Another week of the fair on the Town Moor meant another week of no Newcastle parkrun, so Geth and I took ourselves off to the coast for Whitley Bay parkrun this morning.
I’d done Whitley Bay once before, last summer, on a morning where it was pouring with rain (and of course we arrived forty minutes early and had to shelter against the wall of a tiny hut near the start). Geth had just come along for support on that occasion, as he was recovering from a broken toe, so today was his first parkrun at Whitley Bay. For me, meanwhile, while it was my second run there, the course this summer is so different that it was like running it for the first time again.
This is largely because last summer, the front at Whitley Bay was mostly taken up with works, and so large parts of it were closed off. As such, the finish funnel is now in a completely different place, and you get a straight sprint finish along the front – unfortunately, if you’re not familiar with the course, it’s difficult to time when you should start sprinting! I’ll know better next time. Hopefully they won’t move the finish again.
Newcastle parkrun was off this morning – that happens on several occasions every summer because of fairs and other events taking place on the Town Moor – so I took the opportunity to visit Rising Sun parkrun, which I hadn’t done since last year. (Geth was visiting his family in Lancashire, so he was off doing the notorious hill at Pendle parkrun. That’s a discussion for another day!)
I was at Rising Sun twice last year – running once, volunteering once – and back then they were still doing a double-lap loop in the middle of the course, which required a lot of sticking-to-the-correct-lane. However, when the Beast from the East hit the UK, they apparently had to change the course so that it was all one lap, and they found it so much more efficient that they kept it like that. Today was my first time running the new course, and I have to say it was so much better. It’s a lovely route, and I was enjoying it so much that I barely checked my watch for distance. I was bang on 33:00 as well, which is not bad considering I’ve been too busy to run for the last couple of weeks!
There was a bit of congestion at the start, but that’s to be expected when it’s much busier than usual, which it always is when Newcastle’s not running. As such, I’d quite like to go back on a week when it’s quieter, as I think I could get a really good time.
I’m back in Newcastle again, for a good long while now! I’ve spent the last three days at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham, which has been a brilliant weekend. Geth and I went for the first time last year, but I think this year was even better, largely because we were able to travel down on the Thursday and have the full three days.
Sharpy came down on the Wednesday to play boardgames and drink beer with Geth (I did not partake in either, as I was furiously stockpiling Now! reviews for the weekend and being super careful with my diet in a last-ditch attempt to hit target – it worked, as I may have already mentioned). After I got back from Slimming World on Thursday – stopping briefly for a quick hen do lunch for my fellow SW member Alison – we all piled into Sharpy’s car and headed off down to Birmingham.
What was great about arriving on the Thursday was that after we checked into the Hilton and got unpacked, we were able to head across to the NEC and get our three-day passes without having to queue for more than a minute or so. We then headed across to Resorts World for food. Because of all the people arriving in the complex for two conventions plus various other things going on, we had to wait half an hour for a table at Pizza Express, but we were able to grab a quick pint in TGI Friday while we were waiting – and I bought my first boardgame of the weekend, a copy of vintage ’80s game Nightmare On Elm Street, which is (obviously) a tie-in with the film of the same name. A fairly good condition copy had shown up on eBay for a tenth of the price that it normally goes for, so in the spirit of the Expo I decided to go for it!
After the meal, we headed back to the NEC for a game of Sonar in one of the halls, and then to the Ibis on the other side of the complex to meet up with Heulwen and Laura (Geth’s sister and sister-in-law) and various other friends. Unfortunately, when we decided to head back, it was too late to get back through the NEC as it was closed, so we had to walk right round the outside of the complex. It took forty-five minutes, and at one point there was a torrential rainstorm. Not fun. When we finally got back to the Hilton, Geth and Sharpy went for a drink in the hotel bar, but I was knackered so I went straight to bed.
Friday morning proved that we had made the right decision in showing up on the Thursday evening – the queues for passes were just ridiculous! As we already had ours, we were able to go straight in, which was great. The morning was mainly spent investigating all the stalls in the main hall and then going shopping. I bought a few things – Mamma Mia, HMS Dolores, various geekery-themed scented candles and a cheap but important D20 (its function is to help with future dice-buying decisions) – but my main aim was to make a list of all the stuff I wanted to get on the Sunday. Geth, meanwhile, spent pretty much all his spending money in the space of ninety minutes. I went outside to meet him and Sharpy for lunch and found them sitting on a bench surrounded by bags and bags of games. I’ve got some serious reorganising of the game shelves to do this week.
Friday afternoon was spent chilling out and having a go at some new games in the open gaming room back at the Hilton, before heading through to the suite on the other side of the Hilton lobby to see the MMORPG Live show. We’d seen Knightmare Live last year, and this was done by the same guy, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good – there was too much audience participation for my liking, and by the end I was getting really irritated by the sound of fifty or so people all thinking they were funnier than they actually were.
Back to the open gaming room for the rest of the evening – it was great that so many people we knew were able to come and join us at our bit of trestle table. Due to a longer-than-expected game of Lords Of Waterdeep, Geth and I weren’t able to get quite as much of an early night as we’d planned, but five hours of sleep is better than nothing, and in the morning we dragged ourselves out to Perry Hall parkrun and got some exercise in.
Once back at the NEC, we met up with Sharpy and his girlfriend Steph (who had arrived on Friday evening) and we all had a quick go at a prototype of a game called Chocolate Factory, which was quite fun. We then split up and did a bit more shopping – I picked up Ghostel, some more dice, and a print of some Stormtrooper art for the house, and Geth got some paintbrushes and a board for his planned new hobby of miniatures painting – and then went for lunch, met up with Sharpy and Steph again, and headed back to the Hilton open gaming room to settle in for the afternoon and evening. Geth managed to go see the This Game Is Broken show, and we got lots and lots of gaming in with lots and lots of people before the late-night The Dark Room Until You Die show. We all made it until the interval at about half past midnight, at which point I think everyone drifted back to their various hotels for some sleep.
This morning, I went and did my big shopping haul – Timeline: Music And Cinema, some expensive-but-beautiful wooden inserts for all the Eldritch Horror expansions that we now have, another gorgeous piece of artwork for the house, some more dice (I have a problem) and a portable rubber dice tray that says ‘UK Games Expo 2018’ on it. Geth, meanwhile, went and talked to lots of game designers about games that he will probably buy at some point in the near future.
Then we went back to the hotel, got all of our luggage and piles of games down to Sharpy’s car and packed away in the boot, had some lunch in the sunshine, and drove back to Newcastle. It’s been a great weekend, but it is good to be home. With our massive haul of stuff.
That is a big pile of games. Reorganising the game shelves will be a job for tomorrow.
Will we be back next year? Well, put it this way: Geth’s already booking the hotel. We’ll see you there.
This morning, Geth and I were able to go to one of our favourite parkruns in the UK – Perry Hall. It’s a lovely three-lap course with interesting out-and-back sections on the second and third lap, so every lap is a new adventure!
It’s also quite a small parkrun – 156 runners this morning – although I think it is getting bigger, as there were only about 120 when we last ran it about a year ago. The way the course is set up is really well designed, though, and you don’t really get sections where there are huge amounts of runners lapping each other.
I finished in 33 mins 33 secs, which is not bad for a boozy, foody weekend! Love this parkrun – will definitely be back again next year.
Looking forward to wearing this out – I’m hoping to have time for a wee shakeout run this week before the next race, but if not, I’ll be wearing it at Perry Hall parkrun (my favourite parkrun I’ve tried so far) in a couple of weeks!
I’m still taken up with my intense work project, so I’m never really sure what day of the week it is at the moment – but the good news is that this is the last week of it. I’ve still got a lot to do, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel now.
I’m really looking forward to next weekend, as having time to myself on Saturday afternoon will be amazing (volunteering at parkrun on Saturday morning and then racing in Sunderland on Sunday), but I think it’s Monday 14th that will be the nicest, as I’ll be able to have a lie-in for the first time in about five weeks!
Another good parkrun this morning (not as good as Geth’s, whose broken running watch was apparently the lucky charm that finally got him a sub-25, but still good).
I was 52 seconds slower than last week, but as it was very warm and there were vast amounts of people out on the Moor today, I can’t complain. Still on track for a good result at Sunderland next week!
Well, it’s been a while (since 15th July 2017, when I absolutely killed myself bombing it round Newcastle Town Moor to run 32:29), but I’ve finally got a new parkrun PB!
I ran 31:46 this morning. I did push myself, but I didn’t go completely flat out, so I know I could do even better in the future. I probably won’t push for it next week, as I don’t want to run too hard the week before the Sunderland 10k, but hopefully over the summer I will be able to get down to sub-30 minutes.
Now for a few slow, steady runs leading up to Sunderland!
I’ve been back at parkrun for a few weeks now, and excitingly, everything seems to be going in the right direction. Today, my time was 32:59, which is only 30 seconds off my PB of 32:29, which I set last summer. I didn’t feel I was hugely pushing myself today, either, so I bet I can get close to that PB again soon, and hopefully get it down further this year!
This is not bad at all, considering I had such a poor winter of training. It’s amazing what weight loss can do for your speed – I’ve felt, in the last year, like I’ve been getting much better without even trying. Hopefully those last few pounds that I still need to drop will speed me up even more!
I did parkrun this morning, for the first time in a couple of months. Between the move and the weather, I’ve just not been feeling like running at all since late January, so it was nice to get back to it. Lovely day too, and it was perfect running conditions.
I’m hoping that we’ve seen the end of the bad winter weather now, though there are a lot of ominous rumours about a white Easter next weekend. I sincerely hope it’s not, as Geth and I are visiting the in-laws and the last thing we need is Christmas-style travel disruption.
With the clocks going forward tonight, it would be nice if it could just be spring weather from now on. Fingers crossed!
