I completed the Newry City Marathon on Monday and just wanted to highlight how great the organisation was for this race. This was the inaugural running of the event but it felt like they were old hands at it!
There was plenty of space at the start of the marathon (Approx 360 participants) and the roads were sectioned off/closed for us to run through the town and out into the country side. There was loads of police at the junctions and plenty of stewards also helping out. I lost count of the amount of water stations after the 12th! There was two stations where energy gels were given out also. We were allowed take over half the road during the race and the any traffic that was present (I counted less than 20 cars on the outward 13 miles) had been well forewarned of the runners. There was also a Half Marathon that started 20 mins after us. Their course consisted mainly of the first 6 and last 6 miles of the full course with an extra mile made up along the way. At the finish line there was plenty of space and they even had loads of chairs for us to sit down while we removed our timing chips. There was a few people going round to everyone to make sure they were okay and offering water and mars bars. There was also loads of sandwiches at this point.
As I say, the whole day was so well organised it's hard to over-exaggerate. The main reason I'm mentioning this is in light of all the comments surrounding Connemara this year. I also completed this race and although some of the points raised failed to confront me, more than once out on the Newry course I tried to get my head around the reasons why Newry was so far ahead of Connemara in the organisation of it.

I'm not trying to drag up old wounds here but I really do think Connemara '09 could learn so much from Newry '08! Whether it be having more police/Garda presence, Energy gels available, problem-free merging of half, full and ultra races, etc. I do think some people went over the top about this years race but comparing the two races everything seemed so effortless and straight-forward with Newry that a phone call would definitely be of major benefit methinks!

Oh, and the entrance fee for Newry was only half the cost at €35!