This was my 25^th Marathon, an entry given to me as a Christmas present from my wife (what can I say). I had decided to give up the marathon at 24 a few years ago but I know the present was inspired by my friends in Port Patrick who have a daughter severely affected by Rett Syndrome, and this was to be my first marathon running for a charity, Rett Syndrome Scotland.

My first thanks go to the good old Garmin Forerunner 305. I downloaded a 16 week marathon training programme and stuck to it as close as I could aiming for approx the 4hr target knowing that I was a bit ambitious, but now having completed the course it was not far off the mark. Some fine tuning advice from Derek Parker was extremely helpful, many thanks Derek.

Stats from the watch for the techs amongst you are as follows.. Total Distance 26.20 miles, Avg Pace 9.46,  Avg Speed 6.1mph, Max Speed 10.1mph, Avg Heart Rate 131, Total Ascent 2810ft, Total Descent 2884ft.

Check out the Total Ascent, 2810ft. Most of which was in the first half of what I consider to be the hilliest marathon I have encountered. At 13 miles it was then steep downhill for 2 miles down to the coast for the return to the city centre along a cycle path next to the motorway. 15 to 23 miles was the flattest section of the route with a final sting in the tail in the final 3 miles, yes uphill to the finish in Ormeau Park, before reaching the finish the route took a short loop of the far end of the park with about 2 miles to go, a real downer as the finish could be heard but it was back to the streets for the uphill finish.

 Although well chuffed with my time I thought The Belfast Marathon was a bit disorganised. 3249 runners entered the marathon, 2317 entered the walk (9 miles or 26 miles) and 1,755 teams entered the marathon relay ( 5 to a team, total 8,775 runners). When o when did team relays become part of a marathon, I know it’s for charity but I think it should be kept separate from the marathon route or started at a different time. When it came to change over points in the route for relay runners it was just chaos with the road narrowed down to about 15ft as those waiting to run tried to look out for their runner, crossing in front of runners, running against the flow, spectators crossing in front, I collided with two kids on bikes.

Then in the later stages of the race to have relay runners flying past on their 5 mile run was most disheartening as it was dig in time for those finishing the marathon. Any other runners I spoke to afterwards were all complaining about the relay teams, with 8,775 relay runners against 3,249 marathon runners I think it should be renamed The Belfast Relay Marathon.

                Watch out for this if you are entering any marathons in the future, a sign of things to come! Choose a run without relay teams.!

I will be back running at the club next week and will be available to bore you step by step about Belfast if you can suffer it.

Running shoes were dumped in a bin in Belfast, hope I didn’t cause a security scare!!!!!!!!

Dougie