The inaugural ABP Newport Marathon had to be done, especially after a disastrous training spat leading up to the London Marathon and of course this one.

After pulling out of the London Marathon a week before, I was in doubt about standing on the starting line to support my brother in his first ever marathon, but I’m glad to say I did stand on the start line and I did complete this race.

I have ben to countless races and always make a point of arriving with around an hour to spare for last minute tit a tatter adjustment and to bed myself into the race ambience.

Run4Wales have a vast amount of experience in setting up races so I had high expectations, and I must say they did themselves proud, plenty of pre-race emails, twitter feeds, facebook and letter drops etc giving everyone every chance to plan their day, sadly not everyone was as clued in with the hustle and bustle of parking and the 30 minute delayed start ☹ which cannot be blamed on the event organisers in my opinion, it was poor planning on the behalf of individuals.

Race start area had the bag drop in the undercover car park, which was manned to perfection getting everyone through as fast as a bullet out of a gun, toilets a plenty, no waiting or cueing for long so well done.

The route was again in my opinion, enjoyable with much of it on the rural roads through natures highway (my favourite place to be #trailrunner), some said there was a slight incline leading over one of the bridges, sorry I didn’t notice it being a trailrunner by heart hills are my best friend :-) 

so in summary great organisational skills again from Run4Wales, super volunteers and fantastic runners.

Some may find it lonley in parts especially the latter stages, for me it was fine I am well tuned in running long, lonley distances.

One thing i didnt like was the out and back to the transpoter bridge, it was ugly and seamed to go on for ever.

Did I PB? Hell yeah, will I do it again? in a heartbeat