Running On Empty

Tell me... can you feel the milestone? Ohhhh yes. TWENTY-FIVE! T-shirt incoming! 😁 Aaaanyway... back to the run. First time at Chopwell Wood and it was HARD . A few months back, I watched a YouTube video of some guy doing this course and... well, it didn't look too hard. He talked through the fact there were uphill sections, but in all honesty, they looked pretty easy. In hindsight, maybe it was just that they were easy for him and the camera wasn't showing the true extent of the hills. (He got a time of 23:50, btw. 😲) Whatever, it was definitely hard for me . Possibly the hardest one I've done, in fact. The walk to the start from the car park (seen above) was pretty typical of the trails we'd run: mostly gravel and small stones bedded nicely into mud. Nothing too squelchy, so mostly a decent running surface, though there were a few sections with larger, more rubble-like stones, but mostly smooth ones. Prior to turning up, I'd been a bit...

Another midweek run from the office, but I really sold myself short with the amount of time I allowed. With a series of meetings starting at 1pm, setting off from the office at 12:20 was just daft. 20 minutes for a run, then another 20 to gather my gear, get showered, dried and dressed and get back to my desk and into a Teams meeting. It's not enough to be either comfortable or productive (in terms of fitness). Had I given myself more time, I would've gone for a longer, slower run as prep for a faster, shorter parkrun. Never mind. As often happens when I'm short on time, I didn't really plan a route. I fancied heading to Exhibition Park and back, but didn't really fancy being in the crowds up Northumberland Street. Instead, it was eastward out of the office before skirting the shoppers by going up John Dobson Street. That took me towards the Northumbria University campus though, which lured me away from Exhibition Park. So, I dodged through its pedestrianised area,...

Obligatory introspective opening lament: another midweek blog post with no intervening parkrun post: bummer! 😞 One day I'll make a chart or calendar of excuses... I mean reasons for not having done parkrun, but for now, back to this run. Today's lunchtime run from the office was another attempt to avoid the crowds and better explore somewhere that until recently I didn't even know existed: the Byker Link . As that linked article says, it's a (dirty) green corridor close to the Ouseburn area running from Byker down to St Peter's Basin (and probably far beyond) that used to be an active railway line until the 70s. I first stumbled upon it when exploring the far side of Ouseburn on a run (which I don't seem to have blogged about, so it must be a while back) and I've been meaning to take another look ever since. Byker Link, definitely not today and definitely not taken by me No time for photos today though, as I was trying to concentrate on just getting back i...

With a busy weekend of visiting relatives, there was no chance for a run and then it was straight into a 2-day work trip. Finding a time and place for a run — let alone finding the energy for it — was always going to be difficult. In the end, I skipped breakfast on the second day of my work trip to hit the gym. Despite the appeal of running in Auckland, New Zealand, I opted instead for a workout I had a little more control over, selecting a 5K program over "rolling hills" at some arbitrary, but mid-level, intensity. Sadly, I found it so hard that I reduced the intensity and cut it short at 4K. I really wasn't feeling it. 😞 And for once, I think I'll just leave the report there. Not a great day, but hoping for better on the next outdoor run.

It was nice while it lasted. Headed out for another lunchtime run today, again intending to do fairly flat loops near work, but I completely failed to replicate Tuesday's pace. Pushing myself every bit as hard (I felt), I was going to do 3 laps of the Millennium Bridge and the Swing Bridge, each lap being roughly 1.5km if memory serves. After just 1km, however, I was already struggling, with Google Fit reporting a 5:14/km pace. 😞 Had Tuesday not happened, I would've been perfectly happy with that as a first kilometre. Today, however, all I could think was that it was about 45 seconds per kilometre slower than I'd been 2 days ago. To give myself the best chance of picking up the pace, I decided to minimise the amount of pedestrian dodging required for the rest of the run. To that end, I abandoned my quayside laps in favour of heading upriver towards Dunston Staithes. A gentle breeze blowing down the Tyne then felt like running into a gale as I continued to struggle. The le...

After the 10K a couple of days ago, I got back to a much shorter lunchtime run today. As is often the case, I had limited time, so I opted to stay close to the office. I also wanted it to be fairly flat to allow me to practice a faster pace, but rather than heading down to the quayside, this time I decided to do laps of the Tyne Bridge and High Level Bridge... which, it turns out, is almost exactly 2km per lap. Leaving the office by the back door, I headed straight over Mosely Street and past Cale Cross House onto the Tyne Bridge. By the time I reached the turning point on the Gateshead side, Google Fit piped up with its 1K progress report... and shocked me. At the time, it said "4 minutes and 34 seconds" though it's since revised that downwards! Anyway, that set the tone for the rest of the run, with me seeing how well I could maintain such a ridiculous pace. I rarely come out of the blocks that fast, so I wanted to capitalise on it. Pushing hard, my second kilometre was...

In my last post, I talked about how I'd signed up for a 10K event in July. And while my last run was partly an attempt to start getting me used to longer runs, I honestly expected the day of the Great North 10K to be the first time I would actually complete a 10K distance. Well, I've gone and blown that plan out of the water. 🙄 Route and stats for my first ever 10K run, showing an average pace of 5:40/km The last few days, I've been getting all agitated (internally) about how little real opportunity I get to go  for a run when the kids are off school. By the time I get the chance, it's pushing 9pm and I'm feeling too tired to contemplate exercise. The frustration's been exacerbated by missing parkrun to take the younger daughter climbing and even missing the chance to run with the elder daughter at junior parkrun. And then I realised that I'll have to miss next week's parkrun too as we're visiting relatives again. So, despite really not feeling ...

Committing myself to another of my targets for 2023, I've now entered the Great North 10K . Was a bit pricier than many 10K events I've seen, but I like the sound of the route and, crucially, it wasn't already fully booked up or closed to entries (unlike the Blyth 10K or the North Tyneside one). It should be fun running through the centre of Newcastle and actually having the right of way for once. No having to wait for cars and buses at pedestrian crossings, no having to dodge the shoppers, none of that crap. At least, I'm hoping there'll be none of that. I've never seen the run itself on the day, so I can only assume there won't be randoms crossing my path all the time. 😂 The first 3K is also run on the same route as the Great North Run, which will be nice. No doubt it'll tempt me to do the real thing one day, but right now, that feels a long way off. For now, signing up just gives me the impetus to focus more on my longer runs. And hopefully that...

Since it dawned on me this last week that there was a chance the smaller parkruns might disappear if not attended (by both runners and volunteers), I've been wondering which others in my area might warrant a visit sooner rather than later. Earlier today, I stumbled on this really handy page that, in among a truckload of other stats, had pretty much what I needed: a list of the parkruns with lowest attendance. Actually, what I really wanted was a table of parkruns in the NE of England and their average attendances, but the page I found will do. Diving through it, I've now seen that a couple of my other local-ish runs have just as low attendance as Windy Nook, those being: Blackhill in Consett, County Durham Cotsford Field in Peterlee, County Durham (pictured below) To date, I've run neither of these courses, so they'd also be a handy way to help me meet my target of 5 new locations in 2023. Cotsford Field looks nice for the seaside/clifftop location, a bit like South S...

Four days since breaking my Windy Nook duck, I finally found the time to run again. Still hoping to enjoy some greenery at lunchtime, but reluctant to head into Jesmond Vale for a third time in a row, I decided I'd head back to Leazes Park. I actually did as well, but took the scenic route and found that by the time I got there, I was so knackered that I didn't fancy any more than one lap of the parkrun course. 😩 The reason for being so knackered was twofold. First, I'd purposely chosen a route there that had a lot of uphill, and so I entered the park at its highest point. But secondly, my performance at Windy Nook had made me think that the effort I'd put in recently in Jesmond Vale and elsewhere — especially on the hills — had been beneficial, so I wanted to push myself fairly hard to reap more benefits. Unfortunately, as you can see from the image above, my first couple of kilometres weren't exactly setting the world on fire. 1K was fine, but 2K less so. When G...

Back to the Town Moor it was again today as aspirations to travel to Gateshead instead were put to one side thanks to a late lie-in. Despite this, today was still an unusual one for Daughter the First. This time, she chose to run alone. I put on my bravest face and encouraged to enjoy it, but on a purely selfish level, I was quite sad to not be sharing the run with her. We were joined today by Snowdrop the Spikeshuffler , supporting Autism Acceptance Week If I had any concerns about how hard she would push herself, however, I needn't have. After the last couple of runs being her slowest to date (14:46 and 14:17), she really knocked it out of the park, recording her fastest time since September last year with a 13:30. In fact, she's only run faster on 4 other occasions, so this was awesome. So, she's on her way back towards her best times, which is great to see and seems to have made a massive difference to her motivation. She'd earlier spotted that her times were on a s...

Figured it was time to check up on my progress towards my 2023 goals, as stated in the 2022 retrospective . Attend 30 parkruns : on target 🙂 I've done 8 so far in 3 months and 1 day. I reckon that means I'll do 31 or 32 by the end of the year. Attend 5 new parkrun locations : on target 🙂 With Windy Nook and Druridge Bay now in the bag, I'm 40% of the way there with just 25% of the year gone. Achieve a time under 26 minutes : needs improvement 😞 I'm miles away from achieving this at the moment, but hopefully all it will take is more and longer practice runs, plus some interval or negative splits work. Achieve a time under 25 minutes : really needs improvement 😧 Do a 10K event : achievable 🙂 I've done 7.7k on the way into work and that felt fine; all I need to do now is apply myself, sign up for something and dedicate the time. Take the daughter on Race for Life 3K : it's happening 😀 We're signed up, so this is definitely happening. So, overall, I'd ...

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...