Right On Running: My First Marathon

Well as this was my first marathon I've got nothing to gauge it against, so here goes, will try and keep it brief...

4:15am Sunday morning alarm, must have had 4 hrs sleep in total, but I was prepared for that. Coffee, bagel, few sips on Lucozade then packed car and drove across to Chester with missis and daughter (came to support me and get some shopping done).

Arrived at Chester racecourse about 6:50am as was told it gets very busy and then there's the road closures, parked up for £3 which is reasonable, fairly quiet at that time so got wrapped up and had a wander around the tented village whilst munching on a bagel.

Toilet queues - fortunately I had been!

Various stalls selling all the usual running gear, I was trying to keep my focus.

Hooked up with a chap I knew was running from the social media world, so we decided to meet up at the start and run together for however long we could. Then met Mark Vaz and wished him good luck as it was his 90th consecutive marathon that day - he's not actually stopped at 90

Anyway, on to the start, we stood around the 3:45-4:00 hr mark not too crowded, the Mayor said a few words, then at 9am off we went.

A smile before the start

In a nutshell the first 15m were a breeze on a fairly flat course, (speaking of breeze, hardly any and it was dry) lost my pal at 12m as mother nature called. All the aid stations were great, a mix of water, lucozade, gels and good support.

16m the calf’s were burning, I was doubting myself if I could make it, 2m later they were fine !! Some fantastic support through the villages mirrored by long lonely miles, saying that I was never a couple of yards from another runner, but there were very quiet periods.

At 22m I kept saying to myself 'Never again...never again...' it was mentally tougher than I ever imagined but I pushed on then at mile 24 ish the wheels fell off

I'd overcome the mental barriers and I never really hit the dreaded wall, I think pre and during race fuelling worked, but my right hamstring cramped up to the point I had to stop, stretch, pull it up, until it released enough to hobble on.

It went again at 25m again had to stop, at this point I was in the middle of Chester with fantastic crowds willing me on, I felt I was letting them down, had to tell this one lady I literally couldn't run until the cramps went. I cried a little not because of the pain, just the whole thing got to me.

Anyway, it subsided and again I hobbled along, through amazing Chester, I was using runkeeper to track my distance and average pace, I missed the mile 25 marker on my phone and the road so assumed I was somewhere between 24-25m still, I felt empty. Then someone shouted, "c'mon, only 500 yards to go" suddenly my head was up. I turned a corner and entered the racecourse again, my wife screaming at me from the side, I believe I gave her a dirty look, my hamstring was cramping again, but not so much it stopped me.

I crossed the line in 3hr51m which was well inside my sub 4hr target.

I didn't even get to the first set of volunteers with the medals as again I had to sort the hamstring out. There were runners crying, hobbling, passing out, throwing up at the finish, proper zombieland stuff.

I moved on collected my medal, then my T shirt, then goody bag and a drink. Made my way into the middle of the racecourse and collapsed in a heap crying.