Cork City Marathon

The Irish Examiner Cork City Marathon is an official 42.195km (26 miles and 385 yards) marathon course, and serves as a Boston qualifier. It is still, overall, a fast and flat course.

As with all major city marathons, the challenge for the marathon course committee was to design a route that would maximise the runners’ experience while minimising the disruption to the public. We also wanted to make this truly a city marathon, by bringing the race to as much of the city as is possible.

There are a few immovable constraining factors: The options to the north of the River Lee are limited because of the steep hills. To the south, the potential course is restricted by the critical South Ring Road, which carries large amounts of traffic into or around the city centre. Despite these restrictions, the course committee designed a route that takes the runners north, east, south and west of the city centre.

The marathon and team relay begin and finish on the city centre’s main street, St Patrick’s Street.