With this race organised by the Elswick Harriers covering J & I’s regular 10k loop basically perfectly, it would have been a criminal one to miss! We normally run it from Wylam up to Newburn, and then back the other side past the golf course, but this started at Newburn, went along our normal first half, which is very flat, and then came back past the golf course in the opposite direction to the one we normally do this leg in. I knew there was a reason we did it the way we normally do! There’s a few small hills on the golf course and our route covers most of them in the downhill direction, which of course meant that going this way they were uphill instead. Ho-hum, variety is the spice of life and all that.
I was sporting the Bounders colours for this one – mainly because I know that there are several lovely people who take photos of the Bounders at events so I’d a good chance at getting a pic of J and I pootling along – I was correct! LD caught us at the start and the finish 😉
Photo by LD of the Blackhill Bounders
‘Twas a lovely sunny evening, just about humid enough to make everyone lovely sweaty people! This was very well attended by the local running clubs, which meant a lot of very speedy people, and J and I soon had lots of space to ourselves. Personally I enjoyed this – it’s been a while since I’ve done this route and it was a really nice time of day for doing it in, pootling along the river. I think J was a bit frustrated that the guy just ahead of us kept finding a burst of speed whenever we got close to him, we must have been tailing him for about 4 miles! We hit the water station at the halfway mark by Wylam bridge, and J got to try running while trying to drink from a plastic cup, personally I always end up half drowning myself and most of it either goes the wrong way down my throat or ends up sloshed all round my face. I am an elegant runner. It was the wrong way this time and I had a quiet splutter to myself!
There was one failure in this event – I bid a fond farewell to the smaller of my waist packs, the one I use when I’m not taking water with me and just need my phone and car keys, with a small pack of dextrose tablets. I went to get my phone out over the bridge to call P to say we were finishing and he could leave to pick us up (he was actually coming past us at the time!), apparently using a phone on a race was a new one for the marshalls we passed while crossing the road, and the zip came clean off my pouch thing 😦
It doesn’t look like I can get it on again very easily either so it looks like I’m thanking this one for its service and retiring it from further use while I hunt for a new one! After splitting the zip to obtain my phone I ended up using one of my bib safety pins to hold it shut least I scatter my belongings to the four winds! Kinda need my house keys ya know?!
We finally made it across Newburn bridge and back round to the finish line – where our finishing goodies were a picnic! One goody bag with sandwiches, pie, crisps, chocolate and a bottle of water 🙂 Lunch for work the next day sorted 😉 I’d also made banana bread, which had come out as a super dense brick loaf as my banana bread always does, and slightly dry – I have yet to master moist banana bread, but I like it spread with jam 🙂
We finished up in 1hr 17mins, which for a slightly tougher way of doing a route we normally do was pretty good – and it marks a new milestone for J as (I think) an extra 0.5km on her furthest distance – we normally stop at 10k and walk the last 0.5k as a cool down. Watch out GNR! Here we come!
You can download the GPX data for this course from my Dropbox account by following the link below:
Blue Runnings 
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