Banjul Marathon 2026

The Banjul Marathon is a little mysterious. Even though it's the only organized running event in The Gambia and it's organized by Gambia's largest company Africell, there's not much about it online or on social media. But you don't have to be a genius to figure out it's a small event with sub-optimal running conditions. Basically, I expected the worst.

Leading up the event, I was getting pretty excited about racing though. A lot of my friends were participating, and my kids and my husband. I'd been training with all of them. I'd trained harder than I originally intended, my mind going from "I'll run this one slowly and my goal is simply to finish it" to "I'm only cool with a sub-four." 

So, I took this race a lot more seriously than I originally intended. Why? It's a good thing to ask yourself this question before taking on a marathon. My reason was that I've been enjoying my training a lot and it's been going better than expected. I'm starting to see the possibility of improving my time further. And most importantly: I want to improve.

I used to abhor the idea of racing and going all out, but here I was, at the Banjul Marathon starting line, telling myself I was going to push it as much as possible. Not afraid of running out of steam, or hitting the dreaded wall, just really going for it and learning from that experience. I've always been really careful not to overdo it during marathons, and I was done with that. 

Race Recap! 🏃‍♀️

I'm a slow starter. The first few kilometers always feel odd, probably like non-runners feel all the time when they run, questioning what the hell they're doing. No matter the distance, the road ahead seems impossibly long, and the point of going down it difficult to grasp. But I know this about myself by now, after three years of regularly running races, so it didn't discourage me. I looked at my watch and saw my pace was around 5:30 min/km, which was my target pace.

Once I was all warmed up, around 5K, I accelerated. I didn't mean to, it just happened. Even though the course was almost entirely flat, I felt like I was going downhill, and I wanted to take advantage of how easy it felt. I think the people in front of me felt the same, because for a while my distance from them remained the same. There were only a few dozen runners doing the full marathon, so I could keep track of them all.

Before the 21K turnaround point, I passed a Belgian lady who had been in front of me the whole time. Now I was behind a broad-shouldered guy in a red-white t-shirt. I kept a close eye on him, because I didn't want to get lost, though that would have been impossible because the course was basically a straight road. Also, I'll give the organization kudos for closing our lane for traffic, all the way, and having plenty of traffic police and support vehicles throughout. I ran about 5:15 km/min for the next ten kilometers.

I'd expected to feel great after completing the first half of the run. Running "back" has always felt good. More than halfway through!! This time, however, I felt my energy draining away almost immediately. My stomach wasn't taking well to the gels and gummies, and I took very little nutrition during the second half as a result. My legs got tired. TIRED. My legs never tire. Sometimes my feet get a little sore, but never my legs.

The second half of the race was, in one word, terrible. I never ran a marathon where I hit the "wall" or the "bonk" or whatever at 27K, so it threw me off completely. How could this be? How did this sneak up on me after feeling so strong earlier? Going for another 15K seemed almost undoable. I had to play mental tricks on my mind. I told myself things like "just three more 5K segments" and "the next song on my Spotify will make my legs speed up."

The most logical explanation for my problems was the heat. Apparently, heat and sunny conditions is what really does marathon runners in, no matter who you are. It affects everything, like the oxygen you need to keep going. I had to focus heavily on deep breathing towards the end. I wasn't out of breath, but I certainly felt like I needed more air in my lungs to keep running at a (by the end) 5:40 min/km pace. And hydration. My legs were probably dead because they were dehydrated. My heartrate was also way higher than usual. I measured 160-170 bmp throughout the race, versus 140-150 during my previous marathon in Amsterdam (for the first 30K at least).

Ultimately, my finishing time was comparable to my TCS Amsterdam time in October 2025, which was around 5:53. In Banjul, my time was around 5:55 (according to Strava, because I didn't have a timer). But my pace was faster in Banjul! My time suffered because I stopped a number of times towards the end of the race because I simply couldn't stand it anymore. 

On the bright side... I think it's fair to deduce that I could have run a much faster marathon under better conditions. I asked AI to figure out the "performance hit" associated with 75-degree weather, and basically, it told me I could potentially run a sub-3:30 marathon on a flat course with temperatures under 60F. That's a Boston qualifying time, folks!

So, I'm full of optimism believing I haven't seen the best of myself yet. I'm also surprised that I chose to push as hard as I did, because I really didn't know I had it in me. 

That was my Banjul Marathon 2026 experience. It was good, it was bad, and it was ugly. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll do it again next year, because I'll be looking around actively for more comfortable, fast courses. And plenty of marathons are organized in April (London! Antwerp! South Africa!). On the other hand, The Gambia is where I live. And I never say never.

The Good

😁 The Banjul marathon is probably the cheapest marathon in the world and the easiest to register. You have a whole month to just grab a bib and pay $40. 

😁 The roads were properly closed. It was safe.

😁 The whole course is monitored by traffic cops and professional cyclists. I had one with me the entire way back, supporting me with water and stopping traffic where needed

😁 It's intimate. It was fun to be at the starting line with the handful of international runners, including the ones from Kenya who I already knew would win.

The bad

🙃 It's not a qualifier for anything. You don't even get a timer for tracking!

🙃 You run alone. The number of participants is extremely low. I don't think there were even 50 people in the 42K category.

🙃 The aid stations. There weren't many and consisted solely of volunteers waving lukewarm water bottles in the air. No electrolytes or carbs, ice, food, or even chilled water.

🙃 The starting time! There was a lot of confusion about that. The organization decided last minute to start at 7AM instead of 8AM, but didn't bother to advertise this online so nobody was there. In the end, we started at 7:44.

🙃 The heat. I mean, it wasn't overly hot, but it was still hot.

🙃 The course. You run in a straight line. It’s not inspiring or scenic in any way. No shade. Some of the road isn't particularly well-paved. 

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