2010 Race

Over £50,000 raised for charity!

In May 2010 the inaugural MBNA Chester Marathon took place. With a course limit of 1,000 runners the race soon filled. Local athlete Julian MacDonald was first over the line in 2:33:05 and winning female Jenni Muston of Charnwood Athletics Club finished in 3:00:48. Over £50,000 was raised for charity.

The route was primarily on Chester's Millennium Greenway, a former railway track, which provided a fast and flat course, with many of the runners achieving Good for Age and personal best times.

We were delighted with the overwhelmingly positive feedback from runners including the 91% overall score via Runner's World. Runners commented on the enthusiastic support, first class organisation and ample drinks stations around the course.

Drinks stations were manned by volunteers from local charities and community groups who provided the athletes with a smile and a cheer along with bottled Highland Spring water and energy drinks. Each drinks station had one of the 12ft high "Chester Giants" as a mascot.

Our ongoing aim is to host friendly, professionally organised races with a personal touch; in fact the kind of races that we, as runners, would like to run.

Click here to download the 2010 race results.

Link to more pictures and article

You can see a race report and some great photos, really capturing the atmosphere of the event, at Chester a portrait.

2010 Surveys

Runners World - Britains best selling running magazine - survey their members about races thay have done, and here are their stats for Chester Marathon as of 24th July:

• Overall Score 91%
• Would do the race again: 94%
• Scenery 69%
• PB potential 90%
• Atmosphere 77%
• Organisation 94%
• Value 86%
• Beginner Friendliness 86%

We also carried out our own online survey, working with Manchester Metropolitan University. Well over 50% of you responded, giving us some very robust results. Here are a few headlines:

• 98% would recommend Chester Marathon to a friend
• 29% had never done a marathon before
• 21% were raising money and 56 charities benefitted. Only counting people who answered the survey over £50,000 was raised - so the actual figure will be much more.
• 39% of you stayed overnight in Chester, and 99% would visit Chester again
• Each runner brought along two and a half supporters - on average!

Congratulations to the three winners of Timex Sports Watches, drawn at random: Robert Shooter, Kevin Wood and Duncan Harris.

We're going to repeat this each year, to make sure we continue to deliver to the same high standard, and indeed aim to improve where possible in response to your feedback.