Tilburg Marathon 5k Race Review

This race didn’t go as planned. It just wasn’t my day that day. I had planned to run the 10k. I had a 10k bib and when I started I was still planning to run two loops, but in the end I decided to finish after one loop and to only run the 5k. Main reason for this was that that I did an exertion test at the hospital on the Friday before the race and apparently I hadn’t fully recovered from the test by race day, since my lung and legs weren’t happy when I started running. I’m still disappointed that I only did the 5k, but it is what it is. So be it. There are worse things in life than having to drop down from a 10 to a 5k.

The Tilburg Marathon event is quite new, this is only the second time they’ve organised it. Therefore it’s still a small event, even though they do have four distances you can run: 5k, 10k, half and full. After days of hot and lovely weather, the weather on race day was quite cold and rainy. Which isn’t necessarily bad running weather, but it’s annoying to stand around and wait in until the start of your race. So, most people were trying to stay dry by taking cover as close as possible to the office buildings close to the starting line.

I thrive on big running events and I had hoped the numbers of the event would be up the second year around, but I think the weather prevented that. There were about 230 people running the 5k and about 500 of them running the 10k, which all went off in the same starting wave, with the 5 doing one loop and the 10k doing two.

The route goes through some residential streets of Tilburg and through a few shopping streets in the city center. There weren’t that many people supporting along the route except for a few people who came out of their houses to watch. Some of the locals seemed to have no idea the marathon was that day. Which in some instances resulted in some frustrated drivers who didn’t know how to reach their destination with some of the roads being closed. Although marshals did let some of the cars through once in a while. At some point there were even two cars driving next to me on the course unfortunately.

I did get a nice medal and race shirt. I really liked that the race shirt is made out off recycled polyester and that they had a size XS. Lots of races only have a size S as the smallest size, which isn’t such a big deal when it’s a women’s size S, but when it’s a unisex size S it looks huge on me and I generally don’t wear those race shirts again.

The run didn’t go so smooth. When I got to the 2k mark I couldn’t believe I’d only ran 2k at that point and at the 3k mark I started to wonder if I wanted to run another loop after this one. When I got close to the end of the first loop I decided to finish instead of going for another loop. In the end I finished the 5k in 38:27. Not too bad a time, but I don’t feel proud of it either.

Would I run this race again? Maybe. The race size is a little too small for me at present, but when they grow I might run it again. For a small race it is well organised: they send you the bib, picking up the race shirt is easy, lots of volunteers helping, they have nice bling and they have free race photos!