The 2025 Around the Bay Road Race will start and finish at Liuna Station. That’s a new route, but runners will also experience a return to form as the popular long distance race goes back to being 30-kilometres-long.
Last year, the longest distance ended up being about 35 km, as the planned 34-km route was extended to avoid a sinkhole in Burlington.
Race director Anna Lewis spoke to reporters at Liuna Station on Monday morning and said going back to 30 km was something participants said they wanted.
“When you have a mindset of what you want to train for, it’s hard to change,” Lewis said, adding that this year, runners tended to slow down around the 30-km mark.
Next year’s race will take place on March 30, and there will be four distances: 30 km, 15 km, 10 km and 5 km.
The 30-km start line will be at James Street N. and Simcoe Street E. Runners will head north and loop around Hamilton Harbour as usual. At the 26-km mark, the route will go into Dundurn Castle and head back to Liuna Station.
Lewis said the finish line will likely be in the parking lot at Liuna Station, which is across the street from the West Harbour GO station. Participants will be allowed inside but spectators will watch from outside.
For the 10-km and 15-km races, participants will take shuttle buses to start lines along the race course and follow the route from their respective starting points.
The 5-km race will begin by Liuna Station, then head to Dundurn Castle and back. Lewis said it will likely start around an hour before the other races.
There will be no relays this year, as was the case last year.
It’s too early to say how long this route will last, Lewis said, adding that the traditional start and finish at FirstOntario Centre always used to work well, and that her team was happy with last year’s race starting and ending at Tim Hortons Field.
Logistically, neither worked this year and Liuna did, she said, adding that Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 837 is also a race sponsor.
“Immigrants came here to start new beginnings,” she said of the historic station building. Adding that for the race this will be a new beginning too.
Near the finish line, runners were met with cheers, music and dancing. Members of Everybodycrew, an inclusive Hamilton exercise club, showed up to support the thousands of people running in Around the Bay on March 24.
Money raised by the race will go toward supporting robotic surgery at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, which includes hip, knee and cancer surgeries, a media release said, adding many such surgeries are not funded by the province.
“Robotic surgery is helping patients heal faster and get home sooner,” the statement said.
Registration for the general public will open the week of Sept. 16, Lewis said. Organizers want to have 8,500 registrants.