Midweek: 3 laps of All Saints church (and 1 of the quayside)

Bit of an odd run, this one. For starters, I was short on time again, so it was necessarily short. But mainly it was odd because I chose to start it with some very short laps. And each lap could be summed up as "down a steep hill, up a steep hill".

After the pain of Chopwell Wood on Saturday, I figured I probably needed to work on hills a bit. So on leaving the office, I decided to head over to All Saints church — the only elliptical church in England, don't you know? — which sits at the northern end of the Tyne Bridge.

Actually, it's a total lie that I'd decided to do hills by that point. I was actually just wanting to take a different way down to the quayside for some flat running. But when I passed All Saints and saw the street sign for (the crazy-steep) Dog Bank, the idea took hold. Jogging down it, trying to slow myself, I ran out into... whatever that little pedestrian area's called near Broad Chare and immediately started heading back up the road to/from All Saints and the Tyne Bridge. So after maybe 2:00 or 2:30, I was on lap two of the madness. On the second lap, instead of running up the road, I ran up the steps to the church and through its graveyard. Third lap, I was back doing the road. Aaand, that's when I figured I needed some flat, faster paced running to, so I headed onto the quayside at last.

The quayside running was nothing more than a lap of the Millennium Bridge / Swing Bridge circuit. While I kept going a little way up Side (shortest street name in Newcastle, don't you know?), I stopped before the steep climb of Dean Street. And that was me done. Despite the second kilometre being in the six-minute range, I was pleased with my pace overall. That early kilometre of ups and downs was always going to be slower than flat running, but it felt good. And the flat running was a good pace, around the 5:00/km mark. Maybe one day I'll get back to a flat parkrun like the Blyth Links run and prove to myself that I can challenge my parkrun PB again. But for now, the priority remains simply enjoying it.