With the shut-off time to avoid a late entry payment scheduled for midnight on Monday, organisers are on target to at least equal the 2235 competitors in last year's event.
A feature this year will be the new half-marathon course, which will no longer start in Teviot St near the Edgar Centre, but now in the heart of the university area, outside the Otago Polytechnic in Forth St.
The 21.1km course then weaves its way through the Dunedin Botanic Garden, before turning back towards the university and past the railway station. It joins the marathon course via the Jetty St overbridge and follows a path around the new stadium and out to the finish on Watson Park, Port Chalmers.
The 42.2km marathon course remains unchanged.
The alterations to the half-marathon course have enhanced the event, according to race identity Morris Hall.
Hall (62) will be contesting his 25th marathon on the course and has also run the half-marathon on three occasions.
"I like the way the course takes in the cycleway along the shoreline now," he said.
"It used to get so congested running on the Port road, along that narrow footpath into Ravensbourne."
Hall thinks the course will be even better once thecycleway is extended past Maia, as it will make for a flatter surface to run on, as opposed to the camber of the Port Chalmers highway.
