Bajaj Pune Marathon: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Pune)

A December race on the Deccan Plateau

Pune sits roughly 560 metres up on the Deccan Plateau, and December is when that height counts. Mornings are cool and dry, and the monsoon humidity has long gone. That is the weather the Bajaj Pune Marathon runs in, on December 13, 2026, as announced.

It is an annual city marathon with several distance categories, including a full marathon and a half marathon. So the field has more than one kind of runner. Seasoned marathoners chase a time over 42.2 km, while first-timers and club runners line up for the shorter distances.

Race day, from the start line out

Indian city marathons start in the dark or right at first light, before the sun climbs, and Pune follows the same pattern. Runners in matching club shirts gather in the start pens. Volunteers hand out water along the route, and some of the streets you sit in traffic on any other weekday are briefly closed to cars.

The longer races go off first and the shorter ones follow, so the start area is busy for a good stretch of the morning. After that the crowd moves to the finish. Families wait there with phones raised, and finishers walk off with medals while sipping from paper cups.

Registration, tickets and the venue

The race has no ticket in the concert sense. “Tickets” means race entries, sold by category, and the organiser publishes the dates, start venue, route and registration links on its official site. Event-day timings for each distance appear there too, along with entry levels and any qualifying rules.

Watching costs nothing. Spectators line the public roads along the course, and cheering points tend to form at junctions and near the finish, where the noise is loudest.

Bib collection and the morning of the race

How the weekend runs shapes your race. Indian marathons usually hand out bibs and timing chips at an expo in the days before the race, and runners generally collect them in person with photo ID. Very few people try to pick up a bib on race morning.

What participants usually do:

• Get to the start by app cab or auto-rickshaw before dawn. Road closures make driving and parking near the start hard.
• Pay by UPI. It works almost everywhere in Pune, from rickshaws to tea stalls, but runners also keep a little cash.
• Wear an extra layer to the start and drop it at baggage, since December mornings on the plateau are chilly.
• Agree on a meeting point with family away from the finish chute, where crowds are thickest.

Cheering runners by name is normal here. Many bibs carry first names, and spectators shout them freely.

Getting to Pune and staying over

Most out-of-town runners fly into Pune International Airport in Lohegaon, in the north-east of the city. Others take the train to Pune Junction, one of the busiest stations on the Mumbai line.

From Mumbai, the Mumbai–Pune Expressway covers about 150 km through the Western Ghats and is the usual road route. Within the city, the Pune Metro runs two lines: the Purple Line (PCMC–Swargate) and the Aqua Line (Vanaz–Ramwadi). It only helps if it is running at the hour you need it.

Visitors usually stay in central neighbourhoods such as Shivajinagar, Deccan Gymkhana or Koregaon Park. All three are a short ride from most of the city’s main roads.

Refuelling after the finish

Pune’s breakfast food suits a hungry runner. Misal pav is the city’s signature: a spicy sprouted-bean curry topped with farsan and served with soft bread rolls. Lighter choices are poha, flattened rice cooked with onion and peanuts, and vada pav, Maharashtra’s potato-fritter sandwich.

If you stay the afternoon, the old city has easy, low-effort sightseeing for tired legs. Shaniwar Wada, the 18th-century Peshwa fort, is in the old quarter. Nearby, the Dagdusheth Halwai Ganapati temple is one of the most visited shrines in Maharashtra. Both are close to the old-city sweet shops, where runners often pick up boxes of bakarwadi to take home.