A week after my gusty Ormskirk parkrun I decided to give South Shields a try. In sharp contrast to last week there was no shelter or toilets although you could park about 5 yards from the start line. I could imagine that on a windy day this exposed location could be a bit bleak but the morning had dawned fine, fair and frosty with clear views out over the sea.
I listened to the briefing and thought I’d misheard. It wasn’t what he said, it was what he didn’t say that caught my attention. I whispered to a nearby volunteer, “you mean, there are no laps?”. With so many parkruns having to squeeze their 5km into a small space laps are often inevitable, but the South Shields parkrun course is just one large anti-clockwise loop that starts at the top of a hill and finishes outside the Sanddancer.
Off we went heading south along the pavement before turning left after a mile to head down to the sea. There’s a bit of GNR, Pier to Pier, and Sanddancer 10K all rolled into one here. The descent was fast and fun with a few frozen puddles to watch out for before a long wide tempo section to the finish flag.
It was a calm day on a course with an overall drop so I should’ve expected a better time than last weeek. Even so I was pleasantly surprised to get just under 24 minutes – three minutes faster than last week! It’s a good event, about £49 cheaper than the GNR and no problems with the traffic getting home from South Shields afterwards.
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