The Saturday before last, being home in Newcastle for the first time in a few weeks, I went to Denton Dene for the third time. Based on previous runs there I was expecting to run about 25 minutes, but surprised myself with an all-time PB – 23:26! I wasn’t even concentrating on time during the run, I just knew I was on for first lady and was trying not to let the second lady catch up with me! Really pleased as that is not an easy course. I did suffer a bit with my asthma for the rest of the day though – my lungs worked really hard for that one!
With various Benchies and other friends after the run. Photo from Alice at TMBR.
Went for a slightly steadier effort at Leazes this past Saturday – managed a good solid 24:29, which was still a course PB by a few seconds. I found it quite busy, but I’m sure it’ll return to normal once Town Moor returns next week. No photo as I forgot to take one.
Still to decide on my parkrun venue for this coming Saturday!
Another Scottish parkrunday and another slight lie-in for the 9:30am start, as Geth and I were visiting Mum and Dad at their caravan! This parkrun event in Castle Douglas hadn’t yet started last time we were visiting, so it was good to ‘complete’ the Dumfries and Galloway parkruns once again. Not too far a journey from the caravan as well!
Geth and I were in our Carter USM running tops as the Carter Facebook page was trying to get as many ‘Carter tops at parkrun’ pictures as possible this last weekend! They got over 120 in the end from 101 different parkrun events, I believe.
Representing! Photo from Dad.
It was fun to bump into some folks from Carlisle whom I recognised from the Cowfest Troon bus trip last month, as well as somebody we knew from Town Moor parkrun back home!
It’s not a super fast course (too much on grass for my liking and lots of humps and inclines), but I gave it a good go and managed a very respectable 24:26, including a sprint finish thanks to the lovely guy behind me who was shouting at me not to let him beat me!
Last push! Photo from Dad.
A few quieter weeks coming up now so I’ll be visiting parkruns in my local area again.
I’m always excited to do a new-to-me parkrun! Especially in my homeland of Scotland, where I have so many links all over the place via family and friends. Somehow, though, I’d never done any of the parkruns in Glasgow. As I was in the city this last weekend to act as groomsperson for my old friend Sharpy at his wedding, it was time for that to change!
I chose Ruchill as it was the closest to our hotel in the city centre, though still a good mile and a half to walk. Geth was taking it easy due to his lingering Achilles injury, and I realised as soon as I clocked the slightly hilly course that it certainly wouldn’t be my fastest – though I did end up a bit quicker than I expected.
It was a lovely course with a great city view at the top, which you get to see three times due to the laps. The team were really friendly and I was surprised the field was so small (60 people) – I’d be interested to find out if that’s standard for parkruns in the city.
I’m not sure when we’ll be back as I intend to collect a few more Glasgow parkruns when I find myself there, but if I were ever in a position to repeat I’d definitely do this one again!
It felt like it took a while, but on 7th July I got to the final 10k race of my summer speed training block!
I wasn’t expecting or trying for a PB. I was already delighted with my 48:57 at Sunderland in May – I’d never expected to get sub-49 this year – and so I felt like I’d achieved everything I wanted to at this distance for 2024. Besides, the GN10k is a difficult course these days – a downhill start to the river (the same downhill start as the GNR) that of course needs to come back up as we travel through town and return to the Town Moor. Then of course there’s the horrible gravel section at the end that slows everyone right down. It’s not the best race and I expect I’ll be taking a break from it for a couple of years (though I may still make use of the very convenient running shoe recycling point that they provided in the race village on the Moor).
Nevertheless, I was hoping for consistency, as I’ve been doing around 50 minutes for all my 10k races this year. I was delighted to be in the orange wave at a Great Run event for the first time in my life (the fast laddies’ wave, as I used to think of it when I was stuck at the back in pink) and I wanted to enjoy it. Once upon a time (2016) I came last in this race out of thousands of people. It’s been a long journey.
It was a long walk down Claremont Road from the race village to the start – much longer than expected – and so it was a bit of a tight thing to get into the pen before the race started! That was probably a good thing, though, as I hate all the hanging around and the mass warmup. We were off before I knew it.
I decided not to stick with the 50 pacer on the downhill to the Tyne, as it’s really a race where you have to use the hills. I knew he’d catch up with me at some point. I was impressed that we had enough room on the Tyne Bridge for the out-and-back, as they’ve been doing long-term works on the bridge – a tentatively good sign for the main event in September, I hope.
The many twists and turns on the route meant that I often saw friends going in the other direction, which was a nice distraction! It started to get really tough in the second half with all the deceptive hidden uphills and then the gravel paths on the Moor. The 50 pacer caught me with about a mile and a half to go and there was no way I could stick with him, so I knew even before I finished it was going to be a season’s worst. 51:17 was the result. Still relatively consistent and over 10 minutes faster than my course PB from last year, so I’ll take it.
A bit of a party atmosphere at the end, and it did really feel like the end of a season!
A few pics with friends before and after!
I won’t do as many 10ks next year – probably just one or two. I was starting to get race fatigue this year, and I’d like to come back refreshed to some of these races in a few years’ time. Hopefully by 2025 I’ll be excited to take on the distance again!
In the meantime, though, I’m back to marathon training (for Yorkshire in October), which really is my happy place at the moment. Looking forward to getting some peaceful long runs in.
I was volunteering this last weekend as I had a Sunday race. I’d signed up as funnel manager but ended up as number checker instead, which is always fun and can be a bit hectic!
It was a PB attempt and I hadn’t attempted an overall PB in some time (my overall PB as it stood was three months old and also set at Blyth). It was meant to be a PB attempt for both me and Geth, but he’s been injured the last couple of weeks and so he just did a walk for one lap.
I wanted a sub-24, my existing PB being 24:05. It was pacer week, but I didn’t make a decision in advance about whether to use the 24 pacer, as parkrun pacers don’t always pace steadily. However, the pacer on the day was doing a really good job, so I decided to sit on his heels for a while and see how it went.
The conditions were great (it had been really windy last time we were there, which is always a risk with coastal parkruns) and I actually found the pace really comfortable. I was tempted to step it up a gear to see how fast I could go, but decided to play it safe and stick with the pacer.
This meant that I had a really steady and comfortable run and plenty of energy for a sprint finish at the end. I finished in 23:43, feeling like I could do it even faster in the future. A really positive run!
New PB glow 🙂
A bit of pre-race volunteering this next week, and then some exploration later in July.
I did a bit of ‘proper’ parkrun tourism the Saturday before last! It was the Cowfest tourist gathering in Troon and I had never been to one before. I wouldn’t travel that far on my own just for a parkrun, and indeed have never travelled further than my local area just for a parkrun (I always combine my touring with trips that I’d be doing anyway), but there was a coach trip being organised from northeast England… so I thought I’d go along and see what it was all about!
I had to be up in the middle of the night to be ready for my booked taxi to the coach pickup point! I thought the taxi driver would find my explanation for the early taxi to be a bit odd but he’d dealt with parkrun tourists before (usually people getting early flights to Ireland).
The cow had travelled from northeast England on the coach too!
It was a long old coach trip (leaving Newcastle at 4:30am) but seeing the seaside at Troon was a lovely feeling. We had a bit of time to get our bearings and take pictures before the briefing, and soon we were off for a lovely flat and fast course along the front. Love a seaside parkrun.
Following the obligatory cake, I joined friends for a bit of an explore of the cafes and pubs of Troon (and saw a pipe band!) before heading back to the coach for another few hours of trying not to fall asleep.
Unfortunately I was a bit unwell for a few days after Troon, so I probably wouldn’t do such a long coach trip in one day again. Would love to do some shorter trips though – it’s a nice way to see different places and make friends.
I was much more local this last weekend! Geth and I had planned to go away, but as I hadn’t been well we decided to stay home. As such, it was an easy run around Rising Sun, practising my 30 minute pacing for when I next do it at Town Moor.
More familiar environs.
Feeling better now, so planning a PB attempt this next weekend… fingers crossed!
On 9th June, I was back at this atmospheric race for another year!
Bit of a stressful start due to the unreliability of the Tyne and Wear Metro – two cancelled trains and one delayed one meant that it was a sprint from Central Station to the Gateshead end of the Millennium Bridge to make the bag drop on time. A warmup, certainly… but far from an ideal one!
Pre-race. Photo from TMBR.
This was followed by a good hour of hanging about before the race start, but there were lots of friends to chat to and the time passed quite smoothly. We were away not too long after the scheduled start (I’ve seen much worse delays at Blaydon) and it was time to focus on keeping pace. My aim was to take a full 10 minutes off my time from the previous year, which was feasible based on recent performances.
I didn’t feel as sharp as I would have liked during the race – I think this is partly that I’m just not an evening runner and always find it a bit of a struggle that late in the day. I really did feel like I was flagging towards the end and didn’t have any energy left to speed up. Sadly, I just missed out on my ‘full 10 minutes off’ goal by 12 seconds 🙁 but 9 minutes and 48 seconds off is still pretty good!
Post-race celebrations! Photo from TMBR.
I think it’ll be my last Blaydon for a while (unless the FOMO gets to be too much around entry time next year) as I’d like to come back to it in a few years with (hopefully) renewed appreciation.
Onto the last race of the summer speed training block next…
A week after the Newcastle-Gateshead 10k, on 12th May, I was racing again – in Sunderland this time. This is the second year in a row I’ve doubled up on these 10ks and I almost certainly won’t be doing it again next year. My spring 2025 A race will be the Edinburgh Half Marathon at the end of May and so I’ll be trying to avoid filling up my training block with too many fast 10k efforts!
It was a nice morning out as I was travelling to and from the race with several other Benchies on the Metro. I always like Sunderland as I always get a PB there – it does have a few small hills but I find it to be a fast course with a good start and not too much congestion once you get into it.
As this is an Events of the North race, Steve Cram is the race director, and just wanders around in his hi-vis doing all the normal race director stuff on the day. Runners unfamiliar with the race are often a bit taken aback by this and a bit starstruck – you hear a lot of audible gasps of recognition when he comes down to lead the runners out to the start line!
We started relatively close to the front and I was able to get away in a fairly speedy manner on the heels of the fast laddies. My first couple of miles were too fast – 7:20ish min mile pace – and I ended up doing a 5k PB at the halfway split, which is never a good thing in a 10k! I faded pretty hard but held on as much as I could for the second half, managing to get over the line in 48:57 official time. (My watch said 49:03 and I thought ‘ahhh, next time’… but then I got the results text a few seconds later!) That’s a 37-second PB following the North Tyneside 10k in March, so I was really happy!
Club photo at the finish.
I have two more races during this training block – the 5.8-mile Blaydon Race (tomorrow as of this writing!) and the Great North 10k in early July. I’ll give them my best shot (in particular, Sunderland has given me the confidence to go for it and try and take a full 10 minutes off my Blaydon time from last year), but even if I don’t get another PB at the GN10k, I think I can still be pretty happy with a sub-49 for this season. We’ll see what happens.
