In 2017, the race started on Monahan Road and took in a loop beyond the Atlantic Pond. This year, it starts on Albert Road and takes in a loop around Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
The first 3 mile are shown below...
As you can see, the start on Albert Road is reasonably close to the City Hall. The straight section for the first mile on the Monahan Road will allow the field to thin out nicely and avoid the fiasco in 2016 when the runners went the wrong way.
There's a loop in around Pairc Ui Chaoimh and a small climb out of it and up onto the Marina. From there, it joins the marathon course at about 1.5 miles.
4 comments:
Running the full on Sunday. I'm guessing this means that anyone running the full doing somewhere close to 8 minute miles will have the most traffic at the merge?
I spectated last year thought it was extremely unfair on full marathoners especially those around the 3 hour mark having the leaders of the Half more or less finishing at the same time. Can't understand why the Half can't start a bit later on or have a different finishing section. Just my observations last year.
For me the ideal situation would be to start all races at the same time but to have a split at around 11 mile where the half runners would turn back to finish in town and the full runners continue as normal. This would have most half runners finished by the time the marathon leaders come in. They could have two separate finishing areas also to allow the full leaders the attention they deserve. That would also remove the issue of traffic where the races merge.
That said, in the absence of a joint start i do like how they give the half and relay runners the signs to put on their backs to let the full runners know they aren't being passed by other full runners. Having run the full both before and after they started doing that i think it is a welcome introduction.
The official website still shows the map of the route as going by the Atlantic pond http://www.corkcitymarathon.ie/half-marathon/
Reading the text gives the newer route but they should update the map to reflect this.
Post a Comment