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.
Lovely setting for a parkrun!
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.
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.
Team pic at the start. Photo from Alice Munday.
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!
Medal pic with the lighthouse. Photo by Alice Munday.
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!
No photo today as they’re all slightly awful (moreso than usual haha).
I gave it a good go today, tried to keep up with a few people I knew, and made it round the Moor a minute faster than I did a fortnight ago. No post-parkrun lung ache this time either! I hope this means a couple of weeks of actually having time to run more than a mile most days has improved my fitness a bit. We’ll keep going and see how I get on over the next few weeks.
Not fully decided on next week yet but leaning towards Jesmond Dene.
(RunThrough, who organise the event, like to call this one the ‘Newcastle Half Marathon’, which is the worst name in the world given that (a) it’s 95% out in the countryside and (b) there’s already a much much much more famous half marathon that starts in Newcastle. I will call it what everyone in the local area actually calls it, which is the Kingston Park half.)
I wasn’t expecting much going into this race. Training has been near-nonexistent the last few weeks for reasons I won’t go into, and like most people, I don’t run well in the heat. It was nowhere near as hot today as it has been in recent weeks, and certainly not as hot as it is down south, but 18 degrees at 9am is still too warm for an ideal running performance and we most definitely felt it out there on the unshaded asphalt. So, excuses in early, let’s go.
The 10k and half marathon runners start together, self-seeding by appropriate pace. The first three miles leading up to the 10k turnaround point (or at least the last mile or so of that stretch once the fast lads start coming back the other way) are actually interesting, as you can watch out for 10k runners you know (although in my case today that was Geth and Geth only, as all the other 10k runners I knew were behind me). After the 10kers left us it was a bit lonelier – just a few quiet half marathoners around me as we plodded further up the road and around the midway lollipop section. Still, I prefer that to over-congestion like we had in Toronto.
As I had decided very early on that it was far too hot for any heroics and I just needed to keep it steady and consistent, I genuinely really enjoyed most of the running. The only big issue I had was that when I grabbed my nutrition flask of Tailwind for the second time at mile six, I found it had emptied itself (this is a longstanding problem that I now accept will have to be solved by purchasing new flasks), and so I was completely reliant on the water stations for the rest of the race – not ideal on a hot day, and of course it also meant I wasn’t taking in the usual planned calories. Another issue was some bad road texture around mile nine that meant I could feel every painful spot and developing blister through my carbons, but in general there wasn’t much to complain about on this course – even the promised hills weren’t that noticeable. Strangely, even though I was a bit slower, I found the race was absolutely flying by compared to the last half I did in Toronto.
That all ended at mile twelve. Mile twelve was the most brutal mile twelve I have ever experienced in a half marathon. It felt like it took longer to run than the whole of the eleven miles leading up to it! It was just so long and empty and unshaded and the heat was getting hotter and all my late-race energy that had surprised me during miles ten and eleven had just dissipated.
Mile thirteen was okay again though. I knew from a glance at the watch that sub-2 was off the table so I didn’t bother stepping it up – just cruised in and was surprised by the finish line arriving quicker than expected.
So no season’s best today, for a few reasons. I am still proud of a steady and consistent performance given the circumstances 🎉
One of the charming things about RunThrough events is that anyone can stand on the podium afterwards for a photo op 😊
Some takeaways:
While I’m not ruling out summer races forever because they do have a lovely atmosphere about them, I might give them a miss again next year.
I can’t wait to get started on my next training block, which will contain two B races leading up to my autumn A race at Chester Metric Marathon. It starts tomorrow with day 1 of a recovery week, and then I can start building up from week 2. I’ll be doing a few things differently this time, such as lots of steady pace runs, hill sessions and summer runexploring.
Other than the stupid flask, I do feel I’ve cracked the nutrition-related nausea issue I was having last year. I’ll keep an eye on things as I build up (hopefully) towards a spring marathon in 2027.
I feel the 1:50 half goal is too ambitious for my one remaining half this year (the GNR), especially as that’s now a B race, and so I’ll likely be targeting a return to 1:55ish instead. As such, the aforementioned spring marathon may not be a sub-4 attempt (if you’ve been following along, you’ll remember the sub-4 marathon is my primary long-term goal) but instead a sub-4:05 or sub-4:10 attempt as a stepping stone along the way. This decision will largely depend on what happens at Chester, where my goal is to maintain sub-4 marathon pace (9ish min miles) for the whole 16 miles.
Next B race is in three weeks’ time, where I’m all but guaranteed a PB due to not having raced the distance since 2018… but you never know, so I can’t be complacent! Lots of work to do, but it’s fun work.
Volunteering this morning to save legs before a race tomorrow. A busy event at Jesmond Dene (384 finishers, on the high side) but the timekeeping itself went well!
Next week I’ll be on my new training plan, which I haven’t actually drawn up yet, so no idea whether I’ll be attempting a fast one or not. High likelihood I’ll be back in the Dene though.
I’ve been too busy with work this week to fit in much running, so salvaged things to an extent this morning with a parkrun sandwich. Zero energy but I got it done!
Third JD in a row between running and volunteering. Big difference in temperature from last week (when I almost wished I’d brought my gloves for timekeeping) – it was a bit tough in the heat today!
