TheMarathon Clinic
Course pacing

How to pace the Cape Town Marathon

The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon is a largely flat but gently rolling marathon, with about 205 m of climbing and 203 m of descent (a near-level net change). Pace it by even effort: ease back on the few rises and let the descents run, rather than forcing an identical pace on every kilometre.

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Guide reviewed July 2026
Next Cape Town Marathon

Sunday 18 October 2026

About 8 weeks away · 59 days · projected from the usual race weekend

Build a plan for this race

Elevation gain

205m

Elevation loss

203m

Net change

+2m

Terrain

Rolling

Typical race-day conditions

October

At the gun

13°C

~6:15am start

By the finish

18°C

warms through the morning

Humidity

75%

morning average

Conditions

Warm

a little warm; expect a small slowdown

A thirty-year average for October, not a prediction. The real forecast appears here inside the last nine days.

Goal finish timeYour time on a cool day, with no heat allowance in it. Say whether it is a target for this course or what you are good for on flat ground, and the plan below shows what the terrain and the weather each do to it.
::
Your goal time isTwo ways to say what your number means. A TARGET FOR THIS RACE is what most runners have: the plan finishes on your time, and the hills decide how you spend it rather than how much there is. WHAT YOU RUN ON FLAT is the other way round: tell us your flat-course ability and we add what this course costs, which is how you find out what the hills are worth to you.
StrategyEven effort keeps your effort steady and lets pace drift with the terrain, slower up the climbs and faster down. Even pace holds one pace the whole way and ignores the hills. Either way the total stays the goal time you entered, so this changes where your time goes rather than how much of it there is.
Race conditionsPace for an ideal cool day, a typical race-day, or a warm-outlier year. Once race week arrives and you have a forecast, choose Set °C and enter the actual start-time temperature. Warmer conditions slow your realistic finish, and the splits below adjust to match. These figures assume shade, so a clear morning on an exposed course runs a degree or two hotter than the reading here.
AcclimatisedAcclimatised: you already train and race in conditions like these, so your body has adapted. You sweat sooner and more, hold a lower heart rate and core temperature, and barely lose time to the heat.Not yet: you mostly train in cooler weather, so a warm race hits harder, a higher heart rate, an earlier fade, and roughly twice the slowdown an adapted runner sees. It comes good after about two weeks of training in the heat.
Your race plan

3:34:00

Target pace

5:04/km

3:30:00 Cape Town +4:00 typical October = 3:34:00

▸Where that comes from
Your goal for Cape Town
3:30:00
Cape Town’s terrainshapes the splits, not the total
—
↑ climbs +4:08 (205 m)↓ descents -3:57 (203 m)

The climbs and descents very nearly cancel out.

Typical October
+4:00

13°C at the gun, 18°C by the finish. +1.9% adapted.

On the day
3:34:00
Sanlam Cape Town Marathon

Cape Town, South Africa

Hover the map or the profile, the other follows.

This one is won on the back half.

5 m10 m15 m20 m25 m30 m35 mhalf 1:47:200 km510152025303540
km 29–32 climbs 27 m, right where most runners fade.
plan slows (give time) plan runs (take it back)each block ≈ 500 m of the course
Your race-day splits
Every
Units
MarkerTarget paceClock
1 km5:04/km5:04
2 km5:14/km10:18
3 km5:04/km15:22
4 km4:52/km20:14
5 km5:15/km25:29
6 km5:17/km30:46
7 km5:01/km35:47
8 km5:06/km40:54
9 km5:24/km46:17
10 km5:04/km51:21
11 km4:55/km56:16
12 km4:49/km1:01:05
13 km5:18/km1:06:23
14 km5:13/km1:11:36
15 km5:06/km1:16:42
16 km5:02/km1:21:43
17 km4:57/km1:26:40
18 km4:51/km1:31:32
19 km5:13/km1:36:44
20 km5:00/km1:41:44
21 km5:07/km1:46:51
22 km5:10/km1:52:01
23 km4:43/km1:56:44
24 km5:01/km2:01:44
25 km4:57/km2:06:41
26 km5:15/km2:11:56
27 km5:07/km2:17:03
28 km4:56/km2:21:58
29 km5:08/km2:27:06
30 km5:13/km2:32:19
31 km5:26/km2:37:45
32 km5:15/km2:43:01
33 km5:01/km2:48:02
34 km4:55/km2:52:57
35 km4:48/km2:57:45
36 km5:01/km3:02:45
37 km5:02/km3:07:47
38 km5:08/km3:12:55
39 km4:57/km3:17:52
40 km5:03/km3:22:55
41 km5:05/km3:28:00
42 km5:03/km3:33:03
Finish4:54/km3:34:00

Even-effort splits distribute your goal time by the energy cost of each gradient (the Minetti grade-cost model), not an even pace. Wind, heat, turns, and your own downhill tolerance still apply, so run the climbs by feel and stay relaxed on the descents. Heat builds as you go, so treat the closing 10 km as a feel check rather than a pace target.

Take it to your watch

These exact splits as a structured workout: one step per kilometre, each with its target pace band (±10 s/km). Your watch prompts every step, so on race day you run the terrain, not the arithmetic.

Garmin needs a cable and a computer. In this file: 43 steps · every km · 3:30:00 goal · even effort · typical October conditions · per-km paces. Change anything above and download again.

Getting it onto your watch

You will need a USB cable and a computer. There is no way around that: Garmin has never built a way to send a workout to a watch from a phone, from Garmin Connect, or from any file you can email yourself. Everyone who makes these files, us included, has the same constraint.

  1. Download the file above on a computer.
  2. Plug the watch in by USB and wait for it to appear.
  3. Copy the file into GARMIN/NewFiles. If your watch has no NewFiles folder, use GARMIN/Workouts instead.
  4. Eject the watch and unplug it.
  5. On the watch, go to Training, then Workouts. It will be there under the name of this race.

On a Mac the watch mounts as a media device rather than a drive, so you will need a transfer app such as Android File Transfer to see those folders. Windows shows them in Explorer.

Dragging it into Garmin Connect or TrainingPeaks will not work, and it is worth knowing why. .fit is a container that holds several different kinds of file. A recorded run uploads to both of them happily, which is what those drop zones are built for. A workout is a different file type inside the same extension, and neither platform will import one.

Train for this course, not just the distance.

A coach builds the climbs and descents into your plan, and closer to the day you can sit down with Jason and settle how you will run it.

Get a coachAll courses
Where Cape Town is decided

Hardest km

31 km at 5:26/km

Fastest km

23 km at 4:43/km

The coach's read

Fast, with gentle rolls rather than real hills, and a city-and-coast loop that brings the finish into view before sending you back out along the Sea Point promenade. Run the rolls by effort, respect any wind off the Atlantic late, and you've a quick course under the mountain.

WHY  Allowing for a typical October day, that's about 5:04/km of effort the whole way, the splits below shift with the gradient, not your pace.

Ease the climbs, let the descents run, and stay relaxed through the second half.
JHJason HuntFounder & Head Coach
Take it furtherAdjust for the heatPlan your splits
·Race-day guide

Pacing the Cape Town Marathon

A coach's read on how the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon runs, and how to spend your effort across it.

01The course

Kilometre by kilometre

  • The climbing that matters: 29.3–31.6 km (+27 m at 1.2%), 3.7–6.4 km (+23 m at 0.8%), 7.4–9.5 km (+21 m at 1.0%). Run these by effort; your pace will and should slow.
  • Where you get it back: 6.6–7.3 km (-15 m down), 22.1–22.9 km (-13 m down), 34.1–35.2 km (-12 m down). Let these run without braking or hammering: relaxed, quick feet.
02The plan

How to pace the Cape Town Marathon

  1. Read the course before race day. Fast, gently rolling, under Table Mountain. Fast, with gentle rolls rather than real hills, and a city-and-coast loop that brings the finish into view before sending you back out along the Sea Point promenade.
  2. Pace by effort, not just the watch. Set the effort you can hold for the whole marathon, then let the pace flex with the ground: a little slower up, a little faster down, the same effort throughout.
  3. Give the climbs effort, not pace. Let your pace slow on the climbs while holding effort steady; chasing your flat pace uphill is the classic way to blow up. The biggest is around 29–32 km (+27 m).
  4. Protect your quads on the descents. Stay relaxed and let the descents come to you. Hammering downhill banks a few seconds now and wrecks your legs for the closing kilometres; the model deliberately caps the downhill benefit for this reason.
  5. Plan your finish. Run the rolls by effort, respect any wind off the Atlantic late, and you've a quick course under the mountain.
03Questions

Cape Town Marathon, answered

Is the Cape Town Marathon hilly?
It's largely flat but gently rolling, with around 205 m of total climbing over the 42.2 km and a biggest single climb of about 27 m. None of it is severe, but the rises add up.
How should I pace the Cape Town Marathon?
The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon is a largely flat but gently rolling marathon, with about 205 m of climbing and 203 m of descent (a near-level net change). Pace it by even effort: ease back on the few rises and let the descents run, rather than forcing an identical pace on every kilometre.
What is the hardest part of the Cape Town Marathon?
The toughest climb runs roughly 29–32 km, gaining about 27 m at an average 1.2%. Fast, with gentle rolls rather than real hills, and a city-and-coast loop that brings the finish into view before sending you back out along the Sea Point promenade.
Is the Cape Town Marathon a good course for a PB?
It can be. It's fast enough for a personal best if you pace by effort and don't fight the rolling sections; just don't expect a dead-flat racetrack.
How much elevation gain does the Cape Town Marathon have?
About 205 m of total gain and 203 m of loss over the 42.2 km, in line with the organiser's published figures.
Race Strategy Session

The pacing above is free. The judgement is the part worth paying for.

This page knows the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon. It does not know you. Two or three weeks out, Jason reads your last twelve weeks and spends 60 minutes going through the day with you, then writes it down so you are not running on memory.

  • An honest read on what your training says you can hold
  • How to spend your effort across this course, and where it is won
  • Fuelling and conditions, decided before you are standing on the line

A$180

One session, one race. Video call, or in person in Sydney.

See the session

Your race is still a way off. Worth knowing about now, worth booking about eight weeks out.

From the journal

2026-07-13 · 8 min

Pace the TCS Sydney Marathon: Don't Trust the Downhill Start

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Train for Cape Town. Not just the distance.

A coach builds this course's climbs, descents and race-day pacing into a plan made for you.

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