Baloise Antwerp 10 Miles: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is on the Gloriantlaan on the Left Bank, facing the Antwerp skyline across the water. Just under four kilometres in you reach the south portal of the Kennedytunnel: six hundred metres under the Scheldt, first down and then back up, in warm still air with no breath of wind and the echo of thousands of footfalls. It is the section this race is known for – 2026 was the eighteenth year it has been part of the route.

On the right bank the course runs through the city: Zuidpark, the KMSKA, a loop around Marnixplaats, then Kloosterstraat and the riverside quays north to the MAS. This is where the crowds are deepest; around 120,000 people line the weekend. At kilometre 13.7 the second tunnel, the Waaslandtunnel, takes you back to the left bank.

The profile is flat – the route sits between minus three and twelve metres, nearly 69 percent of it is in the level band and no section rates as a climb – yet the two tunnels are still the course's only real structure: each is a long even descent followed by an equally long ramp back out, and the second arrives after fifteen kilometres. The finish is on the August Vermeylenlaan among the trees, with grandstands on both sides.

Pacing Strategy

Ten miles is short enough to be run at the upper end of your range, and this course gives you no recovery for it. The biggest factor in the opening kilometres is not the terrain but the field: 40,000 starters go off in ten waves, and even in the right wave you are boxed in for the first two kilometres. Do not fight your way clear – it costs more than it gains.

The Kennedytunnel at kilometre 3.8 is the classic trap. It drops noticeably first, the pace picks up by itself, and the seconds you bank there are paid back double on the ramp out. Run the descent deliberately under control and the climb on effort rather than on the watch. The tunnel is also markedly warmer and completely windless; heart rate rises there faster than the pace suggests.

The race is decided at the Waaslandtunnel from kilometre 13.7 – the same structure, but with nearly fourteen kilometres in your legs and no crowd. Keep something back for the exit ramp, because only about two flat kilometres to the August Vermeylenlaan follow it. Aid is four water points and one with sports drink; on an afternoon start in April that is sparse enough that you should take every one.

Training plan for Baloise Antwerp 10 Miles: 12-week build

Expect a race of about 55 minutes to a good two hours; pacers run from 1:00 to 2:15. Ten miles is a threshold effort: hard throughout, but without the anaerobic spikes of a 10K and without the economy question of a marathon. On a course that is 69 percent flat, that means one pace held for a long time.

The exception is the two tunnels, and they are the real reason this course needs specific preparation. Each is a long descent followed by an equally long climb; the second arrives after kilometre 14. That is precisely the load that flat-only training does not cover.

So build around two things. First, threshold work: 20 to 40 minutes at threshold each week, plus blocks of three to five kilometres at goal race pace. Second, long even ramps of 400 to 800 metres at a shallow gradient, entered at full race pace and immediately after a downhill section – a motorway underpass or a bridge approach models it well. Put at least one of those sessions at the end of a longer run.

Conditions here are unusually split. Outside, mid-April in Antwerp usually means eight to 15 degrees and wind off the North Sea; inside the tunnels it is warm, close and completely still, and the waves run into the early afternoon. Train deliberately in wind on open riverside routes and dress for the outside, not the tunnel – two or three warm kilometres in the middle of a race are survivable, an over-warm layer for the other thirteen is not.