A week of sport in Belfast

I dubbed the week of May 5 'the week of sport' here in Belfast. On Monday, May 5 (May Day, national holiday), Belfast had its annual marathon. The Sunday paper said that 17,000 runners would participate. I'd take a guess at more like 7,000 runners... But, it was still a great crowd. My U.S. ex-pat running buddies, Pauline and Lauren, picked me up at home and we walked to City Centre, and then the 3 of us were 'bandits' for the first 10k of the race. Being a rule-follower, I never in my life thought that I would run a race as a bandit (someone who doesn't register or pay to run in the race), and I was nervous to jump into the race, but I rationalized the experience this way - I didn't cross the start or finish line, I was only doing a small part of the whole race, I didn't take any race resources (didn't take water at any aid stations), and I stayed out of all of the runners' ways. Hee, hee...

Anyway, it was fun! I ended up running most of the 10k on my own because Pauline and Lauren ran slower than normal, but there were plenty of racers around me. I think I did the 10k in about 52 minutes, but I didn't have a watch on and there weren't race clocks on the course, so I'm not positive. I wasn't really pushing myself for time, but I wasn't running easy either (sorta tempo pace). At the 10k mark, there was a relay exchange station - what a mess that was! I was so glad that I wasn't a marathon runner- that would have driven me crazy! All of the relay runners picked up their paces at ~8k and then got in the way at 10k while trying to find their relay partners. Was a big mess. I pulled off and found Pauline and Lauren (not easy in the crowd!), along with my 2 Belfast running buddies who had run the first leg of the relay legitimately (Jane and Karen).

We all walked back to City Center, grabbed breakfast at Harlem Cafe (http://www.harlembelfast.com/), and then walked back home. Unfortunately,  it began to rain and the temps had fallen by about 10 degrees F while we were eating - yikes. Poor marathoners... I took some pix of the event and my friends with Watty's little camera, but I cannot seem to locate the cord to download them, so hopefully sometime in the future I'll be able to add a few shots. Here's a link to a newspaper article about the marathon: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/belfast-marathon-2014-every-single-athlete-and-runner-caught-on-video-plus-gallery-and-full-results-belfastmarathon-30244479.html, as well as the link to the route map: http://www.belfastcitymarathon.com/download/images/2014MMAP.jpg.

Then, on Friday May 9, an amazing cycling race started in Belfast: the Giro D'Italia (http://www.gazzetta.it/Giroditalia/2014/en/). Friday was a team time trial that started and ended in City Centre and went right by our neighborhood - the racers turned right at the Stranmillis traffic circle! It was soooo fun to watch! The racers are amazingly fit and strong and flew by at super-fast speeds. Here are some pix:

Of course, you might notice that the 1st couple of pix do not include umbrellas and that the last one does...of course, true to Belfast, it started raining during the time trial! And, the turn that they had to make at the traffic circle was pretty tight. So, the racers had to slow way down there, right before heading up a huge hill. The racer from Ireland who had a shot at the podium fell and broke his collar bone, poor man. The Canadian team Orica won the stage (http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/05/news/tuft-dons-pink-orica-wins-stage-1-giro-ditalia_326920). We only watched and cheered for about an hour, but it was very fun.

On Saturday, the Giro raced 219km from Belfast City Centre up to the Antrim Coast taking the inland route north and then came back south on the coastal route. They started around 11am, were in Bushmills around 1pm, and got back to Belfast mid-afternoon. Marcel Kittel (team Giant-Shimano) won this stage (http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/05/news/marcel-kittel-wins-stage-2-giro-ditalia_327085). Of course, we were supposed to be driving up to the Antrim Coast that day with my folks...so, we waited until 12:30pm and then followed the racers on their route. We didn't see much evidence of the race until we got close to Bushmills, and then we saw volunteers still on the course, cones marking the road, and trash waiting to be cleaned up.  Cool! 

On Sunday, the Giro went south, biking 187km from Armagh in Northern Ireland to Dublin, the capital of the Irish Republic. Marcel Kittel (team Giant-Shimano) took this stage too (good island for him!): http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/05/news/marcel-kittel-wins-stage-3-giro-ditalia_327244. From there, the racers had a travel day to get to Italy to continue the race. This was the first time that the Giro was in NI/ROI and it was a really big deal for the Island. The race will go on all month, with the finish in Trieste on June 1 (http://www.cyclingnews.com/giro-ditalia/stages). So glad that we got to be part of it. After all of the years of us watching the Tour de France on tv, this was the first time we got to see a competition like this in person. It was really neat.