10 Things I Think About The European Athletics Birmingham 2026 Unity 5K

1. Is There Anyone Left In Ireland

I think the European Championships in Birmingham were wonderful. It was basically a home championships with the amount of Irish in the stadium. “Is there anyone left in Ireland?” was a common question from the Brummies. It probably helped that Seamus Carey booked a lot of the tickets so all the Irish People were sitting together.

2. Noses Up

I think that mass entry races on the route that the actual championships take place are a great idea. What’s not to like about getting to race on the same route as used in the Championships? You’d think with the invasion of running talent that the race would be full of sub elite runners when in fact most of them turn their noses up at the thought of pretending to be an elite runner for the day. I don’t know why.

3. Waves

I think that despite the randomly assigned waves the event was still good fun. I was in the third of three waves setting off at 12:15 or so I thought. I jogged up to the start from the Jewellery Quarter where we were staying with a lot of other Irish people in the Irish chain apart-hotel Staycity. The wave opened at 12:05 so in I went thinking 10 minutes isn’t too long to stand around for before a 5k.

4. Man’s Best Friend

I think that I made a very bad mistake with thinking that the wave started at 12:15. I looked at my watch at 12:10 and said to the fella next to me “only 5 minutes to go”, “mate the start isn’t until 12:35”. It wasn’t that bad. I got talking to a fella that does Canicross which sounds cool, if you thought magic shoes were good being dragged by a dog is way faster, apparently the European Championships are in Ireland next year.

5. Sub Elite Zumba

I think that I can see why the sub elite runners turn their noses up at the prospect of a mass participation event. The 12:15 start that I had thought was the start of the wave was in fact the start of warm up with a very enthusiastic man who was hoisted up on a large cherry picker to conduct a zumba style warm up. It was good fun and was also fun to see the serious looking runner stare straight ahead expressionless and motionless for the entirety of the warm up.

6. Down The Hill

I think that it was interesting to hear what times my fellow runners were expecting to run. A lot of them were very young and seemed to be looking for P.Bs which seemed a little unrealistic given the nature of the course. They were all younger than the youngfellas I race back home so I suppose they didn’t know. After 30 minutes of standing around with a little bit of half hearted zumba in the middle we set off at a ridiculous pace down the hill.

7. Twisty Turny Topsy Turvey

I think that the course was fantastic if you didn’t care about what time or pace you were running. It was relentless, there was at all times either an uphill, downhill or twist and turn to be negotiated, there was no let up. I don’t know how anyone would do eight laps as one lap was bad and wonderful enough. The road surface was typical city roads with filled in potholes, cobbles, concrete and even bricks. It was never too rough but it was very far from the streets of Berlin or Valencia.

8. The Finishing Climb

I think that the last mile of the 5K was impressively hard. I did the first mile in under five minutes and was probably 10th or 12th, maybe the youngfellas were right to be going for P.Bs. Then the hills started the, relentless hills, there were at least four very bad ones, the one up by the nice coffee shop was the longest with the ramp that led up to the Staycity road where I was staying being the steepest. Then to cap it all off the last mile was completely mad with a 180 degree hairpin breaking up a steep downhill before an 800m climb to the finish. It was like a good cycling race circuit, except without the cyclists.

9. Mad Training

I think that Strava has ruined the modern runner. What I have noticed over my many years running is that before GPS watches and Strava a lot of training used to be done on hilly loops, like in Beaumont Park or Doneraile Park, we’d have a time that we knew was ok and would aim for that. Nowadays everyone trains on the flat so that sessions will look good and perfect on Strava. As a result courses like the one in Birmingham are seen as mad, I think I know what is mad, and it’s not the course in Birmingham.

10. Twentyfourth

I think that it was nice to finish in the top 25 of the race, I even made the moderately old man M40 podium in second place. Much like the history of Irish athletes in European Championships I was beaten to top spot on the podium by a polish athlete called Marcin by 7 seconds. After the 5k came the real highlight of the Europeans, the Unity 1K where Billy aka Josh Kerr ran with Rhona. He battered everyone apparently, don’t know where he gets it from.