Tag Archive: Road Race
September 19, 2025,
by Pete
There are two races I run most years for reasons entirely detached from the race itself; Blaydon and the Great North Run. I don’t run them because the courses are good, or because I might get a personal best, or even because it’s convenient. I run them because I’m northern and it’s what we do. It’s road running, it’s fast, the stupid shoes make my stupid quads hurt. But it’s what we do. Blaydon was three weeks before Lavaredo and went surprisingly well. As is often the case with Blaydon, it would’ve comfortably been a 10km personal best if only the race wasn’t a 9.6km race, plenty of positives and a lovely little confidence boost ahead of the year’s first a-race. The Great North Run was four weeks out from my other a-race, Ultra Pirineu, and the build up had been turbulent to say the least. At the start of... View Article
September 14, 2022,
by Pete
If you’re not from Newcastle or South Shields, it might be hard to understand how big a place the Great North Run occupies in the collective consciousness. It doesn’t matter where I’ve travelled to race, or how far those races have been, for many people here the question is always; ‘are you doing the Great North Run?’ After route changes due to coronavirus restrictions in 2021, the world’s biggest half marathon returned to the traditional route this year. You start on the central motorway in Newcastle and you run to the sea in South Shields. Given I live near the start and was born near the finish, it always feels a little like coming home. I know how I should pace a race but on a fast road race like this, I just don’t want to. I’d rather fail spectacularly knowing I gave it 110% than pace myself around to... View Article
There’s a saying, often attributed to Disraeli, that there’s three types of lies; lies, damned lies, and statistics. I can’t tell you if Disraeli ever said such a thing, but I can tell you it’s been true in my running. After being frustrated on my Bob Graham attempt in May, I wasted no time getting running again. I was back out within a couple of days. That next weekend I set a target to take a Strava crown on a four mile segment I’d been eyeing up and did so comfortably. The weekend after that was the Trail Pursuit half marathon, which last minute route changes had turned into a 15 mile technical fell run. Bad news for people who paid in good faith for an accessible trail, good news for gluttons for punishment like myself. All seemed to be going to plan until a frustrating outing at Blencathra Fell... View Article
September 27, 2021,
by Pete
The Great North Run. One day, I’m going to have a proper crack at it. This was going to be my year. I’d ran a 1:28 in April at Dorney Lake and was feeling great until roughly the moment I picked an unexpected fight with Scafell Pike. Having hurt my quadricep tendon falling, it was touch and go whether I’d be back running at all. A proper effort was never on the cards. If you’d asked in July, I’d have told you I was frustrated with being in the orange wave as I was now running sub 90-min half marathons. Now I was more concerned that I’d start next too fast for my injured legs and fitness lacking lungs. The day before the run itself was the first day for a month I hadn’t limped. I took that as a good sign, slapped on some KT tape and headed for... View Article
September 9, 2019,
by Pete
There are many things that I find frustrating about the Great North Run. It’s expensive, over commercialised and mainly ran on dual carriageways. There are too many people and the t-shirts are cheap. But the moment I hear the gun, and the opening bars of Local Hero come from the speakers, all frustrations are forgotten. The run up to this years event has been a little different for me. I’d been having a golden spell in early summer. In eight days I ran personal bests for 5k, 10k and the Chevy Chase. Everything seemed to be falling into place right until the moment I took a tumble at the Turner Landscape. As my ankle turned over on itself, I saw my hopes of a quick summer disappear. It’s been a tough five weeks since. I spent two weeks flailing around attempting to swim before a gradual return to running. I squeezed into my start pen... View Article
There’s a little section on the club website that says to try to limit yourself to one important race or PB attempt in any four week period. I couldn’t help but think of it while I flagrantly ignored it on my drive to Silksworth for the Sunderland 5k. It was Pablo Picasso who said, “learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”. I’m not sure that’s exactly what I was doing, but chalking it down to artistry rather than stubbornness works for me. I’d ran Tynedale 10k last Wednesday and ran a PB by over 40 seconds. On Saturday it was the Chevy and the elation of crushing past performances there too. This week my legs are feeling tired but my mind is raring to go still, I’m just enjoying it at the moment. So, remembering it was the Sunderland 5k, I headed south after work.... View Article
I don’t think there’s a race start quite like the Tynedale 10k anywhere in the north. A steep downhill that eases off and sweeps you from Ovington into Ovingham. The challenge isn’t to start fast, but rather not to start too fast. I set my 10k PB two summers ago in Morpeth at 40:43. It was a hazy, dreamy, summer night and I’d set out for a 42:30 and found myself faster than I’d believed possible. I hoped I’d go on from that to get a sub-40 but it just wouldn’t come. My times started to slacken off and I settled in to 41-42 minute territory. Preparing for this race I couldn’t help but think that this might be my day. It’s a little over a mile up from the race headquarters up to the start line in Ovingham, but it’s a pretty walk and helps prepare you. My strategy was to... View Article
There was a moment, twenty five miles into the Edinburgh Marathon on Sunday, when I passed a group of spectators and one of them shouted, “come on Peter, you’re looking good”. It’s one of the most blatant lies I’ve ever heard. Not even close to the truth. I was a mess, staggering along the road, desperately trying to ring the last drop of energy from my body. It had all started so promisingly. With wind and rain forecast for the whole race, the start was a dense sea of people dressed in home made bin bag ponchos. The first few hundred metres were slow until we hit the top of the mound and things picked up rapidly. You run down the mound, along through Princes Street Gardens and past the Scott Memorial, before heading up and onto the Royal Mile. It’s a breathtaking start to a run and I found... View Article
October 21, 2017,
by Pete
I think it was at about the twenty mile mark when the steward on the motorcycle pulled alongside me. I’m not great at Spanish, but it didn’t take a lot to figure out that he was asking if I was okay to carry on. I lifted my head up, tried to force a smile, picked up my pace a little and gave him the thumbs up. It seemed to satisfy him and he offered some words of encouragement before continuing on. How had I gotten myself into this mess? I’ve ran twenty miles or more plenty of times this year. Why is it that this time it had turned so horribly, horribly wrong? Why do my marathon efforts seem to always end up in me dragging my legs around the last miles at roughly the same pace as a glacier? Rewind two months and I am feeling confident. Since joining... View Article
September 10, 2016,
by Pete
It’s a strange dance that occurs before the start of a long run; the DJ tries to pump up the crowd, with a variety of motivational slogans and Avicii tunes. The runners bounce from foot to foot, trying to find the perfect equilibrium between moving to warm up the muscles and not moving so much that the heart rate goes too high, too soon. It’s over 100, don’t move quite so much, but the tunes are getting you psyched, move a little more. “Hands in the air,” demands the voice through the speakers, and thousands of pairs of hands reach for he heavens and start to clap. The clap lacks the intense and protracted rhythm of the Icelandic clap, yet makes up for in passion what it lacks in beat. With fifteen seconds to go before the gun the tunes stop entirely. A hushed silence falls across the thousands of... View Article
