Beneva Montreal Marathon
Montreal, Canada
- Marathon, Half Marathon, 10K, 5K, 1K
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
Participants of the Marathon Beneva de Montréal 21.1 km and 42.2 km will discover Montréal through its wide open spaces, its parks and its shores. They will learn about its history through the discovery of its landmarks and the arteries that make it famous. Five boroughs will be crossed. Saturday’s … MORE
Local Historical Weather (Sep 20):
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
| H (°C) | 25 | 20 | 14 | 24 | 13 |
| L (°C) | 15 | 12 | 11 | 12 | 6 |
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C'est une bonne course
Now that I am wrapping up 50 states one of my next running goals is to run a half marathon in all 10 Canadian Provinces. I decided to do this … MORE
Now that I am wrapping up 50 states one of my next running goals is to run a half marathon in all 10 Canadian Provinces. I decided to do this race as Montreal is only about a 4 hour drive for me and I enjoy big city races. The race had excellent pre race communication with very frequent emails in both French and English. There was a helpful race guide that had all the information. My mom wanted to visit Montreal as well so she joined me for this trip. For the race we stayed in Burlington, VT Friday night and I did a 5K there Saturday morning and then we crossed the border into Canada and arrived at the expo in the early afternoon. The expo was pretty big. The parking lot was a bit full but we found parking pretty easy. It was easy to get the bib and you are assigned a bib number beforehand. It was efficient and there weren’t lines like described from past years. You have to pay extra for shirts. I did since it was my first race in Quebec and it was a nice short sleeved tech shirt I will definitely use. There were a number of other booths at the expo. The expo primarily used French but there were English language signs and all (or at least most) of the volunteers were bilingual. We stayed at the Holiday In in downtown Montreal which was a nice place to stay and is a short drive to the start and near public transportation. The race is point to point. It starts on an island called Île Sainte-Hélène and ends in Parc Maisonneuve near where the expo is. One confusing thing is “start” in French is “départ” and “finish” in French is “arrivée.” So I initially thought you started i.e. arrived at the park and finished i.e. departed at the island when I looked at the course map. Luckily I read the guide carefully and realized we started the the island. The guide said to use public transportation and there are NO shuttles between the start and finish. However since my mom was with me she drove me to the start and picked me up at the finish line. If you are traveling with someone with a car definitely do this, it was really easy as everyone used public transportation. One runner I knew doing the race used public transportation and said it was a mess with how many runners there are because this race is huge. I knew it would be a big race but I had no idea it was this huge. There were almost 10,000 participants in the half and between 3000-4000 in the full. I think this was the largest running event I’ve done this year. The start area was set up as well as possible for such a big race. You are assigned into one of nine corrals based on predicted times. I was in the last one because I’m slow. There was a small cafe to get a light breakfast and lots of porta potties though of course the lines got quite long. While I do feel the corrals were organized, one of my bigger complaints is the guide said the expected time each corral would leave and we ended up leaving about 20-25 minutes later than the stated time. The first corral started at 7:45 and it said the last corrals would leave around 8:05 but we didn’t start until close to 8:30. It was also a bit confusing as the instructions on the intercom for the participants were all in French (not a complaint just a thing to be aware of). I do think we were all spread out fairly well for how big the race was so it’s fine it took nearly 45 minutes to get everyone going, I just wished the guide said it would take 45 minutes not 20 minutes. It made it harder to plan to meet my mom after the race starting 20 minutes later than expected as my cell service is spotty in Canada. Anyways after we left it was a really enjoyable race. The first few miles are on the island. This part is a bit quieter as there aren’t many spectators but it is a nice and scenic, pretty area to run in. You then cross a large bridge into the city. The initial part after the bridge is less nice as it’s a lot of docks and you go under some overpasses but soon you are in the heart of the city and it gets really fun. There are a lot of spectators in the city and it is just fun to run on closed city roads and see the city without having to worry about being run over. The Montreal Canadiens mascot Youppi was there and I took a selfie with him but he didn’t like that I am from the Boston area. You then run to the park and there are a ton of spectators at the finish area. Overall spectator support is pretty good. There weren’t many in the beginning because of how the course is set up. I initially thought it was underwhelming for a big city race but they showed up in the middle and end. Overall production of the race was quite good. Everything was very well marked and there were several timing mats for race splits. There were plenty of aid stations with water and electrolytes. Just some advice if you are running in a location where you don’t speak the language make sure you know the word for water. The water and electrolytes were both clear and I never looked up the French word for water. I assumed it would be something similar to aqua or agua since French is a Romance language but it is Eau which does not sound similar in the heat of the moment when at an aid station and it seemed like people were screaming random words so I was just taking cups and sipping to see if it was water or electrolytes. Again not the races fault, just some advice to learn the word for water. There were plenty of porta potties at the aid station. The only issue with the aid station is they did run out of nutrition for the slower runners though they never ran out of Eau or electrolyte drink. Other than running out of nutrition, there were no other issues as a back of packer and the half had a 4 hour time limit so it is walker friendly. Another minor production issue is a few of their later km markers were a bit off. They had markers every 2km. The 16km and 18km appeared to be placed quite a bit early. It was hard enough pacing myself using km markers and even harder with not correctly placed km markers. My Garmin had some issues with GPS signals under the overpasses and my tangents weren’t great so I was using the markers to help pace myself and it got confusing at the end and I ended up a couple minutes slower than my goal since those two markers were placed too early. In terms of course difficulty, I would say it’s pretty average. It’s not flat or hilly. There are a few small hills but most of it is pretty flat. However it is net uphill and a lot is at a slight incline which while barely perceptible just makes it not a fast race. I was aiming for between 3:00 and 3:15 and finished a bit over that but still faster than a lot of my recent races. The finish line is very exciting with tons of spectators as I said previously. The medal is a bit underwhelming. The finish area is fun but crowded. There is okay post race food. Neither race I’ve done in Canada has had a ton of post race food. There were granola bars, fruit, chocolate milk, trail mix and Nutella uncrustables. Enough to fill me up until lunch but not a full meal like you get with some American races. If you want lunch nearby, the Biodome in the same park as the finish has an all vegetarian cafe called Espace Vego for a quick vegetarian lunch. Overall this was a very fun, big city race. It was very close to 5 sneakers and it would just take a few minor improvements in production for me to raise my ranking to 5 sneakers. I would definitely recommend this race if you like huge, city races and are hoping to do a race in the Canadian Provinces. Even if you aren’t this is still a race to consider as Montreal is a very fun city to visit. As I enjoy big city races and this had a longer time limit than the races in Boston and Montreal is easier to get to than NYC and Philadelphia, I would definitely considering doing this one again.
An ok race
-What i didn't like is that you have to wait 90 minutes to get your bib at the expo. The organization told us to go from 9am to 1pm on … MORE
-What i didn’t like is that you have to wait 90 minutes to get your bib at the expo. The organization told us to go from 9am to 1pm on friday to have less people later on.
-They aren’t many people cheering you on the botanical garden.
-You have a hill at the end to the Olympic stadium.
Good Destination Race
My daughter spent the weekend in Montreal and ran the half marathon. We liked that it started at Expo 67, weaved through the city, and ended at the Olympic Stadium. … MORE
My daughter spent the weekend in Montreal and ran the half marathon. We liked that it started at Expo 67, weaved through the city, and ended at the Olympic Stadium. The course had a big hill, but otherwise was not too tough. Public transportation made travel to and from the race easy. Montreal is an amazing city to visit with so much culture and history. September is a greta time to go. I highly recommend this race if you can also spend a couple of days there.
Varied route to discover Montreal.
Starting line from Île Sainte Hélène, then a crossing of the Saint Lawrence River, followed by the center of Old Montreal. Your steps will guide you towards beautiful residential areas … MORE
Starting line from Île Sainte Hélène, then a crossing of the Saint Lawrence River, followed by the center of Old Montreal. Your steps will guide you towards beautiful residential areas of the city and frequent crossings of wooded parks, to finally bring you to the forecourt of the Olympic site for a well-deserved consecration of your 26.2.
I definitely recommend this Quebec marathon to anyone who wants to run a party marathon in Canada.
Definitely a one and done
Best part of the race was the start. They started exactly on time and every corral started every 3 minutes. Decent crowd support once we hit the city streets. Water … MORE
Best part of the race was the start. They started exactly on time and every corral started every 3 minutes. Decent crowd support once we hit the city streets. Water stations was spaced ok. The one station that had nutrition ran out fast so a lot of runners had nothing. Considering the price of the race you’d think you’d get the race short like every other race. Nope, if you want a shirt you have to pay extra. The swag was the cheapest looking medal I’ve ever seen. And like someone else said the after race snacks was extremely poor. That being said I did enjoy the race itself.
Fantastic!!
It was my first marathon and really enjoyed and completed it. Good scenic views of the city. 9000 runners (marathon + half) in the streets of Montreal. No real difficulties … MORE
It was my first marathon and really enjoyed and completed it.
Good scenic views of the city. 9000 runners (marathon + half) in the streets of Montreal. No real difficulties during the race, pretty flat most of the time.
However snack at the end was very poor.