Mike Blair reports:
Chester, a city known for its Roman roots and extremely poor phone signal, hosted their annual Marathon weekend. The race was also host to the England Masters Marathon Championships.
Four MAC members took on the 26.2 distance at Chester on Sunday, three of which were imperially measured and one metrically.
Katie Haywood, opting for the metric measurement of 26.2km ran a great race despite having some right leg issues, to finish in a pleasing 2:57.
The shorter of the two Haywood’s,
Matt, also ran a best over the Imperial 26.2 mile marathon, slipping under his previous best at 3:39.07 even with some cramping issues in the latter stages.
Jakki Simmons running with fellow Solemates crew also ran a huge PB, coming in at the prescribed 5:02 to knock a whopping 30 mins off of her previous best over the challenging distance. Several Solemates also recorded great times.
Running in a different vest, to keep up with his reputation of vest changing, Mike Blair donned the National vest of the England Masters to compete against the countries Elite Oldies.
The race went away well and Mike held a controlled pace at a shade under 6 min per mile for the first two 10k splits. The route offers up some lumps and bumps in the last half of the race, notably a long drag at 25 miles in to keep the legs entertained before the last downhill mile to the finish, which knocked Mike over the 6 min miles in the last two 10k splits.
Doing himself and the vest proud, Mike slipped under the magic 2:40 mark, to come in to a sea of high 5’s at 2:39.08 to finish 21st OA and 4th in the V40 England Masters Champs.
Great running all round. A course to take on if you enjoy scenery, long straight roads and one or two badly placed hills. Mike did enough to keep his England vest for 2023.