Runner's Words

Every so often a certain event – or more pertinently, a series of events – piques my interest. The prospect of a special medal for completing a set is all it takes really, despite the fact I’ve yet to complete any of the ones I’ve started. Or nearly started. Or thought about starting. Or don’t even know exist yet. My six-star marathon journey is still marooned on two events, and they’ve since added a seventh star presumably just to wind me up. Likewise the London Classics series I officially started in 2016 is still unfinished, even though I only need to tick off a single event to complete that one. The “Super Halfs” series has yet to even get off the ground, if it ever will. So yea, it’s going well.

Which brings me nicely to the Chester Triple, which as of the beginning of 2025 I’d yet to start. Simply run all three of their races – 10k, half marathon and then full / metric marathon – in the same year and get an extra shiny medal on top of the three individual ones. Interest: piqued.

I’ve had it in mind for a few years now to have a bash at it but it hadn’t happened yet for various reasons. First of all there’s the fact that to complete the challenge I’d have to run a fucking marathon, which let’s be honest isn’t always massively appealing, especially in years such as 2016-18, 2020, 2021 and 2023 where I already had one in the calendar. All those cancelled events during the pandemic years didn’t help matters either, and on top of all that up until this year the first of the three events has always fallen on a weekend I wasn’t available, meaning the whole challenge was dead in the water before it even started.

2025 was the year the window opened though, thanks to a) the absolutely standard ballot rejections for the 2025 London and Tokyo Marathons and b) me being free for the weekend of the first race of the series. It was all systems go to have a bash at finally getting a series over the line. Or started, in this case.

It would also be nice to be taking part in a set of events I’d never run before. I remember writing last year about how I really should run more races that were new to me instead of just going through the same old motions again and again. Then straight after posting that I ran the Wilmslow Half Marathon for like the fourth time and subsequently didn’t enter a single event for the rest of the year, so that all went well didn’t it. I know a few people who’ve run the Chester events though and enjoyed them, and they always seem well-regarded in the wider running community so it was finally time to find out for myself, starting with the 10k.

An event in March in the UK is always risky business weather-wise but I got lucky with this one, driving into the City of Chester greeted by a glorious early spring morning with bright sunshine and clear blue skies. The little chill in the air meant it was pretty much the perfect morning for running and I couldn’t have asked for a better start to my triple journey, except for nearly treading in a pile of someone’s Saturday night vomit in my brand new Vaporfly 3 anyway. But other than we were looking good.

The gameplan for all three of these events was intended to be “just get the job done, dickhead”. I wasn’t planning on aiming for any sort of time, I just wanted to make sure I made it to the end of each race without falling over or something so I could get my shiny shiny triple medal in October having ticked off all three successfully. It was about the destination not the journey, or something like that anyway. DNF’ing the first race isn’t the best way to kick off a series of events, but nevertheless I’d felt pretty good coming into race weekend and armed with those brand new Vaporfly I decided to go hell for leather out the gates for a fast time and see what happened. Because why not eh. What’s the worst that could happen?

It very nearly paid off. I felt great – almost – all the way around and in fact up until the final mile there was even an outside chance of a PB which would have been absolutely ridiculous under the circumstances. Trouble is the final mile has a nice little hill which I really should have known about, mostly because a friend of mine who’d run it last year told me about it. It put paid to any sort of PB attempt though, making a folly of my early bravado, a crash and burn up there with the 2015 Standalone 10k where the wheels feel off in epic style at almost exactly the same point. Here though I didn’t have the downhill final leg to redeem things and I had absolutely nothing left in the tank for any sort of big finish. I ended up jogging it in and licking my wounds, trying to revel in the fantastic atmosphere in the old city centre.

It had been a good day out though and in the end I was more than pleased with my final time of 39:02, placing me 112th overall out of 6141 people, and best of all, 13th in my category. I would have absolutely taken that before kick off, and as I get older and older the category placing is the real quiz after all isn’t it? More importantly, it’d helped get the race routine in place ahead of the bigger challenges laying ahead of me around this city, hopefully removing some of the raceday anxiety for those.

A couple of months later came the half marathon, although it’s safe to say my planning and preparation for that weren’t the best. Following a similar vibe to the previous spring I’d picked up a few injury niggles – while still carrying some of those from 2024 to boot, because I’m old – but also getting some exciting new ones, like thinking I’d got a stress fracture in my big toe after a particularly spicy parkrun effort. I actually thought that one had gone away as we got closer to kickoff, only for it to flare up again with absolutely exquisite timing at the twelve mile mark on my final long run. I’d also spent the weekend before raceday with my old man on a walking holiday in the Western Lakes which while being one of the best we’ve ever had, I wasn’t running much (save for a gloriously horrific 5k up the lower fells of Lingmell on the last morning) and on top of that there was always a chance of knackering myself up there as with the Great Ambleside Achilles Injury of 2022.

As is always the way with me, with low expectations come poor race preparation and with no intention of shooting for a time, allied to the forecast of a warm race, I felt the pressure was off and I relaxed and enjoyed my Saturday with a few beers for the FA Cup final and a takeaway, safe in the knowledge that so long as I hadn’t actually fractured my toe I should be able to run 13.1 miles the next day, albeit well within myself and nowhere near a PB.

It didn’t quite turn out like that. Despite my Garmin giving me a pretty downbeat assessment of where I was at with a performance condition rating of -3 on the warmup jog half an hour before kickoff, as with the 10k I stupidly went hard out the blocks, those downhill sections in the opening mile or two lulling me into a false sense of security, even though I knew damned well I’d be having to come back up them again at some point.

With the temperature rising into the mid-to-late teens it was on every level a stupid AF strategy to go all in again, however the longer I was able to keep the pace up the more I began to wonder what on earth was happening here. For a good few miles in the middle I ended up running with a geezer who was running at almost exactly my pace which helped me stay on track as we kept each other honest, and I swear every time I took a drenching from a friendly (I think?) supporter with a hosepipe it gave me a little boost too. Whether it was a mental or physical I can’t say, but it certainly helped me no end each and every time it happened, and then all of a sudden I was heading into that dreaded final mile and beginning to suspect I might be on track for something a little bit special here.

Because I hadn’t planned on going all out I’d not looked beforehand into what pace I needed to hit a PB so I didn’t really have any idea where I was at, but coming into the home straight – that hilly bit somehow easier this time around – I could see the clock at the finish line in the distance approaching 1:27, which I’d only ever finished a half under once in my entire life. I made a split second decision to go all-in and try and make it twice, mustering up an absolutely massive finish, managing to get it done a few seconds inside the target I’d set myself barely 300m earlier. I must have picked off at least a dozen runners ahead of me in the final stretch and it felt absolutely amazing flying along, and then when I crossed the line and opened Strava to be told actually I’d hit a half marathon PB on the course with a 1:26:15 I was absolutely flabbergasted.

Where had all this come from? How much more had I had in the tank, how much had I left on the table on the way round? Could I have done even better? What if I hadn’t been on the beers all afternoon the day before? If I had that kind of finish left, could I have pushed harder before then? It opened up all manner of questions. The race time itself was came in a little longer at 1:26:52 – which either means my GPS had had a wobble towards the end, or the course was a little long – but either way, it was a rapid one, missing top spot on my official list of race results by a single second. Needless to say I did not have this kind of result on my bingo card coming into the race.

So that’s two out of the three done and dusted, meaning there’s just the little matter of 26.2 miles now in (eeek) less than four week’s time. No more marathons, and all that. I’ll cover the build up to all that next time around (it’s been quite a summer!), along with a post about who I’m running for charity-wise this time around, and why. But for now I’ll just look back on two fantastic events, really well-organised abd great to run in, with (inexplicably) well above average finishing times (even though it was never supposed to be about that). And who knows, maybe I’ll finally get a series over the line this time around.