Cork Marathon 2025 | A city marathon rising is a beautiful thing
Introduction
It all started so well and ended in tragedy. I got my family involved in the Cork Marathon this year a huge leap forward from all the years I’d largely gone alone. They came home safe but Ellen Cassidy an athlete who represented her country as a swimmer didn’t come home. She became ill shortly after finishing the Cork half marathon race, receieved medical attention but sadly passed away. I’d had a good day up until the word started filtering out that someone had died at the Cork Marathon 2025. It’s not possible for me to be happy with Cork Marathon 2025 after hearing we lost a young athlete.
By the 1st of March the places across all races in the Cork Marathon 2025 were sold out. I could feel the buzz reverberate through the parkrun WhatsApps all the way to Dublin. I thought sold out good lord we’re really a force now. I’m in the office in Dublin and I have runners ask me about how fast the Cork Marathon 2025 has sold out. I was asked more than once if I knew anyone who could sort them out for a ticket. I’d never heard anyone in running circles mention the Cork Marathon before in Dublin. The Cork Marathon had always coincided with the Dublin Womens Mini Marathon hence it had never really broken into Dublin life until now. Next Brendan our charismatic Race Director who had led our Pacing group for years asked if we would mind giving way to some new pacers. I couldn’t deny people this chance ever since I’d stepped in late as the 2:30 half marathon pacer with Tom Grennan in 2019 I’d been hooked. I’d derived so much joy from the Cork Marathon I wouldn’t deny anyone the opportunity to give back. If Eamon was asking he was confident that all the graft he had put in to link the Cork Marathon to athletes up and down the country was paying off.
At Cork marathon 2025 I had 6 members of the family taking part in some way. I’d gone in alone in 2023 for the 10k lucky to be there with Edward having been born two weeks before. Julie and I had made it to the 10k Race in 2024. I had even returned to being a pacer. Now my extended family where entering in waves. Aunts, Uncles, cousins and Julie’s Mother had gone for the 10k race. I was in the half marathon. Julie and I both had cousins running the Full Marathon. The group were taking the race seriously. They were religiously at parkrun Saturday morning and extra training seemed to find its way into their usual rhythm. Long runs on strava came with names such “If you saw me getting sick on the straight road please mind ya business”. We formed a WhatsApp group Paddle vs parkrun. I put my full coaching experience into encouraging this group. A veteran of 9 marathons and a huge advocate of regular physical activity I had to get behind them. I was re inforcing the robust science behind running but more than that I couldn’t help but think this would be like my first pacer job in the Cork Marathon. I felt my extended family may do this once tick it on the bucket list and then they’d be back on the paddle court, golfing, pursuing triathlon, yoga, farming or onto another adventure. I wanted them to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of it. I desperately wanted them to feel the camaraderie of the Cork Marathon. It’s not just any city behind you it’s your city. If they only did one lap on this part of the track then I wanted it to be an ultimate victory lap. And by god did they. They all finished superbly. I am incredibly proud of them.
Course
Cork Marathon 2025 | Cork City Half Marathon 2025
Race
I ran in the Half Marathon race for 2025. Alex O’Shea the Guinness World Record holder for the fastest marathon run in a fire suit was our Race Director. Thank god we had Alex in place. A technical issue involving bollards not being removed held up the start of the race for about 15 minutes. Alex adopted the panic slowly mindset. The first us runners heard of issue was about 5 minutes before gun time when Alex told us that ‘yes a technical issue was holding things up like every other race except normally we don’t tell you’. You need this kind of cool when things start to unravel. Somehow it always seems to be the half marathon that gets it in the neck. Maybe it’s the later start. Anyway Alex was superb at keeping us composed and after a 15 minute delay we proceeded with the advice that if we see a bollard we should shout ‘BOLLARD!!!’. We did though there was a shared joke about human bollards as well as we got under way. It took the packed field a minute or two to thin but that was a welcome change from the years when I ran in the Cork Marathon and spent long stretches alone or in small groups of three maybe four.
I had a tough day at the office. I’d been sick the week leading up to the race and the heat I felt might hamper me. I wasn’t wrong I aimed to finish largely forgot about time. As I approached the top of North Main Street I sang ‘Super Flying Edward Marching around a marathon motivating his Dad’ at the top of my voice so that my family would recognise me. They went nuts cheering Edward almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing from his chair in Brick Lane. The crowd as I turned onto Patrick Street was the largest I’d ever seen at the Finish Line. The first time in 2010 I ran towards the finish line (from the other side) there was a handful of people now 15 years later and a whole lot of pain later I could see people three and four deep. It didn’t take much to get them going. All I had to do was shout ‘Roar Cork Roar!!!’ and they erupted. The athletes around me got a real boost and tore home. I had a marathoner next to me who absolutely loved it. The poor guy had gotten an awful cramp on North Main Street but I intervened told him ‘tell that calf to shut up and keep going you have 800 meters left to victory’. He rose too it like a champion kept with me all the way home. Little did I know it but not long behind me tragedy was about to strike. I know it doesn’t look like it in the photo below but less than 30 minutes later someone in the same race would perish. I’m incredibly grateful my family got home safely and I am very sorry that Ellens family suffered such a terrible loss.
Conclusion
A City Marathon rising is a beautiful thing and we will need to heal and rise again. Maybe to heal we might all wear something colourful to celebrate Ellen’s life
