Parkrun #46: Prudhoe Riverside, run 3

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 squelchy conditions today — despite Prudhoe not being my favourite venue.

For the run itself, I had a bit of a slow start. I'd made no effort to position myself near the front and ended up walking over the start line, trying to avoid tripping up over the various dogs that were darting around (on a short lead, of course). Even when we got going there was quite a bit of biding your time to get past people running aside by side. I figured I was on for a time around 27:45 and I wasn't far wrong. But I definitely can't claim that the start was the sole reason for my slow time. I'm just not up to speed at the moment and my Christmas Eve to Boxing Day cold has left me with a heavy chest again. I was never going to get near my best.

The going underfoot was generally ok despite the amount of rain we've had recently. That said, the return leg around the back of the Spetchells was decidedly squidgy in stretches. The best way to avoid a slip seemed to be to roll with the contours from one side of the path to the other in an attempt to avoid the worst of the mud and also the drop on the left hand side. It felt almost like riding a snowboard through a half-pipe at times, there was that much grip. I'd been contemplating using my trail shoes for the first time today, but chose not to, to protect their soles given half of the course was tarmac. In hindsight, I may have made the wrong choice by going with my road shoes.

Still, I made it through without going A over T. And in my serotonin-boosted state, I'm now looking forward to another run sometime this week at work. Let's get going again. 💪

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