Belfast Marathon 2021: Race Report

If you open the search engine of your preference and enter “Marathon Training Plan”, you’ll find that the majority of answers will suggest that you can get yourself into 26.2 mile mode in somewhere between 12 and 20 weeks… Now it stands to sense, I suppose, that the more time you have to prepare for such an undertaking, the better you’d be on the day….

So what if you had a year and a half? 

Well, fear not dear readers, luckily for you all, I now know the answer…

Sunday 3rd May - The day that the 2020 Belfast Marathon was not. As I’m sure you all recall the world was in the throws of a pandemic by the middle of last year which, among other things led to some serious race schedule scuppering. Fast forward 74 Sundays then, and I and all the other suffering enthusiasts would finally toe the line at Stormont in what could well be the only Marathon event to actually happen in all of Ireland (at least at the time of my writing…)

As is now my Belfast Marathon tradition, I had booked a hotel to stay in the night before the race and the night after, both to ensure a stress-free race morning and to accommodate a lie in and shorter shuffle to the office on Monday morning. So, having blasted through what should have been a steadily-paced Parkrun and borrowed a lift off a mate who was on his way to Belfast on non-marathon related business (shoutout and thanks again, G), the plan was to grab a coffee, stroll to Ormeau Park to collect my race number, check in to the hotel and chill out.

Parts 1 and 2 of this plan were executed excellently, part 3 however was a different kettle of fish…

Upon arrival at the Pack Collection tent, I noticed a queue of people waiting to reach the tent. Now I had figured that some queueing was to be expected (hence why I’d bought a large coffee) so I decided this was no big deal, that I’d just join the queue and wait it out, me and my big coffee. That was until I got to the end of the queue, which meandered down the finish starting and have way down the embankment…

In short, what I thought would be a 15 - 20 minute wait transpired to be just over 2 hours. 2 hours, standing on legs that had been rested for 3 weeks so as to be as fresh as possible for the next day’s demands, with all my luggage for the weekend still on my back. Luckily, I got talking to the 2 friendly gents who joined the queue behind me and we enjoyed some great conversation as the daylight and energy in our race legs burned away. I never got their names so if, by chance, either of you are reading this and recognise my stupid face, I thank you for you both for your company and hope your respective races were all you hoped they would be…

I should point out as well that I’m not really one for complaining about things, or at least I try not to be - I’m only mentioning this so that I can look back at this post and remember. I’m of the opinion that you should train to be able to give your best on the worst day / conditions possible. So whilst this had not been the ideal pre marathon day, the goal was still to run a marathon, and that was that…

All aboard…

Sunday: 5:45am

I’d decided to rise early and get through all necessary preparations and aim to get to the shuttle bus scheduled to take us to the start line as quickly as possible (I’d had full on queue fear after the Saturday situation…) I arrived at the shuttle glider at 7:30am to find no queue at all, mask on and straight on. I guess I’d timed it perfectly because not one after the bus was at capacity and we were on our way through quiet morning streets to the start line.

After a short journey, we stepped off at Stormont and were greeted by a cool, crisp morning. The forecast all week had forewarned of rain and coldness but thankfully both had slept in and we got to make our final preparations and warm up in the early Belfast sun. As I stood at the start line awaiting the 9:00am buzzer, I had time to contemplate what I wanted from my impending marathon. In the months leading up to October, I logged my training miles with the mindset that there was no target time I was striving to hit. I had decided quite early on that, given everything that had happened in the world and in my own personal universe since my last marathon, the only goal I wanted was simply to be grateful that marathons were a thing again and that I was fit and healthy enough to endure the privilege of that late marathon pain and fatigue.

That being said though, I had aimed and trained for a 3 hour 30 minute marathon in 2020 (which was obviously cancelled.) And as I stood reflecting on recent Personal Bests at 5K and Half Marathon distance, I began to think about the PB hat trick… A 3.30 marathon requires a pace of 5;00 per km, so I figured I’d set out at that pace (and give myself the chance of a PB) and if I started to get it tight, I’d drop back and let it go without too much fuss.

An ideal morning for it…

9:00am, the buzzer sounds and we were off. I crossed the line, hit start on the ol’ Garmin and quickly settled into that magic 5 min/KM pace. Now if you’re a regular reader of my waffle (you have better things to be reading really) you’ll know that this isn’t the first post-pandemic race I’ve ran (please refer to the Antrim Coast post for further info.) But there was something about the early miles of this marathon that made it feel like a grand return. Maybe it was the nostalgia of running the marathon route again after such a long wait, maybe it was the return of the spectators cheering us along, maybe I forgot about Antrim…

Runners of Belfast Marathon enjoy a relatively flat course up until about the halfway point, and as I passed the sign denoting the point of no return I was pleased and encouraged to find my time was almost right on the money and that magic 3:30 marathon was still on the cards. Soon after though, as we climbed through the sharp mile 20 hills, I was starting to feel the effects of my early efforts and realised that the required pace for a 3:30 marathon was quickly becoming unsustainable. One of the many golden rules of marathon running I’ve come to use is: 

“Don’t be silly in the first half and don’t be soft in the second”

And maybe at that point in the race I’d been found guilty of both but I didn’t want the failure at a goal I hadn’t specifically trained for to sully a day I’d spent so long waiting for. So with that said, I slurped back a bottle of Tailwind mix and set about being the race out. Descending through the waterworks and onto the embankment was a welcome battering of muscles other than those needed to run uphill and as we made our way along the river, the sight of runners turning into the park to finish came into view across the river - a dangerous delusion to those who fail to recognise it’s not as close as you think

If you’ve ever walked up the Ormeau Road, you’ll be aware that there is a bit of an incline to it although it’s nothing to really write home (or on your running blog) about. When you running up it, and you’ve just paid the 25 mile toll for the privilege of doing so, it feels like a mountain that, even at the third attempt in my case, feels like it will never end. If you can keep heart though, you’ll be rewarded with sight of the Rosetta Roundabout and then it’s (literally) all downhill from there.

Finished…

As I turned onto the Ormeau Embankment, the energy from spectators was like nothing else. At that point the spectators reduced the course to a single road lane and runner would be forgiven for thinking every smile, wave and cheer was solely for them, you should absolutely run a marathon for that feeling alone.   Drawing energy from the crowd, I rounded the final corner and put everything I had left into a big “sprint” finish.

I ran Belfast Marathon in a time of 3:45:43. So to answer the question posted at the beginning of this voyage - If you’ve a year and a half to prepare for a marathon, you’ll finish a few minutes shy of your PB and you’ll be happy with that than any PB you’ve ever gotten. 

Most importantly, I ran this marathon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support (to date I think we’ve raised £730) and in memory of my late Granny Flo, who was called from us earlier this year… Thank you to everyone for your donations and words of encouragement, there really were appreciated. And thank you to the folks at Belfast Marathon, I’m sure you’ll agree it was far from a perfect race weekend, but you delivered us the race that, I at least, needed…