which is puzzling.
Because most races fix pacing windows on round times, of course some — like this year’s Chongqing Marathon — set finishing windows targeting per-kilometre pace: the 4-minute, 5-minute and 6-minute per-kilometre pace groups to complete the full race. Or, like Wuxi, using the men's and women's National First standards to define two pace blocks of 2:31 and 3:08. And 2:55 happens to fall between the men's National II standard of 2:51 and a sub-3, with the average finishing pace per kilometre between those two groups still expected to differ by about 6–7 seconds.
However, considering the recurring issues every year with sub-3 pacers online, could setting a 2:55 pacing window serve as double insurance for runners aiming to break 3 hours?
Because a full marathon course’s first and second halves can differ in difficulty — for example, the second half of the Shanghai Marathon is relatively tougher — and you also have to consider runners slowing down when temperatures rise later in the race. In fact, many official “pacers” don’t necessarily maintain a perfectly even pace through the whole race, so participants often complain that pacers go too fast in the first half or run slower than the average pace.
Having both 2:55 and 3:00 neighbouring time windows could be valuable for runners who want to go sub-3 but like to run more aggressively early on.
On the other hand, last year at the Beijing Marathon more than 3,000 runners went sub-3, and runners around the sub-3 pacers probably couldn’t clearly locate them all. By setting a 2:55 group, it gives those aiming for sub-3 with some margin an additional option, and helps split the crowded flow on the course, avoiding everyone clustering around the sub-3 pacers.
Overall, the Beijing Marathon has finer pacing setups this year for runners under 3:30: for the higher-level groups they use 10-minute intervals, and from 3:30 to 4:30 the pacing windows are expanded to 15 minutes per group. Compared with last year’s Xiamen Marathon, Beijing this year also added the 4:15 segment, which is basically the same as last year’s Shanghai Marathon.
So, do you think this year’s pacing windows at the Beijing Marathon are reasonable? Why set a 2:55 pacer? Share your thoughts with us.
