It seems to have been a week for 5k races recently, all of them good for a nice change!
After a pretty savage hill session at the club second to last Tuesday (the 12th) I had a few days to recover and look at doing a mad few weeks of racing.
It started on the 16th at Newcastle Parkrun with a decent time of 22:52 considering how awful the weather conditions were. Results here
The I had the final VAANEE track & field meeting on Monday the 18th. This involved doing results, and a last bash at the 300m. It wasn't a pb, but at 56.8 it wasn't too shabby either. VAANEE #5 results here
Wednesday 20th saw my only targeted 5k of the year - Sunderland 5k. The start is a bit mental - like charge of the light brigade straight down hill, but the rest is a nice smooth lapped affair with nice scenery. I was hoping for a repeat of my previous two parkrun times (22:52 & 22:49) if I could keep things steady. As it happens I had a cracking run - felt pretty good and had a couple of targets to hang on to on the way round (thanks go to Andrea - PB Fitness, Paul West & Chris Watson of Sunderland Strollers, & Ian Bainbridge of Crook). They managed to drag me round to a pretty decent season's best of 22:15! Full results here
After the success of Sunderland 5k, I went back to the Town Moor on Saturday 23rd, for another crack at the parkrun. This time the course was ran in reverse - what a great idea! It's a great deal better getting the gravel section out of the way first, and I felt that even with the wind which is always present on the moor, everyone seemed to do better times.
My time was an almost perfect copy of the Sunderland time at 22:14 - which would have been another season's best had the course been accurate. Newcastle parkrun Sat 23rd results here
On Sunday I found out that there was a race on Monday 24th at Chester le Street, organised by Durham County Council. it was another 5k ! Though this time it was a trail race, and a bit more of a laid back affair. The course was very similar to the old CLS cross country course, with all of the twists and turns, then the run alongside the river. It was a two lap course, which I held the ladies lead for through lap one, but then three ladies passed me all pretty much at the same time, and I managed to hold on to 4th till the finish. No idea what my time was, but I'm guessing somewhere mid 23 mins - given how tired I was. I haven't managed to find any results for this one yet, but it's one of three races so I'll be keeping an eye out on the Durham Trail Race Series website. If anyone is interested the next of the 5k's is on the 3rd of August at Barnard Castle.
That was the end of my little mini-series of 5k's, but we did have 1500m reps on at the club on Tuesday 26th, so I did 3 of the 5 suggested - just to follow the trend ;) 6:35, 6:32, 6:33.
I'll not be attending tonight's 5k - the Elswick Cup, but good luck to all taking part!
Happy running folks
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