Registration is closed in all three in-person distances
General registration for the CNO Financial Indianapolis Monumental Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K is sold out. The race runs Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026 and starts and finishes in downtown Indianapolis. Beyond Monumental, the organizer, publishes the event as one of the 15 largest marathons in the United States. All three courses are USATF-certified, and the profile is fast and flat.
Three published routes remain for a team
Register through an Official Charity Partner. Charity entries carry fundraising or donation minimums that each organization sets for itself. Join the waitlist, which the organizer publishes for the full marathon and the half marathon only. Transfer or defer an existing registration, both of which run through the organizer's participant account.
The charity index sits on the organizer's event page. The 5K carries no waitlist.
The dates that close the window
- Transfer to another person: until 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, for a $20 fee plus processing fees.
- Deferral to 2027: proof of injury, pregnancy or military deployment, a $20 fee plus processing fees, and documentation due by Sept. 25, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET.
- Switch to the virtual Marathon in a Month: no additional fee before 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2026.
- Distance change after Sept. 25: only if space remains, for an additional $10 plus processing fees.
- Military and first responder discount: 10% off the registration price, claimed by emailing a photo ID or DD214 before the registration is completed.
Four deadlines land on one Friday. Treat Sept. 25 as the last working day for a team that wants entries in place.
Race morning starts at 6:30 a.m. with a bag collected earlier in the week
Gear Check opens at 6:30 a.m. at Washington Street and West Street. The marathon and half marathon start at 8:00 a.m. The 5K starts at 8:40 a.m. The course closes at 3:30 p.m.
The gear check bag is not a bag the team brings. Every participant receives the official clear gear check bag at the Monumental Health and Fitness Expo and Packet Pickup on Thursday, Nov. 5 or Friday, Nov. 6. Participants must use that bag. All bags are subject to search, and any other bag is turned away.
A team that arrives Saturday morning has no gear check route, so the expo visit belongs in the itinerary. Expo and packet pickup hours are 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5 and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 6, both at the Indiana Convention Center. A colleague can collect a packet with the official check-in pass, the assigned bib number and a copy of the runner's government-issued photo ID. Race Day Packet Will Call is available for purchase on the participant account.
The hotel block runs through the Visit Indy Housing Bureau
The organizer holds a block of guestrooms at a number of downtown hotels. The booking site opens with a dropdown, set it to Attendee, and needs no access code. The Visit Indy Housing Bureau answers on housing@visitindy.com or 317-262-8191, Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. Four published dates control the booking.
- Sept. 29, 2026: deadline to assign guest occupant names to rooms held under one name.
- Oct. 5 to Oct. 16, 2026: window to make new reservations or add nights, with the date varying by hotel and availability.
- Oct. 8, 2026: deadline to cancel without penalty. A $25 fee applies per reservation cancelled after that date.
- Oct. 22, 2026: deadline to modify an existing reservation through the bureau. After that date the hotel handles changes and new requests directly.
The organizer warns that a search reporting no availability can leave single nights or non-sequential nights. A waitlist request goes to the bureau, which calls to confirm a preferred hotel. The runner stays responsible for cancelling unwanted reservations and any cancellation fees.
Rooms for the team, and a cap the sources do not publish
Neither the race's hotel block page nor its FAQ publishes a per-reservation room cap. The published controls are the October deadlines. A team that needs a cap confirmed should put the question to the Housing Bureau.
An eight-person team in four double rooms for the nights of Friday, Nov. 6 and Saturday, Nov. 7 holds eight room-nights. At a labelled example rate of $200 the stay costs $1,600, or $1,360 at 15% off, or $960 at 40% off. Four rooms sits under the block threshold that bookMyTeam publishes, so the request route carries it. bookMyTeam publishes a group rate from a block of 10 or more rooms per night, notes that some hotels discount from as few as five rooms depending on season and availability, and reports a 15% to 40% saving band against no markup, over a network of 103,857 hotels across 46 states. The race's own block page and booking site publish no property name and no nightly rate. Send the request through the platform's group room request form and compare the offers side by side.
Checks before the roster is fixed
Registered participants must wear their assigned bib, and nobody participates without one. Running with someone else's bib results in disqualification, no official finish time, and possible disqualification from future events. In 2025 the organizer received several reports of scammers on Facebook and other social platforms claiming to sell or transfer registrations, and it asks a runner to verify an active registration with its team before sending money.
The marathon limit is seven hours, with a minimum pace of 16:00 per mile and a course split between miles seven and eight that runners must reach by 10:25 a.m. The finish line closes at 3:30 p.m.
