Overview The Martin Marietta City of Oaks Marathon is Raleigh's hometown race, a fall Sunday of running that starts and finishes downtown. It offers four distances on USATF-certified courses: the marathon, the half marathon, the Old Reliable 10K and the Acorn 5K. Capstone Event Group, the Raleigh company behind Capstone Races, produces it, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is the charity beneficiary. Organizers expect more than 10,000 participants, the biggest field the race has had. On site Race weekend opens with packet pickup at Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek, where runners collect bibs and walk past sponsor and vendor tents. On race morning the courses pass the State Capitol and Fayetteville Street and head out Hillsborough Street past the NC State Bell Tower, and marathoners carry on along the shaded Capital Area Greenway all the way to Shelley Lake before turning back for the city. Finishers walk straight into the post-race party. There is live music, a beer garden for adults and a row of sponsor tents. Every runner gets a shirt, a medal and extra swag. Audience The field is close to evenly split, 52% men and 48% women, and nearly two-thirds of runners are 18 to 39. Most are local: 77% live in the Triangle, with 36% from Raleigh and 30% from Cary, Apex and nearby towns. Half marathoners are the largest group, followed by the 10K, 5K and marathon. Counting spectators, race day draws about 15,800 people. Talent and Influencers No celebrities headline it. The pull is the Triangle's running community: local run clubs such as Stonewall Raleigh's, the running shops, and the race's own Strava club, where runners follow the course maps. The marathon is a Boston qualifier, so a competitive front pack lines up alongside first-timers and walkers. Runners who also finish Capstone's Tar Heel 10 Miler and Bull City Race Fest collect the Triangle Triple medal here. Track record The race started as a small community event and now fills downtown streets. Registration has grown every year since the pandemic. Runners like it. They rate the event 4.52 out of 5, and its Net Promoter Score of 54 falls in Bain's Excellent band. Martin Marietta has renewed as title sponsor for several years running. Brand presence Martin Marietta holds the title. Local partners include Avance Care, Fleet Feet, Michelob Ultra, WRAL and FOX50, Playa Bowls and Visit Myrtle Beach. Capstone builds each deal around moments in a runner's year: the registration email, training content, the expo, bib pickup, aid stations, the finish line and the post-race party. Last year the race logged 262,000 website sessions, over a million branded email opens at a 77.6% open rate among registered runners, and 818,000 organic social views.