We were away from home (mostly near Newcastle) so my running was a little different from usual this week, although as has been the pattern for quite a few recent weeks, my running consisted of just two runs again.
On Thursday morning I did a slow (10:18 pace) 7 mile run along the Tyne Valley from Newburn to Wylam and back along a section of the Hadrian Cycleway. This was all very flat and on a good surface. I had spent quite a bit of the previous three days either sitting in a car or pounding around shopping centres so it was great to get a lot of tiredness out of my legs and get moving again.
On the way back home from Newcastle we split the journey, stopping on Friday night at Droitwich so that on Saturday morning I did the Worcester Woods Parkrun (5k). This was my first piece of Parkrun tourism. The course was certainly flatter than the Plym Valley Parkrun but it was tricky at times. First, with over 350 runners the start was very congested and I had to work hard to move myself through the pack so that I could run freely. The route then did two loops skirting around and through a patch of woodland on a path that was very windy, rather narrow for the number of runners and not without the occasional hazard underfoot (e.g. tree-roots). The first half of each loop was more downhill such that the second half was quite a stiff climb. On emerging from the woods for the last time the finish was a downhill sprint across a field for a couple of hundred metres. I ran hard all the way round, looking for a new 5k PB, and so I was pleased to come in at 23m08s (7:29 pace), 46 seconds under my best time for the Plym Valley Parkrun. One interesting statistic was that I completed the two loops of the woods in almost identical times – 10:08m and 10:09m – so I was obviously running very consistently throughout the race which is pleasing.
Tim O'Hare 