Race calendar · 25 April 2027 · Croatia
Dubrovnik.
21.1 kilometres.
A half marathon that starts and finishes on Stradun, the polished limestone street at the heart of the Old Town, and runs out along the Adriatic before turning for home. Eight and a half months after surgery. The first proper race of the comeback.
The race
The flagship of the Du Motion Runners' Days weekend, and a course with a five-star endorsement from European Athletics. The start gun goes on Stradun, the field pours out through the Ploče Gate, and the route follows the coast road along the Stjepan Radić and John Paul II waterfronts, out past Batahovina and Sustjepan to the turn at Komolac at the head of the Rijeka Dubrovačka inlet. Then it retraces along the water and comes home through the Pile Gate to finish where it started, on the limestone.
Not pancake flat, by all accounts. Strenuous and impressive, in the organisers' own words. But three hours is a generous cutoff, and the whole point of an April half is to arrive at the June and July races with a real run block behind me.
Why this race
The timing works. Late April 2027 is eight and a half months after the surgery and roughly six weeks before TriAthy, which is enough time to build a proper winter of running and still recover fully before the Olympic-distance block starts.
The place works. Dubrovnik is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a race medal that comes bundled with the City Walls, the museums, and a boat to Lokrum. It is a long weekend for Katie as much as a race for me.
And the number works. Twenty-one kilometres is the run leg of Cervia. Running it standalone in April, on the coast, with a finish line at the end, is exactly the rehearsal the year needs.
Where it all points
Cervia · unfinished business →