Mum and Dad revisited the Port of Tyne phone box this morning! Dad had hoped to take a slightly clearer picture of the box this time round, but it wasn’t to be – so I had a bit of fun with the zoomed-in picture instead. Behold, the 8-bit Port of Tyne phone box! Maybe this will show up in one of my illustrated text adventure games someday.
As I’m still some way off from being able to build my own practical projects in JavaScript, I decided to try some map prototyping using the free Felt mapmaking website.
I’ll continue to play around with this while I’m still learning – it’d be great to start getting an idea of how the overall map will eventually look.
A slight change of scenery this last weekend. Geth wanted a fast parkrun and believes Leazes to be the fastest in the local area (I’m not convinced. That hill at the end of the lap really slows you down!), so off we headed.
I decided not to attempt sub-30 as it was still very warm, but still managed a good pace and ended up getting a course PB of 32:36. Not bad and hopefully I can improve on that on a cooler day.
No idea about next week yet. May well leave it till Friday to decide!
Another late parkrunday blog post but I wanted to get my Blaydon Race post up first!
I was timekeeping at Jesmond Dene again (my favourite role these days) as I wanted an easy morning after the previous night’s race. It was a gorgeous morning for standing around volunteering (perhaps a bit warm for running, as has been the case for a good week or so now) and also a busy one for Jesmond Dene with nearly 300 finishers! This was due to (a) Town Moor being off for the Hoppings fair, (b) people wanting an event #111 for their Nelson challenge* and (c) post-Blaydon Race tourism.
Going somewhere else this coming weekend to get a run in!
*geeky parkrun tourism stuff, don’t worry if you don’t know what that is.
I’ve always had a bit of a ‘mare at the Blaydon Race in the past (see my 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022 posts), largely due to not being an evening runner. Evening running has traditionally given me a stitch. However, I’ve been practising over the last ten months or so by regularly going to the Monday night TMBR run, so I hoped this would be less of an issue this time.
I’d also never managed sub-hour at the race, even in years when the course was shorter due to aforementioned stitch issues and other things. It was meant to be the same route as last year (which had been about 6.1 miles on my watch) and I’m still two or three minutes away from a sub-hour 10k, so I thought it’d be a close thing (but was hopeful).
I had pasta for breakfast in order to try and rejig my stomach clock appropriately (as the race was due to start at 7:15pm) and nothing else during the day except a small breakfast-type snack late afternoon. I then left for the race with plenty of time to spare so that I could use the baggage bus and hang around with TMBR folks before the start.
It was the usual great atmosphere at the start area, and I was able to chat to plenty of folks I knew from various running groups. Bit of a nervous wait for the start, and I was a bit confused about where the start line was as everyone started running early (so I started my watch about 12 seconds before the actual timing mat!), but once we got going it was a nice fast race and I had to be really careful not to sprint off. This is a real advantage of the new Quayside start – it avoids all the bottlenecks we used to have in the centre of town, although it is a shame it doesn’t quite match the song as well these days!
I managed to hold a slightly faster and steadier pace than I’ve been doing in my 10ks recently – 9:40 min mile average, slowing from about 9:20 min miles at the start to just under 10 min miles by the end. I don’t think this would quite have got me in under the hour if it had been a full 10k, but thankfully the course turned out to be only 5.8 miles by my watch this year (no idea why, it was the same route as last year!) and I finished in 56:24! Finally a sub-hour by some margin, and a 4 min 11 sec Blaydon PB!
I still have a lot of running demons left to slay but Blaydon was a pretty big one. I’ve been trying since 2017 and I finally had a good race.
Of course I’ll be back again next year though – the unique race atmosphere is too good to pass up, especially now I’m finally able to enjoy it properly!
Here’s the last of the phone boxes Mum and Dad found during their recent trip to northwest England.
(Coordinates 53°54’18.1″N, 2°72’25.0″W.)
This one still has a phone in it!
Back to some gradual progress (I hope) on the phone box map next week.
Cracking street name!
We have another book exchange today…
(Coordinates 53°68’10.0″N, 2°80’02.6″W.)
This one has a very neat and full shelf of books and also some DVDs!
One more from the area next week.
I’m a little late with last weekend’s parkrunday post – it’s been a busy week!
I tried for sub-30 – it was pacer week at Town Moor and I knew my friend Jack from TMBR was pacing 30 – but I could only hang on for less than a mile. 31:41 in the end. I’ll keep trying this summer.
Volunteering again this weekend though!
Another Lancashire defib box today!
(Coordinates 53°66’22.7″N, 2°77’51.8″W.)
Dad reports from his mapping that this one appears to have been moved at some point. Nevertheless, it’s been in the same place since at least March 2009 according to Street View. Only recently a defibrillator though!