Parkrun #61: Prudhoe Riverside, run 4

Three weekends on the trot! Get in. 💪

This time, it was a return to Prudhoe Riverside, though it turned out the course had changed slightly. Instead of starting alongside The Spetchels, the course started about half a mile(?) upriver, just underneath the Bridge of Terror:

Ovingham Bridge. The terror comes from driving through the stone pinch points at each end.

It then looped back on itself just past the original start line — seeing the elite runners pelt past me in the opposite direction at that point caught me somewhat off-guard — before heading off for a solitary lap around the Spetchells, but in the opposite direction to previously. That meant that steep downhill at the end of the loop became a steep uphill at its start instead. Mercifully, it's nowhere near as prolonged as the hills at Chopwell Wood. Or even at Morpeth, for that matter.

On the whole, the course always was pretty flat and the extension of the riverside section has just made it even moreso. Which takes away some of the thunder from my next revelation.

My time? 28:30. 💥

To get 3 times around the 31-minute mark and then suddenly dive well under half an hour just shows how much of a difference the choice of venue makes. That said, this felt like a big, big step back towards a semblance of my former abilities. So, I decided to go full-on stats nerd on it, attempting to compensate for the course difficulty by looking at how far outside my PB I've been for each venue I've been since returning to parkrun. Here's the (rather ugly) chart:

Over the last two weekends, I've cut my PB deficit from 19% to just 9%

So, by my reckoning and extrapolation, I'll be getting my next PB in two weeks' time. 😉 And I'll be finishing the run before I start it sometime in the new year. 😂

Obviously, that's not how it works. But I'm still pretty happy with that progress. And it's good to see that even after compensating for the previous runs being harder than Prudhoe, I still appeared to improve week on week.

Next week though, no parkrun. Off to visit the father-in-law instead. Maybe I'll see whether I can get my first midweek run in, but I'm not holding out much hope. But I can at least look forward to another parkrun in a fortnight. And probably it'll be back at Morpeth, Chopwell, or Prudhoe (at my running buddy's request) to more directly gauge progress. We'll see how that goes...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Choosing a 10K event for 2024

Image
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...
Read more

Parkrun #13: South Shields

Image
After a whole week of no running (blame half term and a stinking cold), it was straight back into it today with another parkrun and another new location: South Shields . Driving from the north side of the Tyne, South Shields always feels like a bit of a trek, as you still have so far to go even once you're through the tunnel. And there's no fast road to the coast, just loads of roundabouts and junctions. At least, that's my excuse for only just making it in time. That and the fact I had to hunt for change to pay for parking when the website had said there was plenty of free parking. Hmmm... maybe there is somewhere , but not where I parked. 🤔 Anyway, once that was sorted, I headed down onto the prom. The weather was your typically dull, cool and slightly hazy, out-of-season British seaside weather. A slight nip in the air, but still more autumnal than wintery. Luckily, the first timers' explanation was held pretty late, so I got a quick run-through and the chance to a...
Read more

Training: riverside 4K

Image
While my knees and toe probably would've preferred more bike work, I was working in the office today, so went out for a short run at lunch instead. Given I didn't want to aggravate the toe too much in advance of Sunday's orienteering, I went for a fairly flat route. I also just wanted to get away from people and be somewhere calmer than the centre of Newcastle on the run-up to Christmas. Today's route took me past the Black Gate, then under the railway line and onto Forth Street behind the station. It was around this point that the gentle rain turned into a downpour and I was glad I'd put my fleece on. 😂 The rain continued on and off as I jogged past the Centre for Life and onwards to the Arena. The new phone wasn't giving me announcements of my progress (yet another thing to set up), but a quick check showed I'd been going about 7 minutes. From the Arena, it was rapidly downhill to the Tyne before turning upriver. The tide must've been in, ...
Read more