Austen Smith reporting on his Umm Al Quwain half marathon
Whilst generally associated with a certain movie franchise the 4th May 2025 was the inaugural Umm Al Quwain half marathon. Organised by the Department of Tourism and Archaeology in collaboration with the Emirates Council For Rural Development, the event was held on a World Athletics Certified Measured Course and was recognised as a World Ranking competition with AED 50,000 in prizes, something there was no risk of me obtaining.
In preparation for my upcoming Ironman in July I have been trying to improve my running by entering as many longish distance races as possible in between my triathlon racing. As we head towards summer these opportunities, locally, are few and far between. So, when I saw the IG post I immediately signed up. UAQ was my third half marathon of the season having previously completed the Skechers and Dubai Creek half marathons. With a race start time of 5:45, driving from Dubai required an early start and an opportunity for pre-race fuelling.
On arrival there was ample parking and welfare facilities. The race village setup good with direct access to the start line. Originally, I was going to use the pacing strategy I had implemented in my previous two races, but I decided to tweak it a bit, knocking a few seconds off each 5km block. After the elites set off, I moved forward within the starting pen and took a Stealth isotonic gel, then we were off. As usual I set off a bit too quickly but slowed down to be within the pace range my Forerunner 965 was advising. The course was generally quite flat with junctions coned off and manned by UAQ police. The racing pack I was in had high spirits at the start with lots of shouting and music blaring from a speaker in someone backpack, after the first kilometre the backpack announced, “lap 1 pace 5:17”.
I skipped the melee at the first few aid stations relying on the stealth gels in my Naked racing belt. After about 12kms I started to utilise the aid stations, taking a few sips of water then dumping the rest over my Omius cap to make use of its evaporative cooling in the increasing heat.
After the turnaround I had assumed it was straight back to the start finish line, so I was a little disheartened to see runners ahead taking a 90-degree turn. On completing that detour, I started overtaking more runners who obviously didn’t have a race strategy. The heat was quickly drying my cap and singlet so using the aid stations was now mandatory to keep cool. On top of this I used a Stealth caffeine gel at around 15km and also with about 3km left. Despite the closed roads spectators occasionally lined the route back and their cheers provided an additional boost. On the final kilometre I tried to push harder, before I reached the finish line my Garmin vibrated to tell me 21km had been completed, I crossed the finish line having completed a distance of 21.25km. Once uploaded Strava told me I’d set a new PB for the half marathon.
In summary, from my perspective, the inaugural UAQ half marathon was a successful and well organised event with other race distances from 10km to 3km to cater for all abilities. The race village was well setup with plenty of toilets and seating areas. Aid stations were well stocked and manned with no issues of running out of water, something other race organisers should take notice off.
By Austen Smith