Hexham vs Morpeth

Session today was the Progressive Tempo and there was a cast of thousands already assembled by the time I showed up (late). All the familiar faces were there - Wildman, Young Timmy, hot to trot Durante, Enda, Quentin, Bartles, JF, Dicky H, Pete W, Jason, JC, Rob, Sam, etc. Tucks was there but only to show us he could do the same session by himself and didn't need us. Timmy rocks up with a girl with a familiar accent who happens to be from Morpeth. Now, those not familiar with the English county of Northumberland will not realise that there there are only two towns of any note in it - Hexham (from where I came) and Morpeth (from where Sian, Timmy's friend came). The rivalry between them was similar to that between Sydney and Melbourne. I Googled a couple of pictures of the towns so that you can see which is Sydney and which is Melbourne:


Hexham



Morpeth


Anyway, a lovely girl nonetheless.

Perfect conditions today. Great session to do as you can chat for the first half before things get serious in the second. Judging by the km splits, it was a perfectly judged progressive tempo:

4:03, 4:01, 3:57, 3:51, 3:48, 3:43, 3:37, 3:25, 3:23, 3:21, 3:32, 3:28

The last 2kms blow out a bit coming up the hills.

Ran with a big group up front including Wildman, Bartles, JF, Jason, Dicky H and Quentin. After the turn (just past 6km under the first bridge on Hickson Rd), the pace stepped up again and from there it just wound up trying to drop people from the front group. Stevie really increased the pace around Farm Cove and dropped the rest of us. I tried to push on up the hills and thought I'd dropped the rest before Quentin reappeared with a sprint so I finished with him.

Nice session. Got back in 44:19 so well under, with the final Gate to Gate in under 10mins. 12.02km averaging 3:41's.

1km jog there and 2km warmdown for 15km all up.