Whittle Dene at last!

What better way to wind down after working half of Saturday than to head out for a run in a new location, and one that I've meaning to visit for years? Muchas gracias to The Wife for giving me the time and space. 

So, Whittle Dene it was. A few years back, I was googling for good places to see bluebells in Spring and this was one of the top recommended places. It's a bit late now to see bluebells in their prime, but there were still a few around today in among the wild garlic. There were moments on this run, which started across the river at Prudhoe Riverside Park, that were properly beautiful and the discovery of the little huts near Whittle Mill partway in was delightful, but the few photos I took were rubbish, sadly. I'll just have to go back someday and take better ones. 

There's another reason why I want to go back too: I didn't do the full route I'd planned to run. I simply didn't have the time. I came close, but by the time I turned back (it's an out and back route), I was already taking too long. The point at which I turned back was also the first point on the run where the gradients finally defeated me and I had to walk. To be fair, the path took a turn away from the burn and headed directly up the steep valley sides, up steps. I was dying already at that point and the steps just finished me off. 😂

My split times and the elevation chart tell the story nicely, actually. Quite uppy-downy, but with a general upward trend that gradually sapped me of energy, followed by a return leg that started with a little uphill (just after the steps) before more rapidly heading down again. The 5th kilometre was largely on field edges and much easier to run while going steadily downhill, hence the better split time (which would have been even better had I not had to negotiate a few gates). Still, even with that assistance, I'm not getting near my best split times of years gone by, which were under 5:00/km. And an average pace of 6:30/km is... well below my best. But there's no hurry to speed up, really. Just keeping it regular is the main thing right now. Hopefully more next weekend.

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