Stadium Rock!

Middlesbrough 5k - 24.47mins!

Hot on the heels of yesterday's park run, I was up and about early after a fitful night's sleep (four pints at the Boo Hewerdine gig. Very good on all accounts really). A slight twinge in my left knee from yesterday threatened to flare up a bit as I warmed up and a brisk start to proceedings in the run was probably not the best strategy. I'd put myself in the sub-30 minutes range at the start but soon found myself picking off lots of people. Rob Nichols passed me early on but I had him in my sight for most of the run so I knew I was probably doing ok. At the 1km flag I was at 5:09 and at 2km I was under 10 minutes. Alarms bells rang that I was probably going a bit too fast and sure enough by about 3km, despite not being able to see the flag anywhere I was certainly feeling "the flag" (see what I did there?). A steadier pace to the end saw me good though and it did feel great running into the Riverside Stadium to finish. I managed a decent sprint down the home straight too and by my watch it was sub 25 minutes. A minute off my current best.

Soundtrack: God knows...

Decided not to take the iPod along. Not as a punishment for it not having any charge when I needed it yesterday but because I reckoned I'd have nowhere to put it if I stripped down to just my running top. There was, however, a band playing outside the Lord Byron pub. Lively, bluesy pub stuff played by beardy old men, one with a cowboy hat on. A sure sign of something. I vaguely recognised them from playing at The Sessions in Doc Brown's a few months back but may be mistaken. Coming back past the pub at about 3.5km they were murdering Proud Mary, originally brought to life by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Music was fine but the vocal was neither harmony nor melody. It was comedy. It sounded like someone was holding a gun to his head to sing when they might have been better asking him not to. Fair play though, they were decent musicians and probably playing for (dry roasted) peanuts if not for free.