Our marathon was inspired by some of the most challenging road marathons in Europe including the traditional Snowdonia Eryri Marathon and the Langdale Marathon in the British Lake District as well as by the famous Waitarua long run outside Auckland which was used by the famous coach Arthur Lydiard.
An early pioneer of this type of concept in Ireland was the Clare Burren Marathon which takes place the week after our own event: but this is a hybrid race consisting of a mixture of trail and road.
In Ireland, our route is currently the highest road race (with a high point of 506 metres) and contains the most uphill and downhill (800m). In it’s early years this was nearly twice as much climb as Langdale but this course has subsequently been changed putting it ‘top of the heap’ on that metric on the Irish and British islands.
Abroad the Footlocker Blue Ridge Marathon is the undisputed king of ‘tough road races’ with it’s 1243m climb and high point at 651 metres. There may be many more ‘tough road races’ out there but they are hard: one example is the ‘Bjergmaraton’ (Mountain marathon) in Aabenraa, Denmark. Not a place you would expect to find a hilly marathon yet they have a marathon with 500m despite a high point of only 63 metre! Fun fact: our Race Directors grandfather is from Aabenraa! So more may lurk out there in the world of scenic, tough and hilly road races.
What are the distinguishing features of Lap of the Gap?
Our marathon is nearly unique in profile compared to the other hilly marathons in that it contains nearly all the climb in the first half (with smaller climbs on the final 19 km) where most other routes consist of several extensive up and downs throughout and some (like Langdale – which is arguably the toughest if going by vertical) uses two loops rather than one long continuous loop.
Each ‘tough’ marathon will offer you something unique in terms of scenery and exploration and Lap of the Gap gives you a fantastic look at one of Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions: the glacial valley and monastic settlement of Glendalough.
While the high point at Sally Gap is somewhat inconspicuous at first – nestled between dark heathery hills as it is – it is nearly twice as high as the high point of most road marathons with a high point that used to be measured around 506 metres but on recent maps has been revised to 494-498m (let’s settle at half a kilometer up!).
This is one reason we skirt into the edges of peak tourist season with many marathons like our kind avoid – to ensure slightly better weather as the Sally Gap and high roads like it can get very exposed and miserable in the Autum and Winter. Sally Gap itself is often closed by frost and snow in the colder months of the year.
HOW POPULAR ARE THE EVENTS?
We found hope in this concept from the fact that the Snowdonia Marathon peaked out at nearly 3000 runners certain years and had impressive times with legends such as Jeff Norman running below 2:30 on several attempts.
Some of these events are still niche with Langdale attracting 143 runners in 2023 (though boosting an impressive 400 in their half-marathon race) while The Gap of Dunloe marathon attracted just over 40 runners in it’s first year, was not held in 2023 but is expected to return in 2024.
How tough are they?
The Langdale Marathon was seen as the toughest in the UK because it has the highest DNF rate (15%) which can be compared to the Snowdonia’s lowly 2.5% and only 0.9% in the Windermere Marathon.
Whether that is an accurate measure of ‘toughness’ is debatable as it can come down to time limits and our own DNF ratio is less than half a percent (nearly no one!) over seven editions!
The reality is you do not slow down as much as you expect in these races and even a race like Lap of the Gap is only about 5-6% slower than your flat times if you are well trained with slower runners losing up to around 10% in comparison to their ‘flat form’.
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