Last Sunday i ran the 6th MBNA Chester Marathon, consistently ranked as one of the top marathons by Runners World this was my second time at this race, my previous time i was still a lone runner and was not a member of the Tortoises.

I set of Saturday morning with an overnight in Runcorn a half hour drive away from the start at Chester Racecourse, a quick lasagne and chips (carb loading) it was back to the room to watch the Rugby, good job Rugby is not my thing as everyone on the TV was gutted but i thought not every Tortoise would be back home ?

An early rise and drive to the Racecourse saw me arrive at 07.30, a quick look around the various stalls selling running kit and race merchandise and it was soon time to put on the vest, now those of you who i run with know i am rubbish at getting the kit correct and despite the weather being perfect, no wind, no rain forecast, blue sky i still opted to wear the Tortoise T shirt under the vest, i descision i would soon regret.

Just enough time to drop in the bag and hit the toilet queue again, one moan here – why dont race organisers make announcements asking non runners not to use the toilet queues 45 mins before the race, the number of spectators waiting to use the toilets was stupid and i saw runners leaving the queue and heading to the start (despite being chip timed) and no doubt having to stop at some point to use a porto loo (moan over).

As mentioned the race starts and finishes at Chester racecourse you run 17 miles in England and 9 miles in Wales making it a truly International run , you head out of the race course along the main road before slowly climbing up and through Chester city center where support is good, you then leave behind the city and run mainly on quiet country roads where support is a bit sparse until around mile 19 and a village called Farndon where the support is loud and strong.

Long before mile 19 i regretted the T shirt under vest combo and stopped at mile six to perform a striptease and ditched the t shirt, while doing this i dropped my cap into someones garden and had to ask a spectator to jump a wall to retrieve it (it did cost £16) this fiasco cost me at least 90 seconds if not longer – i need to learn.

The rest of the race went really well and i felt really good, i hit mile 22 dead on 3 hours but then the final two hills did for me, one at mile 22 and one at mile 24 which felt like the hill race at Straiton (but i guess i was just tired), the hill at mile 24 the race organisers had a number of ‘Race Angels’ who jogged along side you to get you up to the top which i thought was a nice touch.

The last mile was run alongside the river Dee and back into the racecourse for a grass sprint finish down teh home straight for a finsihing time of 3hr 39 01 almost an hour quicker than when i ran as non Tortoise.

Great medal, long sleeved tech t shirt and decent goodie bag plus i also got to run parts of the race with some interesting people, i ran for a spell with two 100 marathon club members one of which was running his 423rd marathon and a female runner who had come down from Motherwell and was running with Saltires accross her headband !

Not quite a PB but happy with the pace and finishing time and enjoyed the sunday night recovery in the company of Mr Peroni and Mr Budweiser.

Darrell