Midweek: 2K of the Great North 10K

With confirmation that I won't be guide running at parkrun this weekend, that meant I should take it easy on today's run, right? And did I? What do you think? 🙄

To be fair, I was definitely running within myself today, but Google still reckons I averaged a 5:10/km pace. The route? I figured I'd run the town centre part of the Great North 10K, pretty much just for the hell of it. And to see whether there were any gradients I'd not remembered. Turns out there weren't; from where I started, it's as flat as a pancake. In fact, I think I ran the flattest part of the course possible. Way to go for making myself complacent! 😂


So, from the Laing art gallery, round the Monument and Old Eldon Square, then back to and through the Northumbria Uni campus, it was a plain-sailing, pedestrian-dodging extravaganza. Pretty dull, all told. It'll be interesting to see how they section things off on the day, as the run will get right in the way of the shoppers. 🤔

Once I reached the Civic Centre and Barras Bridge, I figured that was probably far enough, but ended up going up Claremont Road anyway and back past the RVI (pink bit on the map). All told, it was just shy of 5K.

After finishing, I still felt fairly fresh. Fairly. I don't think I overdid it for the day before a parkrun, which was all I really wanted. Oh, and I very nearly got the magical negative splits, scuppered only by 3 or 4 seconds on my 4th kilometre. Totally unintentional, but nice nonetheless.

Where tomorrow, though? Potentially Newbiggin, purely for the fact it'd give me (or help me towards) the Nelson achievement in the parkrun app. Potentially Rising Sun, for the fact I've not done the 'proper' course there at full pace yet. Potentially somewhere else... just because I'm fickle. 🙂

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