This was my first marathon and it has me hooked on marathon running! 

This is the first year that the St Eds running festival was run and despite an apparent mess up with the marshalling on the 10k it seemed very well run. The finish area and registration/bag drop points were in the grounds of a local sports centre which was good as the changing rooms gave me somewhere to shelter from the very strong wind blowing right through the registration area before the race.

The race was a two lap course which ran briefly (~1 mile) through a new housing estate before heading out onto small country lanes to the south of Bury St Edmunds for 10 or so miles before looping round an area that looks like it is about to be developed on for a mile or two followed by a mile down the road to the finish. The route is definately not flat (~800ft elevation gain over the 26.2 miles) but it isn't enough to slow you down dramatically. The biggest challenge was the mile or so around mile 24 straight into a headwind!

The course was perfect for me as I love running along country lanes. The downside to this is that there is very little support (to be fair we started at 9am on a Sunday, and by the second lap this did improve with locals coming out with boxes of haribo and plenty of cheers). The marathon only had 75 or so people running and so after a couple of miles the field was spread out such that I often could not see another runner (or marshall) for a mile or so, luckily there were signs every few hundred metres so that you knew you were on track. It felt like a marshalled long training run, which was great. The mile markers were fairly ecclectic in their placement, but we were told about that during the briefing, so I mostly just ran to the mile marks on my watch and the course was measured perfectly so it was fine.

The aid stations were well stocked with small bottles of water, crisps (apparently, I wasn't interested in them) and jelly babies. 

The only downside for me (some people won't like the lap thing so that would also be a downside for some) is that the course is on open roads, most of the time this isn't an issue, but the course goes down a narrow lane at about 7/20 miles and the first time I went down there a white van tore past at a ludicrous speed, just missing me. Obviously there isn't anything the organisers could do about this, but it is definately a negative.

This was a great first marathon (for me and for the event) I hope it runs again next year as it is a very good value for money event (I paid £15 as an early bird entrant) with a lovely course that isn't too challenging.