Sunday 5th October

Maria and Ryan celebrate the strength, resolve, and spirit that carried them through the Chester Marathon to finish with new personal bests 🙌 …. Read on;

We were a little worried a couple of days before this because the weather forecast was showing heavy rain and 50mph wind 💨 but luckily it all moved forward a day and on Sunday morning it was actually pretty good weather to run a marathon!

After joining a very long toilet 🚽 queue (lesson learned was to not just join the first queue you see) we had about 5 mins before we set off so managed to squeeze in just ahead of the 3.30 pacers.

The course starts at Chester Racecourse 🐎 then around the sights of Chester with a few hills but nothing too steep, just like some of the hills in Heathfield 😂.  I as usual started off too fast and had Ryan reminding me on the pace which helped! After a couple of miles, you leave the city and you’re running along country lanes which take you across the border into Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿. It was lovely going through all the little villages, the support was really good and the volunteers were brilliant, really encouraging and there were plenty of water stations and toilets on route.

We were both running along really well and chatting, I was feeling really strong but had a little wobble around mile 15 thinking I might not be able to keep this up so I should slow down a bit so I’m ready for those last few miles. My aim was to get a sub 3.30 and I had plenty of time in the bank. It was around mile 17 Ryan started to get some pain in his IT band and decided to stop and stretch it out. We’d both agreed at the start that we need to run our own race so we’d just go on if one of us needed to stop or slow down.  I went on and I got to mile 20 and was feeling really comfortable.

Running back into Chester it was getting a bit hillier but there were loads of people out giving their support which really helps. I remember looking at my watch thinking ‘I’m going to do this’ but also wondering when the pain was going to start. That never happened! I ended up crossing the finish line in 3.23.54 🙌 and was over the moon!  We both ended up getting PB’s with Ryan getting 3.26.19. I felt pretty emotional at the end and was hugging the man that gave me my medal! I finally got a sub 3.30 after missing out on the last 2 marathons by seconds.

I’d definitely recommend this event, it was well organised and everyone was really friendly. It’s a nice medal 🥇 and top with a great goodie bag. Also, Chester is a lovely city where we treated ourselves to a celebratory beer 🍻 at the end!

Maria and Ryan 🖤♥️

🎤 Well done to you both.  The stars aligned for a perfect day of running and we couldn’t we more pleased for you both 🙌