We were diverted again on the way to Colne this week and finally managed to grab the Nidderdale phone box!
(Coordinates 54°07’34.3″N, 1°82’31.3″W.)
It’s in the middle of absolute nowhere but I was still genuinely surprised to find it has a phone in!
Another from this diversion next week (assuming we manage to grab it tomorrow).
Another week, another Town Moor. But I really struggled this week – I put the same effort in as my recent fast runs, but was nowhere near pace. I’ve had a very intense few days of game-making for a community challenge, and I think the lack of sleep and long hours have resulted in a lot of fatigue. I’ll try again in a few weeks after the GNR.
Not 100% decided on next week yet but it won’t be a super fast effort.
It was our friend Marie’s 100th parkrun today so we went to the Moor again. It was also a good test to see where my fitness was after a few weeks of building back the mileage.
Answer: surprisingly good! Took 23 seconds off the season’s best for a 25:03. Hoping to dip under 25 next time (which will likely be next week as both Geth and I are appreciating the opportunity to run a bit harder on the flat at the moment).
Still a long way from my 23:2x PB zone, but really happy to be whittling it down again.
We passed this phone box while out on the road in Dumfries and Galloway last week. Mum and Dad didn’t think they’d sent me this one before, but it turns out they had done so three years ago!
It’s still pretty unloved-looking and now has a removal notice inside 😢 but it’s surviving for now…
It was pacer week at Town Moor today and I hadn’t paced all year, I don’t think. I paced 27 minutes last time I did it (about a year ago?) and I’m currently a teensy bit slower because an injury threw a spanner in the works at the start of the year. Nevertheless I’m currently running Town Moor in 25:xx whenever I properly go for it so I thought 27 would be just about doable.
(And also it was the only slot left in the high 20s.)
(And also 27 used to be Ed’s pacer slot, and he always used to tell me I shouldn’t be pacing 30-odd like I was doing back then because I could do a lot better than that.)
So I signed up for 27 and hoped that the forecast would be right about it cooling down after a hot few days. Thankfully, it was. 8:40 min miles felt genuinely comfortable (why is that only ever the case at parkrun?) and I had to stay focused in order to keep it slow enough in the last half mile or so to hit the time goal. 26:59 and in total control the whole way. Delighted with that.
No idea about next week yet but it’ll be local.
I broke my eight-year Phone Box Thursday streak a few weeks ago. After writing my tribute to Ed, I couldn’t face blogging again that day. So no more random hiatus posts when I don’t have any phone boxes to write about, which is quite likely a relief to readers as well as to me. Since I returned from Canada in May I have gradually developed a new tradition of ‘Doughnut Thursdays’, so going forward I will likely mix phone box posts with doughnut reviews. I’m on a real doughnut kick at the moment and have tried a lot of them.
This week, however, I do have a phone box to write about. We found it while running Keswick parkrun last Saturday. Keswick parkrun is an out-and-back, which meant I had a bit of time to think about it and decide that, yes, I could quickly stop for a photo of the phone box on the way back and still manage to catch up with Geth.
(Coordinates 54°60’71.4N, 3°10’71.9″W.)
I didn’t have time to look at it during parkrun, but there appears to be a café sandwich board being kept in this phone box, so maybe a local business is using it for storage.
Another box from our trip next week!
Geth and I first visited Keswick last summer, just as a nice stop between family visits in Lancashire and Dumfries and Galloway. We planned a similar ‘family rounds’ trip this year and this time made sure our Keswick stop was a Friday night so that we could try the parkrun out.
Due to the locality, I expected it to be very tourist-heavy (which it was) and very hilly (which it was not). It’s a lovely fast course and Geth (currently nursing a slight injury) is really excited to come back again next year and give it a proper go.
Back to the local ones from next week.
The South Shields 10 Mile has been on my race bucket list for a long time. Probably since before I did my first North Tyneside 10k in 2021, because I remember I used to get them mixed up. I’m trying to do more new-to-me local races at the moment rather than the same old ones every year, so I decided to make 2026 the year. This was well timed, as it turned out to be the 10th anniversary edition of the race.
Quite a few Benchies had the same idea, so we had a good turnout.
I was hoping for a big 10 mile PB, as I hadn’t raced the distance since the Yorkshire 10 Mile in 2018. I was talking about it with Geth beforehand, and I reckon that on current form, I could do about 1:30 on a flat road course. I knew the South Shields course wasn’t a flat road course, but I didn’t expect it to be quite as ‘interesting’ as it was! The first mile or so is a traily section across grass and through brambles, with lots of single-file paths that slow everyone down. After that follows a couple of big laps of the chalky gravel/grassy paths that feature on the South Shields parkrun course (including some precarious steps that I don’t recall being part of the parkrun) and a semi-respite along the tarmac as you run the last mile of the GNR in reverse. (I never realised the last mile of the GNR was downhill before!) After the second lap there’s a final stretch back along the tarmac then onto the grass again to finish at Souter Lighthouse. There were quite a few points where I wondered what on earth I was doing there in my carbons, but I was glad of them on the tarmac sections!
I finished in 1:38:08. Nine-minute PB, and I was pretty pleased with that on a tough course. It gives me a good benchmark for when I return to the Yorkshire 10 Mile in autumn 2027!
Back to it with the metric marathon training, then. Next B-race is the GNR in just under six weeks’ time… I’ll try and remember to feel the downhill during mile 13 now I know it’s there!
