Running On Empty

It was all going so well... 😂 So, the chart I cheerily presented in the previous post , which showed the percentage gap to my venue PB coming down nicely, now looks like this: Seems like having a parkrun week off doesn't do much for your progress. Who knew?! Ooof. I guess it's a bit of a reality check, with yesterday's official time being 31:33, but there are still positives here: It makes me feel even better about the Chopwell Wood run in particular 😁 Jesmond Dene's not an easy run anyway, and this time's still closer to my venue PB than the 2 recent Morpeth runs I intentionally started slowly to avoid kerfuffle and barging in the tight early sections, so the time isn't exactly a shock I'd had to abandon a run after just 2K the previous day because I felt so bad, yet I managed the full 5K on a tough parkrun I had negative splits the whole way and even dipped below a 5:30/km pace for the final 2km Oh, and here's another positive: Sharing the run with s...

Three weekends on the trot! Get in. 💪 This time, it was a return to Prudhoe Riverside, though it turned out the course had changed slightly. Instead of starting alongside The Spetchels , the course started about half a mile(?) upriver, just underneath the Bridge of Terror: Ovingham Bridge. The terror comes from driving through the stone pinch points at each end. It then looped back on itself just past the original start line —  seeing the elite runners pelt past me in the opposite direction at that point caught me somewhat off-guard — before heading off for a solitary lap around the Spetchells, but in the opposite direction to previously. That meant that steep downhill at the end of the loop became a steep uphill at its start instead. Mercifully, it's nowhere near as prolonged as the hills at Chopwell Wood. Or even at Morpeth, for that matter. On the whole, the course always was pretty flat and the extension of the riverside section has just made it even moreso. Which takes a...

So, back to Chopwell Wood as a parkrunner for the first time since my 25th parkrun . My time? 31:11. I'll come back to that later. Anyway, I feel like a lot has changed in the 2 and a bit(!) years since that first time — giving up running, turning 50, leaving my job, and probably more — but it's lovely to see that this parkrun venue and its volunteers haven't changed; they're both still delightful. While the Morpeth parkrun has more than doubled in size (60ish to 130ish runners) and lost some of its intimacy, this run at Chopwell Wood was still a pleasingly small affair, with just 45 runners. Maybe it's the hills putting people off, maybe it was the weather (raining for once), but the event remains just how I like it. 🥰 Weather was 11°C and light rain throughout. Felt cold, but I warmed up plenty. So, yeah, my third parkrun back and I was still clocking well over 30 minutes. And I was nearly 4 minutes slower than my previous best time here. But... at Morpet...

And 5 weeks later, i returned to parkrun, and to Morpeth at that. No runs in between; no training at all. But this time, I tried harder from the get-go. Result? 25 seconds faster. In all honesty, as happy as I am with having hauled my carcass back to a parkrun, I'm a bit disappointed with that time. Yes, I know I didn't exactly help myself by not running AT ALL in the last 5 weeks, but I genuinely thought that if I just set off a bit faster this time, I'd take a minute or two off my previous effort. Well... that reality check landed hard. 😳 On the upside, this time I had zero pain from the knees. 5 weeks ago, I was really feeling it in my left knee the day after the run and feeling the same disappointment that led to me stopping in the first place. This time, nothing. The biggest issue I had was that 3-weeks-and-counting chest cough meant I wheezed my way round the course. What else to say...? 🤔 Oh, the weather was perfect . 11°C and sunny, with bl...

What the...? Yep, I'm back. Which is kinda laughable, as I've said stuff like that before and then promptly done nothing. Moving on... Since the previous post, it's fair to say I've done very little exercise. The training for the Race for Life simply didn't materialise. Daughter #1 decided she didn't really want to go parkrunning again. Or any kind of running for that matter. And I didn't press it or do any of my own training other than a short, stop-start run alongside the kids' bikes and a 3km run to Weetslade that saw me abort. Even the Race for Life itself was mostly a walk.  And then... today. After several weeks of good intentions but failure to dig out my gear and set a parkrun alarm on a Friday night, I finally did it. It helped that I was committed to giving a friend a lift to her 50th parkrun too. But however it happened, the point is that it happened.  Long story short, I got a time of 31:23 at Morpeth. And that was me trying . While that'...

A new post? After calling it quits months ago? What the...? So, yeah. Daughter the First decided she wanted to do the Race for Life 3K again this year, this time in honour of her (thankfully recovered) Grandma, and she wanted me alongside her. Of course I said yes. Mind, in the last... however many months, I've not run or done any exercise at all. The bike's saddle is fixed, but the brakes remain permanently on. The indoor bike continues to function more as a clothes drying rack than an exercise machine. The most I've done since August is the occasional jog-walk-jog to school when I'm late to pick up the kids. Time to dust myself off, even if it's ultimately just for a 3K run. Earlier this week, I did 20–25 minutes on the indoor bike. Then a jog to school to get the kids yesterday. Today, I finally put on my running gear (which I brought back into work last week) at lunchtime and hit the quayside. A bit red-faced, just under a mile into today's run 😳 I expect...