Running On Empty

Don't want to leave it too long before I get a 10K in, not least so that I can add a stretch goal of another 10K. So, it's time to get looking again — and to stop hoping I'll get into the North Tyneside 10K somehow. Searching on findarace.com, one in Hamsterley Forest in March came up. I figure the 4 weeks from that to the Allendale Challenge gives me enough time to recover from the inevitable injury. (After last weekend's heather running, I'm pretty much assuming I'll come away with some kind of issue from a run in hilly forests. 😂) Hamsterley Forest looks uncharacteristically flat here Switching to searching on SiEntries.com, the following two intriguing options came up: Chopwell Moon Runner , 19th Oct Blanchland Moon Runner , 14th Dec Basic idea here is that it's night-time trail running, using a head torch. Once upon a time, I actually owned a head torch (lord knows why), but I suspect it's no longer in my possession/loft. Regardless, runn...

Yep, the ranking's been updated, despite the fact it seems my membership has expired. God bless the lax monitoring of that. 😂 I guess 1000 points in an event is effectively the 'pass' mark for that course. And I'm scraping it. So, I've moved up 567 places in the rankings to position 4033. I do wonder where I'd actually make it to if I got the full allowance of 6 events contributing to my score. So... if we say I average 1028 points per event, that would be 6168 in total. Which, at the time of typing, would see me in position 1828 nationally. On page 74 of the results. Barely halfway up the table from where I already am. Wow. 😮 That's pretty depressing! Let's not bother myself with my actual position, eh? Let's just focus on how much it goes up each time I do a ranking event instead. 😂

Finally made it back to Weetslade Country Park for another fantasy parkrun, a full 7 months after my first visit . So much for my excitement at making up parkrun courses; this place is only just round the corner from me too! 🙄 This time, I ran the route in reverse to see what it was like. Given this would mean tackling the steepest hill on the course going uphill rather than downhill, I wasn't expecting it to be faster — especially given I'm still feeling a bit off my best pace. In the end, however, I managed to do a Google Fit-measured 5km in a time just one second slower than my time from last June. I'm calling that a victory. (Yes, I did say "slower" but come on... this was the harder way. 👀) Note how the Pace trace doesn't match the per-kilometre pace table below it. Google Fit, innit! 🙄 Anyway, yeah, doing it in reverse this time did at least avoid the knee-jarring descent that was an issue last time. But it replaced it with an absolute crawl up to th...

Wow. Never has 5km felt so hard. In truth, I did 6.5km, but still... it took me over 70 minutes. But it wasn't so much the hills of Simonside that were tiring, it was the fact that the ground was so damned lumpy, and obscured for a lot of the course by dense, clumpy heather. I hope to hell that this was a ranked event, to make it all feel pointful. 😂 Let's go through it one control at a time. Ish. Map for the Blue course. 5.2km, simple enough, right? Have to admit, I got off to a terrible, uncertain start. Given it was open moorland, any sensible person would've used the compass they were carrying to set off in the right direction, going direct to the control. Not me though. I wasn't confident I could use it quickly and accurately, so instead decided to follow line features on the map, like a path followed by an earth bank that should lead directly to the control. But the paths were hardly distinct or distinguishable and the earth bank certainly wasn't...

Another office run decided by the spinner of fate, another run shortened by working too fast into my lunchtime. I need to get some discipline to stop at 12 on the dot; I squeezed in less than 4km today. 🙁 Not today. Today was overcast and dreary. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that it was only a short one today. With the knees and ankles still feeling the effects of the Simonside heather, I probably need a bit more rest for them to sort themselves out. Even so, I was quite happy with the pace today. The first couple of kilometres didn't set the world alight — 5:51 and 5:40 — but considering I went right down to the Swing Bridge and then directly up Bottle Bank past the Hilton, to be under 6:00/km pace at all was pleasing. When I heard Google call out 2km, I ran a little further before turning back, figuring I'd end up with about 4.25km in the bag, but my route back to the office was far more direct, with none of the weaving required on the outbound leg, so ju...

Following my return to the British Orienteering rankings after the Hexham Urban event , one of my goals for 2024 is to boost that ranking further by attending more ranked events. A while back, I found what I think is a fixture list giving all such events around the UK for the coming year. At least, if "major fixtures" means "ranked events", that's true. Whatever, it's time to get organized! DALL-E, Unsplash and Google Images all failed me. Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay . I'll start by looking for events hosted by my local clubs: NATO (Newcastle and Tyneside Orienteers), NN (Northern Navigators), and CLOK (Cleveland Orienteering Klub). And maybe also BL (Border Liners). I'll probably then whittle that list down by travel time and possibly by event type (forget the team events; too much pressure). My goal's only to get 2 more ranked events done, but the list has plenty more than 2 options in it. And while I started this post in early Januar...

Feels good to have got another slightly longer run in, especially after doing only 4km earlier in the week. 🙂 Random web spinner thing said just slightly North of due East today. That meant the Byker Wall. I actually extended the end of the run a little, as I jogged around various lunch options. I finally settled for an expensive but large and lovely cheese savoury from Baps as I couldn't face the self-loathing and disappointment of another visit to Greggs. Enough of the lunch though, this was a surprisingly positive run today. Even the first kilometre was under 5:30/km pace, though only after Google Fit had had a rethink, post-run. At the time, it reported a 5:34, IIRC. The next kilometre was announced as just slightly faster, but the third — uphill alongside the Byker Wall — was decidedly slower. All of which is a little puzzling, as Fit now reckons they were 5:28, 5:27, and then another 5:28. I'm actually more inclined to believe the live reporting. Part of th...

I should've got a proper run in at lunchtime today, but instead, I probably did about 4km at most. Once again, I'd worked too far into my lunch break and had little time left before my next meeting. I was in so much of a hurry to get out, I even forgot to kick off Google Fit — hence me not knowing how far I'd run. But I did 2 laps of the Swing Bridge and Millennium Bridge loop. No high fives today though. You can't tell from the photo, but it was actually snowing lightly when I took this I really hadn't fancied going out for a run today, mainly just for how cold it was and how cold I'd got on the way into the office. I suspect at lunchtime it was a brassic 0°C, as it was snowing for the duration of my run. Nothing was settling on the salted pavements and the flakes themselves were tiny, but still, it was pretty darn chilly. The fleece was definitely the right choice today. So, no navel-gazing about my pace or anything today. Just a record of the fact that I did ...

Just a quick note to record that I entered the ballot for the Great North Run this week. Of course, as it's a draw, there's no guarantee I'll even get a place, but it still felt like a landmark occasion after so many years of saying it's not for me. There's also a lot of water yet to pass under the bridge before the run itself on the 8th September, so even if I do get a place, there's no guarantee I'll still feel up to it. Fingers crossed on both though. 🤞 At some point, I may need to get serious about training, but I'm honestly in two minds about it. Do I train on long runs so that I have experience of it? Or do I do virtually nothing (partly for fear of breaking myself in advance of the event) and just hope for the best on the day? Could I even spare the time for the training if I took that route? Who knows. But let's just wait and see whether I get in first; I'll be notified one way or the other by 16th February.

With the weekend in London rapidly approaching, and only one run in the bag this week, I definitely felt the need to do another meaningful one before it was too late. Thoughts of doing 8km fell away as I worked too far into my lunch break, so a mere 6km would have to suffice. A little bit of route planning (today without the suggestion of a direction from a random spinner on the web) and I was off. It had been a while since I last went downriver on the Gateshead side, so that was my plan: get to the green bit. And given it was going to be an out-and-back, I only needed path the first half up to 3km. 3 kilometres planned out, taking me to an unnamed bit of... grass(?) opposite St Peter's Basin The run itself wasn't especially notable. Perfunctory, if anything. (Love that word.) Newcastle and Gateshead were looking a bit grim today with heavy, unbroken cloud and wet pavements making it especially dull. There was the opportunity for a semi-reasonable photo of the bridges on the r...

Alternative clickbait title: Get Negative Splits On Every 5K Run Using This One Simple Trick! Yep, it was another negative splits run today. (I say that like it happens often. 😂) The "trick" seems to be a combination of these two things: Don't warm up properly; your muscles will be tight to start (slow) but will warm up as you get into the run (faster) Choose a route that starts uphill and switches to downhill for the return leg (slow then fast) I certainly didn't set out with the aim of getting negative splits, but after a disappointing slow first kilometre followed by a barely acceptable (but better) second kilometre, I can't help thoughts of the possibility creeping into my head. From that point on, I'm very eagerly listening to the updates. 😁 The perfect gradients for a negative splits 5K, methinks Seems either my maths or my hearing was left wanting today mind, as I thought I'd calculated that my 3rd kilometre was slower than my 2nd. I pressed on r...

With the days still devoid of lunchtime meetings, I took the opportunity to go for another run today. The 3rd in 4 days, no less. (What was that I said about not overdoing it? 👀) Anyway, feeling particularly uninspired , I let the internet choose where I would run, firing up a random direction spinner . It told me to head ENE, so I quickly mapped out a route on onthegomap.com, which just happened to be a couple of hundred metres shy of 5km. That distance was okay; all I wanted was a slow but steady run, as I'd felt a bit of pain in my toe this morning. I didn't care how far I went, really — just going for a run was the important bit. I reckoned a 6:00/km pace would be fine. Or even sensible, to avoid worsening the toe. As it happened, the first kilometre was almost exactly 6-minute pace; just a few seconds over. Sure enough though, once settled in, I raised the pace a little in the next kilometre without realising I was doing it. And again for the third kilometre. ...

After re-reading my post about goals for 2024, I decided to pull my finger out and sign up for the Allendale Challenge . While I have some slight trepidation about it — my last time saw me lose 4 toenails and a significant area of skin off both heels, as well as get sunburn and a crocked knee — I feel more confident that I'll get through it unscathed since taking the decision to use my new trail running shoes. They might not be rugged, but wearing something as comfortable as a pair of Brooks should be a world away from the Salomon hiking shoes that I wore last time. Before I even started it, I knew they gave me grief and was patched up with Compeed to stave off the inevitable blisters. Alas, by the halfway point, I'd already worn through both the plasters and my heels' skin. Hopefully that won't be necessary this time... but I'll still take some. And the chapstick thing for between my toes. Also, if I find myself heading that way again, I'm just gonna quit thi...

Classic navel-gazing post ahead! So, I swore I'd not dwell on this, but why didn't I manage to make it to 30 parkruns in 2023? Thanks to my handy-dandy calendar-of-runs-and-excuses, I can look back and see exactly what I did instead of going for a run at 9am on a Saturday morning. In short: other priorities. Specifically, family life. But also, preventable injuries. 😞 A snippet of the latest runs logged in my calendar. And one measly bike session. Here's the full breakdown of excuses: Injury: 8 times Holiday: 7 times Family needed me: 5 times Illness: 2 times Volunteering (but not running): 1 time Snow/ice: 1 time I actually quite like the sound of holidays getting in the way 7 times. I must've had a good year! 😂 But I also know that one of those occasions was in Wales, where I was due to run at Penrhyn till a storm had other ideas. Boo! Only being ill twice actually sounds okay too, especially given the wife tells me I'm "always" getting ill. (Quite cl...

Summary: such a slow start! But almost a negative-splits 5K in the end. Back to the office and work today. Booo! I'd much rather have been going to see Wish with the wife and kids. Still, at least getting back to work so soon after New Year meant that nobody had stuck a lunchtime meeting in my calendar and so I could get out for a run. I left it a bit late mind, so kept it to just 5km, which probably wasn't a bad thing anyway, as I'd not had a rest day since yesterday's parkrun. The route was mainly based around wanting to get to Exhibition Park, but this time I actually made it there (unlike on my Jesmond run before Christmas). I started up Grey Street, before diverting through the Central Arcade (mainly because traffic prevented me crossing Market Street where I wanted to), past Grainger Market and cutting through Eldon Square onto Blackett Street and then up past El Coto towards Leazes Park. I didn't think I'd started slowly, but Google soon told me otherwis...

New Year's Day. Alarm goes off at 6:50am. Urgh. Too early. Reset for 7:15am. Alarm goes off at 7:15am. Urgh, I really can't be bothered today. Cancel alarm and go back to sleep, knowing that Daughter the 2nd may yet come in and wake me soon. Daughter the 2nd duly comes in and gets me at 7:35am; there's no getting out of being awake now. And while it's a rush to grab a cuppa, administer breakfast (for the child and guinea pigs), shower, and dress in time to get out for a trip to Prudhoe, I do manage to reverse off the drive at 8:26am. And I still only bothered because I feared the self-loathing if I hadn't done it. 😞 Anyway, all that doesn't matter now because I did go to a New Year's Day parkrun and I do feel better for it. 🙂 My time of 27:58 was pretty dreadful compared to my previous two runs at Prudhoe (PB of 26:08), but I don't want to dwell on that. I'm just happy I did it and I quietly enjoyed the venue, company and slightly squ...