Parkrun #3: Rising Sun (retrospective)

Time for another retrospective. By distance, this is my "home" parkrun. Rising Sun Country Park is probably best described as an area of green belt that housing developers have yet to exploit. I've never found it particularly attractive, being largely flat-ish, barren fields, the odd pond and a bit of coniferous woodland that's hardly a wildlife haven, all surrounded by busy roads and housing estates. It feels pretty typical of the green land in this part of Newcastle. Or maybe I've just never had a fun time there.

Despite this glowing report, the Rising Sun parkrun was an early, convenient choice. It was made immeasurably better by being able to share it with a friend (and a friend of said friend, actually) and by the sunshine we got. In fact, that sunshine and my lack of familiarity with the trails we used actually made it a really pleasant run — one of the nicer parkruns I've done.

The course — modified since Storm Arwen felled trees on the old course — is run mostly on fine gravel and starts in the car park, on a short downhill slope before immediately hitting major pinch points that inevitably break your early rhythm. Nevertheless, you're soon on a path around open ground where there's room for maybe three abreast. Or two plus one person squeezing past. And while it does vary in width a little, especially over a short patch of open pasture, it stays like that for most of the course. Certainly on the first of the two laps, I spent a fair chunk of it biding my time, waiting for an opportunity to pass people. But hey, at least I was passing people rather than being passed; it felt good to be able to put on a little burst and notch up another overtake, especially after how rough I'd felt at Leazes.

As seems fairly common in other parkruns, the second lap was a smidge shorter than the first, no doubt for the psychological boost it offers. If I'm honest though, it really didn't feel that much shorter, especially when you get to the point at which you'd earlier peeled off to start that second lap... and you realise the run to the funnel is still a few hundred yards more.

By the time I finished, I was the usual wreck, completely unable to give any more for a fast finish while those around me started sprinting. And even though we'd been told the revised course was said to be "slightly longer than 5K" (see the map above), when I got my time of 28:19*, I was a bit disappointed. I'd felt awful at Leazes a couple of weeks before and yet managed 26:16 there on a hillier course. 🤔

(* having just mapped the route for this blog post, I've now worked out the pace I thought I had vs that I actually had. If the route had genuinely been 5K, I'd have had a pace of 5:40/km, which would have been disappointing. As it was, at 5.38km, my pace was actually 5:16/km, which is loads better.)

Despite that gloomy reflection on my performance, I still look back on this parkrun as one of the most enjoyable I've done. The company was great, I enjoyed chatting about the run and the venue afterwards, discussing the virtues of other locations and chillaxing in the sun with my post-run drink. It felt like a proper introduction to the community nature of the events for someone who'd otherwise miss out from being deeply introverted. It was mint. 😁