A brand new marathon for the spring marathon season and one to put Newport, Wales on the map. The course had been designed by Olympic marathon runner Steve Brace and described as being one of the flattest marathon courses in the UK.

The course started and finished on Newport’s revamped riverfront taking you past the university of Wales and through some scenic countryside out towards Magor in Monmouthshire where we were greeted by a carnival atmosphere of music and cheers. It then continued through the countryside towards a medieval town before making its way back to city centre passing coastal wildlife and loop down to the transporter bridge.

Overall the course was flat and minimal change in elevation except mile 8-9 where it spiked up 31 ft but it was gradual and running it, you hardly noticed (the elevation graph makes it look worse than it was). The only other cheeky hill is the bridge over the River Usk on the A48 which you hit at mile 1 and mile 25.

Parking for the event was the option of pre-purchasing a park n ride ticket for £7 or there were several park and display car parks within the city centre. We had chosen the park n ride and unable to comment on parking in the centre. The park n ride was about 2-3 miles from the start and just off the M4 and easy to get to. However, on the day there was local roadworks which did incur delays for many runners getting into the park n ride. The event organisers were accommodating and delayed the start by 30 mins to aid runners getting to the start line on time. There were plenty of buses ferrying you to the start line and back.

There were issues with bag drop as they were doing bag searches which caused a very long queue but no toilet queues as there were plenty for the approx. 6000 marathon runners and 4,000 10k participants.  For a brand new event it was very well organised overall and one I would definitely recommend, especially if you are looking for a PB.

 

Sharon :)