It was billed as the flat & fast one and I have to add 'friendly' too. 

I heard horror stories from last year about parking & baggage collection, so with that in mind I made a weekend of it. Traveling up by train and staying in a hotel made it a bit more expensive but it made it easy to navigate using the Metrolink and the hotel looked after our bags. Problems solved. 

To the actual race- I found the constant emails useful if sometimes overkill and the event was extremely well organised. The organisation sounds like it stepped up after last years woes.

It was as flat as promised and the local support was amazing. At least two or three people deep the whole way. Local churches and scout groups etc came out in force to add extra water, entertainment and support. Those 'Power Up' high fives really worked!! 

The SIS gels were great extra to the water- which is probably why there wasn't 'energy drink' stations. 

The addition of Pacers & Race Angels were brilliant. I ran with the 4h pacer for 19 miles until I needed to remove my base layer because the good British weather decided to pay us a visit. The negative of winter training was I wasn't really sure how to handle the heat but it's something to learn from. 

The last mile was incredible- support made you feel like you'd won the race. I even shed a tear when I saw my kids. They are my reason I started running. 

The goody bag was 'too the point' - medal & tshirt amazing quality and protein bar was useful as I battled the crowds at the tram station. I didn't use the Space blanket but could see the benefit. Few more 'goodies' may have been nice. Although if you count the Isotonic Beer in as well it was good. 

I few pics with my club mates and I wandered out to find the family. Easy enough to do with the meeting points. 

The medal is now centre stage on the medal hanger and the tshirt is ready to wear to work tomorrow. After all , I need to give my colleagues a mile by mile story of my PB. 

THANKYOU MANCHESTER- I'll be back definitely.