TREK Antwerp Marathon: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The gun goes at nine on the Kattendijkbrug in the Eilandje, the old dock quarter north of the old town. The route passes the Havenhuis, turns into the centre, runs the Meir past the cathedral and Central Station – one of the finest railway stations in Europe – and continues clockwise through Zurenborg and the Groen Kwartier into Antwerp South, past the KMSKA and across Marnixplaats. Kloosterstraat takes it back to the Scheldt and the quays carry it north into the Eilandje.

And then you do it again. That is this race's character: the loops are deliberately laid so spectators see the same runners several times, and the dozens of music and entertainment points are placed accordingly. For you it means passing familiar crowds at kilometre 21 with half the race still to come.

Elevation is not a factor: the course sits between zero and 17 metres above sea level, not one section rates as a climb, and the 88-metre total comes from bridge ramps and quay walls. What is left is the surface – asphalt with patches of old cobble in the historic centre – the wind over the open Scheldt, and a finish at the MAS, the red sandstone tower on the Bonaparte dock. Eleven refreshment stations serve the loop; around 4,000 runners take on the marathon, and a good 20,000 start across the three distances.

Pacing Strategy

On a course where 90 percent of the distance is flat and not one section counts as a climb, nothing regulates your pace for you. This race is run on even splits, and the mistake it punishes is a first lap run too hard. Set your goal pace and stay deliberately under it for the first ten kilometres even though everything feels easy.

The decisive passage is not a hill but the return to the Kattendijkbrug at kilometre 21. You run through the finish area and the thickest crowds with a half marathon still to go. Let the noise carry you here and you lose the second lap. Plan a deliberately quiet kilometre 22.

The second lap is also the windier one: the open Scheldt quays and the bridges in the Eilandje offer no shelter, and in October the wind here usually comes off the North Sea from the west. Find a group for those stretches. The eleven refreshment stations are close enough together to drink to a plan rather than to feel – use that, because this course gives you no natural changes of rhythm otherwise.

Training plan for TREK Antwerp Marathon: 12-week build

As an age-group runner, expect somewhere between three and five hours out there. The effort is about as uniform as a marathon gets: a continuously aerobic run with no change of terrain, no climb to unload the muscles and no descent to change your stride. That monotony is the demand.

The second lap from kilometre 21 decides the race, for two reasons: muscularly, because the same movement without any variation fatigues over four hours; and mentally, because you pass a second time through places you already know. Preparation has to address both.

So put the emphasis on marathon-pace volume rather than hill work: long runs of 28 to 34 kilometres with 12 to 20 kilometres at goal race pace in the back half, plus one threshold run of 20 to 40 minutes a week. Run at least two of those long sessions as a lap you repeat several times – it trains exactly the head-work Antwerp's second circuit asks for. Some of it belongs on hard asphalt, because nothing on this course is soft underfoot.

Mid-October in Antwerp typically brings ten to 15 degrees, high humidity and wind off the North Sea – good marathon conditions, as long as you are ready for the wind and the wet. Train deliberately on open, unsheltered routes, test your race and wet-weather kit in tempo sessions, and rehearse fuelling: with eleven stations you can drill a fixed drinking rhythm instead of improvising on the day.