Midweek run: almost enjoying myself 😉

Whooooah there, steady on. Enjoying myself? While running? Surely some mistake.

Anyway, today was my last chance to get a second inter-parkrun run in and I was lucky that I had no lunchtime meetings, so I went for it. Having done Leazes Park on Wednesday, I figured I'd had for the other attainable park today: Exhibition Park. (I really don't count the City Stadium as a park.)

Looking across the frozen lake in Exhibition Park at the Wylam Brewery building

It's a little bit further from the office than Leazes, but I really didn't fancy the wind whistling down the Tyne again. Plus, heading north means I'm not giving myself a lazy downhill at the start of the run and I get to enjoy a downhill finish as I return to work. So, I headed out of the office and immediately turned down Worswick Street... which is downhill. 🤦

That downhill was short-lived mind and I soon made up for it as I headed back up past the Laing Art Gallery towards the Civic Centre and then uphill again past the Robinson Library on the Newcastle University campus. Through a couple of underpasses after that and I was in Exhibition Park, and that was the end of the uphills.


By this point, I was breathing pretty heavily of course, but that was pretty standard. More notable was that I'd not had a single "oh my god" moment. Yeah, the run wasn't easy — when are they? — but I genuinely felt like I was doing okay. The main thing deciding how far I kept going was the time it would take, not how my lungs or legs felt.

In the end, I chose to head up towards the Urban Green Café and, from there, chose to do a lap of the lake, past the Wylam Brewery. But that was as far as I went. I also had a brief pause to snap the above photo before I headed back. On the far side of the lake, I had a quick check of the phone to see how long I'd been going and it was 11 or so minutes. That meant I wouldn't be too far off 5K by the time I got back... if you can believe the GPS tracking. That felt pretty good, as I've done far too many sub-4K runs recently.


The Newcastle University arches, definitely not today

The route back took me past the skate park, through the Newcastle University arches, and along Percy Street back towards Grey's Monument and Grey Street. By the time I was on Percy Street I was already thinking about upping my pace. I hadn't checked my pace at all on the run, but I'd felt so good (it's all relative) that I was keen to finish well. In fact, it's only now as I'm typing this that I've just checked my average pace: 5:10/km. Very happy with that, even when you take the inaccuracies of GPS into account. Next run is tomorrow, of course: another parkrun. I'm now just hoping I can continue this good feeling into that and continue on an upward trajectory. 🤞

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parkrun #24: Windy Nook

Image
YESSSSS! It's not often I come away from a parkrun with a time only just under 28 minutes (to be confirmed) and feel elated, but today is one such day. Finally bit the bullet today and attended Windy Nook , reputed to be one of the hardest parkruns in the area, wi– Sorry, I'll have to pause this blog post. My time's just come in on SMS and it's a 27:48. Woohoo! 😁 Anyway, as I was saying, Windy Nook is a parkrun with a reputation for being a bit of a killer. So, I was actually more concerned that I'd get a time in the 29's and at least be getting my worst parkrun to date, especially considering I'd been struggling to get under 28:30 during the week. In the end, I was delighted enough to get round without walking, let alone getting under 28 minutes. Normal attendance is around 30 runners, but Saltwell Harriers descended today Why Windy Nook? Last night, I was thinking again about doing Carlisle Park in Morpeth. Ever since doing it the first time, I've bee...
Read more

Midweek: Hawksworth, LS5

Image
Another day, another pre-breakfast run. Hard to believe, but it happened. Today was the final day of our trip to Leeds and I was granted another pass out, which was most welcome. 🙂 This time, I decided to avoid having a ruinously steep hill near the end of the run and so just planned to run around the Hawksworth housing estates rather than dip down towards Kirkstall Abbey again. I briefly checked Google Maps to plan the exact route and then headed out. The idea was to head north till I hit the ominous sounding Butcher Hill, then take that road east as far as Spen Lane. From there, it would be south until I passed under the railway line and then west back up Vesper Road to the Airbnb. Everything went exactly to plan... until I got to Butcher Hill and saw fairly well worn but unofficial tracks leading into an area of scrub and trees. Curiosity piqued, I headed off into the wilderness instead of sticking to the road. I'd be rubbish in a horror film. This wooded area, whic...
Read more

The 2023 Great North 10K

Image
Well, I did it. I finally bagged last year's only failed goal: to finish a 10K event. Finished 10K: ✅ Ran the whole way: ✅ Got under an hour: ✅ Beat my time from April: ✅ My official time was 55:07 in the end, which is frankly crackers. I've done plenty of five kilometre parkruns where I've not even managed that pace. Steve Harper and Brendan Foster getting ready to release the green wave. There's so much I could write about today, but it's already quarter to eleven at night and I don't want to be sat here when today becomes tomorrow. So let's just bullet a few items: The warm-up . I surprised myself by really enjoying and appreciating the orchestrated warm-up. I normally hate being manipulated (that's how I see it), but the guy leading it made it clear it was the best way to avoid injury, so I just went with it today. Being overtaken. Lots . I started very close to the front of my wave, as we were all people who'd said we'd take an hour or more...
Read more