Editorial: It was yet another​ magnificent Belfast marathon

It just gets better and better. The Belfast Marathon yesterday was again one of its best.

​First there is the vast number of participants – more than 20,000 people, if you add in the relay runners and the walkers and wheelchair athletes.

Then there is an even larger number of well-wishers lining the route for this heaving sea of humanity, pounding the streets for good causes or just to keep fit or to run a time for the runner’s own personal record.

But above all it is the mood of the marathon that is so uplifting. Yesterday there was the added joy of fine spring weather but even if there had not been such attractive weather conditions the marathon is an almost spiritual journey through Northern Ireland’s capital city.

It starts in the stunning Stormont estate, then winds its way through east Belfast past the Cyprus Avenue made famous by Van Morrison and near the home where George Best grew up, past the handsome central part of the city with cheering crowds outside City Hall, down what was once called the Golden Mile, then up the Donegall Road past the City Hospital, down the Boucher industrial estate, along the leafy Lisburn Road, back down the Falls, through the Shankill, through the Waterworks of North Belfast, and back to the city overlooking the Harland and Wolff cranes and along the Lagan ending in the pretty Ormeau Park.

On our website there is a 20-minute video watching the entire marathon run past on the Newtownards Road near its starting point.

Places in the stunningly successful London Marathon are decided on lottery because it now gets one million applicants. An alternative marathon in somewhere like Belfast seems all the more attractive as an alternative.

The first marathon was held in 1982 as NI emerged from the dark years of terror. Now the 26 mile race attracts a huge range of participants in a much more relaxed city.