Belfast City Women’s 10K, 21st June 2026

Shortly before Newcastle’s own women’s-only 10K, the Anita Nott, Ann Smith decided that it would be fun to try a ladies-only race elsewhere. She sends us this account of her experience:

“Belfast has more runners as a proportion of the population than any other UK city and, with 11 parkruns, a greater proportion of parkrunners than any city in the world. This is likely to be due in part to participation of women who make up almost 50% of those parkrunners, according to a recent report in Irish News. In keeping with this, the packed Belfast race calendar includes an event specifically for women, a 10k race organised by Belfast Marathon and supported by Visit Belfast.

On the warmest day of the year so far I joined around 3000 women at the Titanic Quarter for a run/walk on flat, closed roads with, unfortunately, no shade.

The route began alongside buildings related to Belfast’s ship-building history, including the Titanic Museum and the former offices of ship builders Harland and Wolff, followed by the iconic yellow gantry cranes, Samson and Goliath, which dominate the skyline in this part of the city. After running past the start line again we went out along the old road to the City Airport then turned around to run back along the same road. This final stretch was into the sun and the cool breeze seemed to have disappeared making it a tough final 2 km. Despite the heat it was a lovely, well-organised event with a friendly atmosphere and lots of support along the route.

I had a mini panic when I got an email a few weeks before the race stating that race packs had to be collected from an Expo at IKEA the day beforehand. No pack, no race. The primary reason for my visit was to see family so, without a car, I didn’t have time to go to IKEA. Forunately a kind member of the organising team took pity on a visitor from England and delivered my race pack in person to my hotel so I was able to take part and collect a medal featuring Belfast’s most famous ship.”

Well done, Ann.