Midweek: mad dogs and Englishmen

Never mind spring, it felt like summer had arrived today. And, like the fool I am, I decided to go out for a run when the sun was at its strongest. I'm now typing this with a headache that I'm pretty sure was brought on by it. 🤦‍♂️


The back garden, in the sun, sometime in the last week

Like Sunday, I wanted to be away from the worst of the local traffic, so headed up the wagonway again, but this time I took a left into Weetslade Country Park. And that's where the heat really hit me. Up till then, I'd been running in the dappled shade of the birch trees lining the old railway line. But once out into the park, there was no cover at all and the sun was fully out. 🥵

I probably compounded things by running directly up the hill to the top rather than taking the long, gentler slope round the back. But, you know, hill practice and all that. From there, I headed back down the far side of the hill and past the ponds before getting back on the wagonway and retracing my steps to the relative shade of the birch trees.


Midday... was a bad choice 🥵

And it was on my way back to the park's entrance that I realised there was no way I'd make it back all the way home running in this heat. At least, not without negative consequences. And so I decided to cap my run at 30 minutes. That got me just back under the A1056 (Killingworth Way), leaving me about a mile from home. 6 minutes of walking followed before I got a final 3 or 4 minutes of running in. And that was that.

I hadn't run with my phone again, so don't have any Google Fit screenshots or pace analysis, but I did wear a watch and pay attention to where I'd reached at different time points. So, I can report that I had an average pace of 5:27/km for the first 30 minutes, with the first 10 minutes being at a pace of 5:00/km. Hmmm... that 2km time can't be right. Guess the sun had frazzled my brain more than I thought. 🤔 Still, the total distance in that first 30 minutes was 5.5km. Whatever, I'm now just pondering whether (or when) I squeeze another run in before the weekend. 🤔

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