from Runners World Forum:

Hello Everyone,

Thanks to all the runners and walkers who took part!
It was a fantastic day, and we were absolutely overwhelmed with the positive response from all of you!

The race times are just being calculated, and a couple of errors being corrected and I will get them up online for Tuesday 3rd April.

We have learnt a lot from this years event, which was a first year, and after a debreif session with the local council and forestry service we will make a decision on next years event. Fingers crossed that we will have the event again next year!

We are open to all constructive criticism from all the runners, the main points are listed below, so if you do have any other points, please feel free to email me and I will respond to all messages.

The main points moving forwards:

1 - The stamp system, was at times confusing, and it was easy to miss certain stamps.

2 - Sign-age. A big issue for all marathons. Although self navigation is essential, we could have offered more support at certain points, which we will definitely be looking at for the future.

3 - Litter. This was our only major concern. Majority of our runners were very good with their empty bottles and sachets, but we did unfortunately have a number of people littering the route. We did a sweep of the course and removed as much as possible, but for future events we will tackle this issue head on!

4 - The Numbers. The self-adhesive numbers were a great idea in principle, but in practice they were not right of this race. We will amend this for the future events and go for the pinned option.

5 - Parking. Unfortunately, our hands were tied with this because the site is still open to the public. The only area available to us for parking was the top car park. We will look at other options, and possibly moving the finish line and will report back on that one!

I hope you all agree that the above points are all minor issues and that the event as a whole was a really enjoyable day!
Im glad that so many of you commented on how well the route worked!

Thank you to all of you who dropped you sponsorship money off on the day, and those of you who made donations to the hospice!

Anyone who is yet to collect their sponsor money can either pay their money in by cheque, or call me to make a card payment.

And if anyone else would like to make a donation to Claire House in lieu of sponsorship please use the same methods.

I look forward to seeing your event reviews online, please be honest but if you can also take into account that it was a pilot year it would be much appreciated.

I hope to see you all next year, and will let you all know as soon as possible once a decision has been made on the 2012 Event.

Kind regards

Mr Daniel Thomas
[email protected]
0151 343 0883

Event Fundraiser
Claire House Children's Hospice