Watergate 10k, Newcastle parkrun, NE Athletics 3000m @ Monkton

Morning Campers :)

Got a few more race reports to add to the cyberspace clutter ;)

Sunday 30th May: Watergate 10k 2010

It's a funny race this one, I normally spend the entire race wondering why the hell I'm there, then after I'm thinking how much I enjoyed it. Yesterday was no different. The hills in this one are pretty savage, but a year between this time and last seemed to make me forget just how bad they were.

I met up with a couple of the Jarrow lads before the race and with Stewart - a friendly rival from several local races (we tend to do the cat & mouse thing throughout the race). Watched the juniors set off on their 2k run with Stewart running it as a warm up with his son (who did very well). Then set about doing my own warm up in the rain. It wasn't really heavy but there was a bit of a chill to it so I opted to keep my long sleeved top on under my club vest.

The whistle went off and I set about keeping a fairly steady pace (being careful with my ankle), all went pretty well for the first 5k, I lost a bit of ground on the hills, but managed to claw it back on the downhill sections. As we turned into the wood Stewart shouted at me to catch up from a switchback & about 200m ahead. I did try to respond then, but we were on one of those long drag uphill sections and my legs were really starting to curse at me for the effort. Once we made it off the main path and onto the woodland trails I really picked up the pace and started to enjoy myself. There's something about not running on gravel or pavement, just pine needles & hard earth which is really nice - a bit spongy like a running track.

We crossed a few bridges during the race, but had to actually run through the stream at one point. I kind of just 'went for it' like doing cross country, and was well on my way to catching up with Stewart and the guy who was chasing him. By 7k I'd caught the guy, and about 7.5k I'd caught S. just as we came back onto the paths and the big downhill back to the lake. We then had to tackle the big hill again where I lost ground again. Quite a toughy and I almost started walking near the top, but a bit of encouragement from the marshal there spurred me back on.

Stewart was now chasing a guy from Jarrow, and I was chasing him. I knew my time was rubbish by now, but was just wanting to finish without the girl I knew was only about 400m behind me catching up. The guy who I passed in the woods was also chasing, so I put on a bit of an effort on the last hill as we turned round to come down the flat straigh to the finish. I caught Stewart again, but told him to press on, as the guy who was chasing us caught up and flew past. Came through to the finish in a rather disappointing time, but with the hills I wasn't too unhappy.

Will post a link to results when they're available.

I had to dash off to go to work afterwards, but wish I'd been able to hang around for the presentation as I'd won 1st L35 :D

Saturday 29th May : Newcastle parkrun

I turned up for a job I was doing at 7:50am only to find out that the shop I was doing was closed for 3 days for essential maintenance, so since I was too late to get myself over to Sunderland, I opted to do Newcastle parkrun. I'd read on their facebook update that it was a picnic style event and fancy dress was optional, so I quickly grabbed my scissors, savaged a pretty pink dress and dusted off my fairy wings. It was nice to see that a few folks had dressed up too, but it was bloomin' freezing so I musta looked a bit nutty standing on the moor jumping from side to side in a dress.

After a bit of a chat with a few folks I know (and a guy I hadn't seen for years whose lost 8st since I saw him last - amazing stuff, well done Scott!), we bimbled over to the start. I wasn't really aiming for a time, but just wanted to get round fairly briskly so I could get back and get my long sleeved top back on.

I had a pretty canny run, the dress didn't hamper my stride too much, and it was all over in 22:49 - scarily a quicker race than last week at Sunderland ...what's that all about :S

I mustn't be putting enough effort in normally if I can get round the same time or quicker in a dress. Bizarrely it was my quickest ever time on that course by a good 30 seconds too. Maybe I should consider doing all races in fancy dress.

Full results are here

Really enjoyed the sushi & flapjacks afterwards too!!

Not the most flattering of images - but you get the idea (thanks to Lesley for the piccie and for securely attaching my wings)

Wednesday 26th May - North East Athletics League 3000m

I decided to do this one as a bit of a spur of the moment job on Tuesday night, as I actually didn't know it was on till then. I blame Alan Wears entirely ;) I turned up at around 6:30 (as I didn't know the start time) only to find out that there was a good chance my race wouldn't get going till at least 8:30pm, then add into that the power cut that the stadium had, and the record attendance, I should have brought a deck chair, comfy blanket and a flask :S

Still, it was really good watching all of the other events (hope the guy who fell in the hurdles is okay!) and the Jimmy Hedley Cup 800m runners were fantastic. It was actually 9:10pm when my race got started, by this time I was bloody freezing, and all thoughts of a decent time were thrown out the window. Since there were only 5 ladies we went in with the men's race (or we may have been there all night) and the only thought that got me round the 7.5 laps was that I hadn't had anything to eat since 2ish, and there was a good chance that Andy had ordered Chinese.

So with the carrot Chinese & stick mental image, we lined up and set off. I was expecting to get lapped, but I was also in last place (by quite a margin) by the 400m mark, so it was just a mental will thing that kept me going. I was trying to keep a nice steady pace and not get slower every lap, even though the leaders went past not two but three times :S At least the leading lady one went past the once :P

By the time I was on my last lap pretty much everyone else had finished, I had 250m to go and I was the only one left running, but I stuck with it and ran through to the end. Surprisingly I'd managed a better time than all of last years 3ks (13:14) so I was over the moon with that.

Results from the powerof10 website : excel sheet

That concludes this weeks racing efforts...happy running folks!