South Shields parkrun

The Leas, Saturday, April 20, 2013

Adam Walker

Karin and I arrived to beautiful weather conditions on the coast and a spectacular view. From a deserted promenade at 8.25 to swarms of runners at 8.45, this looked like it was going to be big. I had originally target this as a PB attempt but rumours of it being ‘deceptively undulating’ and open to wind were putting severe doubts in my mind.

Adam legging it to another PB ...
photo courtesy and © Mick Durnion

1st Mile: Along the promenade, in third place, and onto the coastal paths, lost a place by taking the wrong side of a barrier before a left hand turn onto the coastal path but quickly made up ground to move into second place. The only major hill in the race then followed, drove the arms, job’s a good’un. 1m – 5:37(5:37/m) – 94cal – 10.68/13.75mph

2nd Mile: 10s gap between 1st ahead of me and 10 second gap behind, was even thinking about my foot at the moment, no pain whatsoever. Still going ok, feeling the legs a big more but manage to drag out a decent mile split. I wish I’d looked left at this point to the wonderful views of the sun reflecting on the sea, might have taken my mine off my legs. 1m – 5:48(5:48/m) – 94cal – 10.34/13.99mph

3rd Mile: The last mile of the great north run, fast, flat and an even tarmac surface. I’d been looking forward to this bit to power down this final straight, but the energy wasn’t in the legs. I used to do mile race’s along this stretch with NE fetchies with my best time standing at 5.32, I wasn’t too far off that. 3) 1m – 5:38(5:38/m) – 94cal – 10.64/13.1mph

Last 0.12: No one chasing me down and not possible to catch 1st place with these legs. 4) 0.12m – 37(5:13/m) – 11cal – 11.5/14.34mph

Crossing the line in 17.40 by my watch, a 2 second PB! No idea how I’ve done that, but this is a lovely parkrun, the view whilst I was collapsed on the floor was lovely. On a disappointing note, this is my 5th second place finish in 5 previous attempts. The only way is up though.

Louise looked strong coming in not too far away from her PB on a day when heat made the work a bit harder, despite the lovely course and cracking views. Other runners were Kevin, Mark, Alister, Geoff, Susan, Stan, Dave and Karin. Apologies to anyone I’ve missed out, but everyone seemed to enjoy what was an awesome parkrun, definitely worth a visit.

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