Midweek run: sub-zero in Leazes Park 🥶

Ok, that title's an outrageous lie. With wind-chill, it was -1 or -2, but the actual temperature was above zero. Still, there was a patchy covering of snow and ice on the ground, which shows it was pretty damned cold.

An actual photo taken by me, for once; seagulls aplenty stood on the frozen lake

This run was another lunchtime affair from the office. Today, I chose to eschew the quayside (and its piercing winds) in favour of a more urban and tree lined route. In fact, I was so bloody cold at the start of the run that I chose a slightly cheeky route through the malls of Eldon Square and Eldon Garden to get me up towards Leazes Park in the warmth. And that completely threw out the GPS tracking, of course, so I don't really know the overall length of the run. That wasn't helped by pausing the run as I ducked into John Lewis for a click-and-collect on the way back either. I'd guess the total was a little over 4k in the end. 🤷‍♂️


At the start of the run, I'll be honest, I was feeling dreadful with my lungs really struggling to keep me going. By the end, that had resolved itself, but it really shows how I need to get that phase over before I start a parkrun if I want a good time.

Running past my old flat by Sid James' Park was nice, but soon after that the conditions underfoot changed from wet-everywhere to icy-patches and I had to start being a bit more careful. On entering the park itself by the tennis courts, we were into patches-of-snow territory. I wasn't worried about pace today, so I just enjoyed it and planned to do a single lap of the parkrun course before heading back to the office.

Another nice excuse for a breather, this time with St James' Park in the background

In the end, when I saw how nice it looked around the lake I changed my plans a bit and even paused the run on Google Fit to take the odd photo. The route I ended up doing took me around the lake and up the hill to the parkrun start line, then down the hill (gingerly) before diverting off the normal route to head back to the lake again for my second photo (which, confusingly, I've put as the first one above). From there, I just ran back out of the park past the basketball and tennis courts and back to Eldon Garden.

Yeah, so Google Fit reckoned my average pace was 5:45/km, but that's fine. The most important thing was to just get a run in; kids' illness and evening work had prevented that the past couple of days. Now I just need to get another one in before the next parkrun on Saturday, wherever that might be.

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