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It’s not easy to organize a marathon. You need to get permits to use the roads, you need to plot out a course, you need to find vendors and sponsors and volunteers and safety professionals and, above all, runners.
As shitty as it sounds, the bombing at the Boston marathon helped bring attention to road races. People want to run to show their solidarity. This is all over the Western world, mind you – not just in the US. That’s why my partner and I got the idea to put on this race in Belfast. He’s from there, I love the city, and hell, what better a location to conduct a marathon than a place with the word “fast” in its name? The marketing writes itself.
The Belfast city council approved the marathon pretty quickly. It didn’t conflict with any other road event and Belfast was doing some citywide “healthy living” campaign, so another road race only helped draw attention to it. Continue reading “Runners, part 1”