Techcombank Hanoi International Marathon: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Hanoi)

What the race actually is

This is Hanoi’s biggest annual road race, held each year in October. Four distances go off on the same morning: 5K, 10K, half marathon and full marathon. The course threads through the Old Quarter and past the city’s heritage sites, so you’re running past French colonial facades, temple gates and lake-front promenades rather than an anonymous business district.

The Techcombank name is the title sponsor, a large Vietnamese bank, which is standard practice for the country’s biggest road races. That sponsorship is why the event has grown into an international-caliber field over five editions, drawing both Vietnamese club runners and travelers who build a trip around race weekend.

Where the start and finish sit

The race is built around Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the dense grid of narrow streets north of Hoan Kiem Lake. The start and finish area was set near the lake itself, the natural staging ground for a race of this size in central Hanoi. Streets in this district are already narrow and one-way heavy on a normal day, so on race morning entire sections close to traffic.

• The Old Quarter and the Hoan Kiem lakeside are the areas within walking distance of the start
• Closures were planned from early morning through late morning, covering the slowest full-marathon finishers
• Taxis and ride-hailing apps struggle to reach hotels inside the closure zone; walking is often faster than driving that morning

Closure maps shift from edition to edition, since the exact loops through the old district change with the route. The constant is the lake: whatever the year’s course, it returns to the Hoan Kiem shore.

The four distances, and who they’re for

Runners choose from 5K, 10K, half marathon (21.1K) and full marathon (42.2K), all starting the same morning. The 5K and 10K suit visitors who want to experience the course and the atmosphere without a heavy training block behind them. The half and full marathon draw the serious field, including pacers and international entrants chasing qualifying or personal-best times.

Because all four races share roads and a compressed morning window, start times were staggered by distance. There is no single gun time for everyone; each distance has its own wave.

Running past a thousand years of the city

What sets this course apart from most international marathons is what you pass, not just how far you run. Hanoi’s Old Quarter dates back roughly a thousand years as the city’s original commercial heart, and the route is designed to move runners past its temples, colonial-era buildings and the lake itself rather than around them. Turtle Tower, on its small island in Hoan Kiem Lake, sits at the district’s edge, a visual landmark close to the start and finish.

This is less a fast, flat PR course and more a moving tour: narrow lanes open up briefly onto the lake, then close back into the tube-house streets the Old Quarter is known for. The tight turns and street furniture of the old district add technical difficulty that a wide-avenue city marathon wouldn’t have.

Getting to Hanoi for race weekend

Noi Bai International Airport is Hanoi’s gateway, connected to the Old Quarter by taxi or airport bus depending on traffic. October sits in Hanoi’s dry, cooler season, after the summer monsoon humidity breaks and before winter’s damp chill sets in, which is part of why the race is held in early October.

Rooms in the Old Quarter and along the Hoan Kiem lakeside fill fast on race weekend, taken by the running community: Vietnamese club groups traveling from other cities and international entrants building a Hanoi trip around the marathon.

Registration and bib pickup

Marathon organizers in Vietnam typically hold an expo or bib pickup event in the days before race day, where runners collect their race number, timing chip and race-day kit. Pickup locations are usually central, and each distance has its own registration window.

International online registration does not always stay open until the last minute. Vietnamese marathons at this scale often cap entries per distance, and the half and full marathon fields fill before the 5K and 10K.

Cheering on Hoan Kiem’s edge

If you’re not running, the lake shore is the easiest place to watch. Hoan Kiem Lake’s paved perimeter path gives spectators a continuous sightline as runners loop past, and the surrounding streets host coffee shops with a seat and a view of the field between rounds of runners.

• Lakeside spots go early, before road closures make crossing town difficult
• Vietnamese iced coffee (ca phe sua da) from a streetside stall is the standard way locals fuel a morning of spectating
• The atmosphere thickens as the half and full marathon leaders approach the finish, usually a couple of hours after the earlier waves start

Small denominations of cash are useful around the lake, since many of the smaller coffee and snack stalls near the course don’t take cards.