Newcastle parkrun

27th April 2019

Cranking it up a notch now and doing back to back parkrun weekends to try and fit them all in! Today we embarked on a relatively familiar parkrun in the Toon: Newcastle parkrun. We also were joined by Becca’s sister, Leona, who officially lost her parkrun virginity today (yaaay!). We knew this one was a flat one, so we thought it would be a good one for Leona to re-start her running journey.

The single-lap course of the Town Moor is currently* the only parkrun in the centre of Newcastle so it’s a really popular one. There was a massive turnout today with a total of 609 runners (they have had over 800 before!). A stark difference to the 50 or so parkrunners at Windy Nook!

*Yet another new parkrun announcement today!! The fundraising for Leazes Park parkrun has been a success and that will become a parkrun in the near future (this challenge may need to extend into 2020 at this rate!)

My stats:
Time: 24:22 minutes*
Position: 201 / 609**
Female position: 32nd
Age category position (SW25-29): 5th
Age-graded score: 60.74%

*We all recorded a little over the 3.1miles today (Leona, significantly more, but she did forget to turn off her strava so we will discount that!), but given the weaving around the shear amount of runners and dodging all of the cowpats, I think it would normally be spot on!

**Also slightly gutted that I missed out on the top 200 by one spot… my final push may have started a little too early, so someone who I initially overtook just pipped me at the final 2 metres!

Course location: 3 / 5

With the parkrun being so central, it’s very easy to get to from all areas of Newcastle and Gateshead. We decided not to take any chances on Becca’s navigational skills today, so I drove the 3 of us from my flat in Gateshead! Which worked in our favour anyway as it was only one car to pay the parking for. If you’re a little more savvy and know the area well, you could probably find some off-road parking, but the main carpark for the event is on Claremont Road and you do have to pay for it on a Saturday morning. Which I kind of resent a little for parkrun!

Getting to the start of the run is easy when you already know where it is! There are so many runners for this one, you can just follow a fellow runner and you’ll probably end up at the start line. But there are two ways of getting into the Town Moor though so don’t be too disconcerted if you see runners going in two different directions!

The course itself is one large flat lap around the Town Moor, a 1000 acre area of common land (interestingly – well to me! – larger than Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath in London!). It’s not the most picturesque of areas to run around, but it’s certainly not unpleasant.

Course difficulty: 2 / 5

Fun fact: originating prior to the Norman Conquest, the Freemen have exercised their right to graze cows on the Town Moor. It is one of only two places in the UK where farmers have the right to graze their cattle in the centre of a city, with the only other being Beverley, a town in Yorkshire. They’re pretty legendairy LOL!!

We are only grazed by their presence (sorry I’ll stop the cow-puns now) in the spring and summer months, so we did today have the added obstacles on the course both in the form of the cows themselves and their faeces (yuck!). Thankfully, we had prior warning of one particularly large/wet one which actually prevented runners from cutting one of the corners off (probably a good thing then?). The marshals somewhat helpfully put a couple of leaves over it on the path to make it more obvious. I’m sure there’s some irony in that somewhere.

The course is pretty flat and it’s just one large lap, which is good for the physical and psychological aspects of running. However, unless you’re elite and run at the very front, you do get funnelled into a crowd to get through the gates, which inevitably slows you down at the start and in the 2nd km. Also, a lot of the paths are gravel which does make it a little harder on the ankles. If it weren’t for the gates and gravel paths (and cow dung for that matter too!), this would likely be a PB course. Both Becca and myself did get course PB’s today which we were particularly pleased about.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the course is VERY exposed. From past experience of 10km runs on the Moor, it can get extremely windy out there (we both did one in Feb where we had 45mph+ winds pushing us across the Moor). Thankfully today, we escaped the wrath of storm Hannah which caused havoc in the south of the country, so this morning was a relatively easy one weather-wise.

Course enjoyability: 3 / 5

It’s a pretty mediocre course really. It’s the one to go for if you want a parkrun that’s easy on the calves (on the legs that is – not the cow calves!). Although the cows do make it more interesting, or scary, if you have a phobia of cows, Bovinophobia if you will (in both mine and Leona’s cases – they’re frigging huge!!).

However, with the larger turnout you do get a better atmosphere, especially at the finish line where a lot of people wait around to support the later finishers. And even when you’re running with a large group of people, you do feel that little more empowered, and ready to bust out a personal best.

Overall rating: 3 / 5

It’s an alright course really, it’s flat and pretty fast (disregarding the funnelling issues at the gates and the Toon Beef), but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. The marshals are extremely helpful at holding the gates open, guiding people in the right direction/around the cowpats and offering words of encouragement. I had the added benefit of having a friendly face from the Gateshead Harriers who scanned my barcode and finishing token.

We also got to recover over a post-parkrun drink (non-alcoholic obviously – it was 10am!) at the cafe in Exhibition Park which, much to our delight, was discounted by 10% for parkrunners.

So would we do Newcastle parkrun again? Yeah, I reckon so. But maybe when the cows have gone!

We are in discussion about a triple whammy and going for another parkrun next weekend. But we’ll keep you posted!