Midweek: a climb out of Ouseburn

There's nothing quite like the slow pace of a midweek run to bring you back down to Earth. 🙄

That said, the fact that I can describe a run with an average pace over the first 3K of 5:10/km as "slow" just shows how far I've come recently. This is good.

Anyway, about the run. The reason I mention the "first 3K" is cos that's how far I ran before having to tackle a steep climb. Yes, I'm overlooking the benefit I got from running down to the bottom of that climb, but... whatever. Here's the route:

The inspiration today came from the fact that there's a work social do in the Ouseburn this coming weekend. That put the destination in my mind, but what cemented it was the fact I could use the climb out of the valley as more hill training.

I had planned to climb out by going directly up Stepney Bank, but in the end, I opted for a greener route, passing the farm and then heading up one of the paths at the bottom of the City Stadium park. In all honesty, once I'd done that and got to Stepney Road, the last thing I wanted to do was go downhill again toward Stepney Bank and give myself even more uphill to contend with. So, I turned away instead and passed Ernest on the way up to the Biscuit Factory. Climb complete.

Unsurprisingly, the 4th kilometre, which included that climb was slow. 6:13/km, to be precise. And as well as ruining me, it kinda ruined my overall 5K time today, which sagged to a relatively lowly 27:10. I can still console myself that that was faster than my time at Chopwell Wood, which had a similarly tough hill in it. Well, two actually, but who's counting?

Next run is likely to be on Thursday lunchtime, provided no-one lands a ridiculously timed meeting on me in the meantime. Not sure where or how long I'll go (of course), but it's nicely timed to prep me for a parkrun on the Saturday. There's also the chance I'll be doing urban orienteering in Killingworth immediately after parkrun (as well as the daughter's 3K amble on Friday too), so it could be a pretty packed running schedule. 😃

Update: just realised the orienteering is a proper event, not a practice one, and that means I've missed the deadline for entry! Still might be able to do the "novice" course with Daughter the First, but it's still another facepalm moment. 🤦‍♂️

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