7 Half Marathons in Maine You'll Love Running
From Bar Harbor to Millinocket, and from Portland to Tenants Harbor and Waldoboro — all updated for 2025
“We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.”
— Miguel de Unamuno
Maine Coast Marathon + Half
Wells, Maine | Saturday, May 3, 2025
A gorgeous run along the rocky Maine shoreline, with stretches through pristine marshes and along white-sand beaches, as well as past a number of uniquely New England-style cottages along the beach. From tiny Wells Harbor, overlooking the Webhannet River, you’ll run south along the oceanfront for the first half of the race, through stretches just like the one pictured above. Later, you’ll cross a footbridge over an estuary before heading inland, where the course continues its tour of marshes and wildlife and runs through the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, a 9,125-acre preserve that protects salt marshes and estuaries for migratory birds. Thanks to its location near sea level, there are no major hills — and the final mile is downhill in to the finish at Wells Harbor Community Park.
Acadia Half Marathon
Bar Harbor, Maine | Sunday, June 1, 2025
This early summer race features a stunningly beautiful route along the loop road inside Acadia National Park, where you’ll get to take in views of the rocky Maine coastline for long stretches of the race, looking out onto the waters of the Mount Desert Narrows. At some 41,000 acres in size, the island is the second-largest on the U.S. East Coast and features mountains, cliffs and seaside coastline, along with plentiful wildlife inside the boundaries of the park. It’s one of two races you can run in Acadia, with the other in September.
Blueberry Cove Half Marathon
Tenants Harbor, Maine | Sunday, August 24, 2025
Enjoy the tranquil, peaceful beauty of Midcoast Maine and raise money for the locally based 4-H camp and learning center at this late-summer race, set here along the gorgeous rocky St. George peninsula that looks out into the harbor from which the town gets its name. Known perhaps best for the lighthouse that sits out on Southern Island just offshore, Tenants Harbor is a place where boats outnumber cars — and where you’ll run along winding roads with views of the ocean crashing against the beaches and rocky shorelines, with “quiet coves, gentle hills, and few houses.”
Bar Harbor Bank & Trust Half Marathon
Bar Harbor, Maine | September 2025
A stunning run through Maine’s Acadia National Park, the only race of its kind that actually runs through the grounds of a U.S. national park, and takes place at a time when the autumn leaves are turning brilliant shades of orange, red and gold. Most of the race unfolds along the 47,000-acre park’s carriage roads, built by the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller between 1913 and 1940 to offer a way for “city-folk” to escape the urban jungle and get away to the park’s seashores, forests and lakes. Today they’re filled year-round with walkers, hikers, bicycles and horse-drawn carriages — but no cars.
Waldoboro Half Marathon
Waldoboro, Maine | Saturday, September 20, 2025
“If you finish, you get a beer,” say the organizers of this early fall race, which they claim is the toughest road half marathon in New England thanks to the more than 1,400 feet of elevation change they packed into the 13.1 miles of this race. Almost half the course is run uphill, they add, through this scenic town of just over 5,000 souls along the banks of the Medomak River near the Maine coastline. A couple of things you should know about it — there are no bands, no race expo, no volunteers out on the course, and not even any water stations; also, you’ll need to qualify for it by running a half marathon in 2 hours, 15 minutes within the past two years. “We always say that if you can do well in Waldoboro, everywhere else is easy.”
Maine Marathon + Half
Portland, Maine | Sunday, October 5, 2025
Mostly flat and beautifully scenic thanks to the trails, parks and waterfront of its popular Back Bay — a popular area for running thanks to the paved trails that hug its shoreline — this race is timed to coincide with the peak fall foliage here in the region in the early fall. Its route features some of Portland’s best panoramic views, from the city skyline to Casco Bay, and with long stretches over bridges, past nature preserves and through local parks.
Millinocket Half Marathon
Millinocket, Maine | Saturday, December 7, 2024
When the Great Northern Paper Mill closed here near the end of 2014, it left behind a town of some 4,500 people that prides itself as being “Maine’s Biggest Small Town,” grasping for answers on what to do next. The next year, a group of volunteers decided to do what only runners can do — raise the flag about what was happening the town by putting on a marathon and half, and attract as many as possible by making registration completely free. The only catch? That all runners who take part need to spend money in or contribute in some way to the Katahdin Region, a beautifully scenic area in central Maine.
