Rehoboth Seashore Marathon set for Dec. 6

The 2025 Rehoboth Beach Seashore Marathon will step off from the Bandstand on Rehoboth Avenue at 7 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 6. 

This will be the 17th year for the popular race. The first event was held in late November 2008 with a surprise turnout of 433 in the marathon braving a cold morning after snow and ice fell overnight. In 2009, 511 participated. In 2010, both organizers had a conflict with the date, so it was decided to move it to early December, and it proved to be a great decision, as 959 finishers crossed the line. With the marathon now basically being the last in the fall season, it gives runners a chance to come back and redeem themselves from a race in the fall that did not go so well.

Numbers have continued to grow each year. This year, the event sold out earlier than ever, with 3,400 runners registered.

The event is organized by the Rehoboth Beach Running Company and Seashore Striders with Marybeth Hutton as the race organizer/director and Tim Bamforth as the race director.

The marathon will be an out-and-back 13.1-mile course, going north on the Gordons Pond Trail past Herring Point, the Biden Center and Fort Miles, and out the northern side of the park on the trail parallel to Cape Henlopen Drive. Runners will remain on the trail to the turnaround just before Freeman Highway and across from the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. After the turnaround, the course will follow the same route back to Gordons Pond just past the 17-mile mark. From this point, the marathon will follow the half-marathon course.

This half-marathon course takes runners back toward Rehoboth Beach on Ocean Drive and onto Henlopen Avenue for a straight, fast and flat mile to Grove Park. At the park, the course takes runners onto the trail along the canal and onto Rehoboth Avenue Extended, up to Canal Crossing Road and Hebron Road. The course heads toward the Junction & Breakwater Trail, crossing over Holland Glade Road and the eight-mile mark for the half and the 21-mile mark for the full. Once on the trail, the course goes out and back to the Wolfe Neck turnaround and Flag Alley.

On the return, the course crosses Holland Glade Road on the south trail closer to Epworth United Methodist Church and goes through the Wizard of Oz section on the wooded trail, exiting behind the car wash on Hebron Road. Once on Hebron, it goes back to Canal Crossing Road and onto Rehoboth Avenue Extended, through Grove Park and onto Henlopen Avenue for the final half-mile. The course takes a slight right at Gerar Street and crosses over Columbia Avenue onto Fourth Street for the final quarter-mile. The new course eliminates the early years’ sharp 90-degree turn at the finish, and spectators should have a great look at their loved ones heading to the finish line on Fourth Street between Kent Street and Sussex Street.

There will be 10 water stops on the course using 500 gallons of water, 90 cases of Powerade and 28,000 cups. There will be six spectator viewing locations: Boardwalk and Rehoboth Avenue at 2.6 miles; Gordons Pond at 4.5/17.6 miles; Herring Point at 7.1/15.1 miles; Fort Miles at 8.3/14 miles; Grove Park at 19.7/25.7 miles; Wolfe Neck Road turnaround at 22.6 miles. Race organizers are asking spectators and family members not to park along any part of the course, including Cape Henlopen Drive in Lewes as well as Hebron and Holland Glade roads in Rehoboth Beach.

There will be 10 different agencies and hundreds of volunteers working hard to provide runners from at least 45 states a positive half-marathon and marathon experience in the Nation’s Summer Capital of Rehoboth Beach.