Midweek: Jesmond Vale & Heaton Park

Today saw me make up for the lack of a Saturday parkrun — an absence brought on by a worryingly clicky left knee — by putting aside the time for a slow recovery run out to Heaton Park from work. The knee had seemed fine on the previous day's junior parkrun, so I figured I'd give it a fairly flat route and definitely not do any stairs or steps.

So, heading out the back of work onto Pilgrim Street, I immediately headed eastward towards Shieldfield... going up the spiral staircase by the Blue Carpet. 🤦

Okay, that was foolish. But I took it slowly and gently enough to avoid any clicking. From there, my route took me from the Manors footbridge over the central motorway, past Sainsbury's and through Shieldfield (mmm, smell those herbal cigarettes) in the direction of Cradlewell. I'd planned a route that went further in that direction than I'd run before, so I was spared the dreaded boredom.

Passing the now-closed-down Little Green Social (to be fair, it was a pretty expensive cafe), I entered the part of the run where I was least sure of both the directions and the gradient. I'd had my suspicions I would be headed downhill quite a bit and have to pay a corresponding uphill tax later and, sure enough, that was right. Jesmond Vale is lovely in places though, and the paths I found leading out of the dene were mostly gentle enough and step-free that I didn't mind — especially in the spring sunshine.

Eventually, I found my way to Sambuca's in the pavilion at Heaton Park, which I'd planned as my turning point. (Strong recommend against any Sambuca's restaurant if you like quality Italian food, btw.) Not being too sure of the way out of the park, I headed for the nearest path that looked like it led to the neighbouring houses. The slope here was easily the hardest bit of the whole route, but I did manage to keep going.

I should probably say something about my splits. My first kilometre had been a bit of a shock; I knew I was aiming to go properly slowly (for me), but I'd done something like a 6:18/km. Being so far over 6:00 was a surprise, but it did also mean I started thinking about negative splits again. Which is a crazy thought to have, given that the last time I attempted that I ended up injuring my knee. Anyway, there it was.

My second kilometre had been called out on the slope down into Jesmond Vale and indicated I'd done a time more like 5:45/km, according to my oxygen-starved maths brain. I don't even remember my third kilometre time being called out, but it looks like it was as I was about to leave Heaton Park. Thinking back, I suspect it sounded like I'd almost achieved another negative split, but not quite. Even my jog down into the valley had seen me slow down (to avoid jarring) and the run out of the valley was surely slower, so I was pretty happy to have even got close.

The 4th kilometre was called out under the Byker Bridge, just after I'd passed some beautiful horses that my daughter would kill me for not stopping to photograph if she knew. Anyway, maths had truly deserted me by this point, but it seems I'd got back on the negative split train with a 5:20/km. The 5th kilometre time, sadly, suffered for the fact I'd had a small amount of uphill to do after passing Northern Print. The pace, it seems, had dropped off to 5:38/km.

The final stretch back to the office was slower again, but I wasn't really bothered by that point. The main point was that my knee was fine and had withstood a 6km run. The negative splits can wait for another day. Wednesday, maybe. 🙂