[Shuffles sheepishly in] Hi Bridge to 10Kers and 10K Graduates. Finally daring to make myself known here (not that I'm exactly a prolific poster on C25K [snorts at the understatement], but I do reply a fair bit on there). There's a Part One to this on the C25K forum:
healthunlocked.com/couchto5...
I never thought I would want to run 10K. Was quite happy with half an hour/5K. Just the small flaw that I started this with certain routes in mind. I like solitude and the idea of being able to easily get to some beautiful bits of countryside and blow off some steam was most tempting. Except that loch is more than 5K there and back again. 
So eventually I armed myself with Sami Murphy and have been working up to 10K with her programme.
I'm often saying that this running lark is more mental than physical. I'm totally biased though. I knew starting up with C25K that though my physical abilities are not the best 
my mental game is strong. Oh yeah my PE reports were all "NOOB is rubbish and has absolutely no abilities whatsoever. Really, we can't find a single sport she doesn't suck at. However if we could grade her for effort she'd be an A/A*. She relentlessly tries (but still fails), she will happily ritually humilate herself for the good of the team. Her cheerfulness in the face of epic ineptitude is to be applauded"... I MIGHT have paraphrased slightly. I should probably note here that cheerfulness is I'm sure easier when you're aren't always the one picked last for everything. It was for everything except netball. I was 2 feet taller than everyone else (I'm tall and moved to an area where everyone is short before you think I'm a giant!), so I'd get picked for Goal Keeper because heck, my face was going to stop that ball if nothing else 
Perhaps unsurprisingly I'm not a competitive person. Also my beloved older brother is quite competitive (and extremely sporty) so he gave me the greatest gift you can give a kid, he taught me how to lose! ROFL. I still don't know how to play chess, I could never get far enough in the game before he'd wiped me out! (To his credit he also spent HOURS and HOURS, day after day, trying to teach me some kind of hand eye coordination. Not the kind of thing most guys in their 20s can be bothered to do with their 5/7 year old kid sister. Any catching ability I have is down to his terrifying patience. Mainly though it taught me how best to shield my glasses from being broken ) So I've never suffered from the "run too fast, run becomes a practice run" (whispers, I've actually never not completed a planned run. I know, very lucky. I would have at least expected to have run into a lamppost by now. As a teenager I walked into a few. As a child I cycled into the back of several stationery cars. Have I mentioned I'm not good at the physical stuff?!? ). My mindset for a programme is very much, I'm going to complete the steps as laid out. That is my goal, not a distance, not a pace.
It would be fair then to say that I perhaps don't push my pace to my full capability, because I'm focussing on making sure I can FINISH. I wasn't running 5K in 30 minutes when I graduated 5K. I actually deliberately slowed down when consolidating that, because I wanted it to become comfortable. I wasn't too far off 5K, so it did occur to me that it would be a bit niggly if I almost managed 10K in hour. I'd much rather be nowhere near, lol! 
So today, Saturday 21st April, 20:30 (I like night running) was time for my Week6Run1, my first ever non-stop run for an hour. Now my Week 5 Runs had not been the best for the mental game side of things. I'm a comfort girl, form and function over pretty EVERY time. I run hot, I knew this would be the case for running itself as well. Indeed I ran the Winter, in Scotland, without a jacket (I had a gilet before you think I'm proper insane, but only one layer of long sleeves). So this last week's weather, has not been NOOB's friend. I get too hot, I fixate, my brain panics I'm not going to make it through, repeat for however long there is left to run
People in England prepare to laugh at me. Here I am running at the coolest part of the day and I'm doing it where the heatwave, is considerably LESS heatwave. Yep, my Thursday run was in 15C and I was not a fan. I believe some of you were out there in DOUBLE that. I'm embarrassed for myself as well. Sorry. (Right now I'm in denial about Summer, I don't know how I'm going to be cool enough ). Had even cracked out new gear for Week5 Run3 to make it bearable (I may or may not have stripped down to my bra on Run2 because utter humiliation was better than heat exhaustion. No-one must ever know of this. Shudder). New gear does have me looking a bit ridiculous. I live on the coast so it's not quite warm enough yet for only a vest at the start. Hence I've bought some cycling "sleeves" so I can whip them off when warmed up. Fluro yellow sleeves, with a random skin gap before the colour clashing vest, it's a very subtle look. Had absolutely NO second glances from confused people. Cough.
Worried about being too hot. Check. Self-conscious about looking unusual. Check. Then add in some extra fun experiences. W5R1 running through unexpected fog (damn you coast) and realising I couldn't see through my glasses as they also fogged up and wouldn't unfog. W5R2's oops, there's less light than I would have liked at this location miscalculation. This timed perfectly for me to discover... a black car, with no lights on, almost entirely filling the path I was on. A path that is exactly that, 3 miles of leisure path topped and bottomed with those cycle overlapping gate things. I STILL can't work out HOW the car got on there. It must have come through a field?!? Meant for a mile worth of terror running away from it hoping that if they decided to drive off, they would at least put the lights on and maybe NOT mow me down! Then my favourite, that I've already ranted to @Sarararara about, W5R3, when I came across a 1 inch thick, black, electric cable, 10cm off the ground, straight across the pavement! Some genius had fed it through their closed front door, to charge their electric car.
Add that altogether, plus not the ideal music in my ears and I'd not managed 10K in my 30 min run 1 min walk 30 min run, means I had little expectation of running a full 10K in an hour. Out I went, sole goal being to run nonstop for an hour for the first time. Surprised to find a second wind at the 45 minute mark, I knew I would make the hour and decided that for the first time I'd actually run on after the time I'd set. Just to get the 10K bagged.
Knowing I was on the last minute of the hour, timed perfectly to have to swerve out of the way of a pair of neds who deliberately moved into my path (nice ladies, nice), knew I would be WELL astray of the 10K as I usually sprint the last minute and I can't sprint while weaving! Dodge a dog walker, hear the "You've finished", I grab my phone out of my pocket, just so I can see what I DID manage in the hour before I continue to the 10k...
IT SAYS 10.33KM.
WHAT
THAT'S OVER 10K
ISN'T IT?
AM I LOOKING AT THE WRONG FIGURE?
NO. I'VE DONE OVER 10K.
WHY AM I STILL RUNNING? 
Somehow, I did the double. I'm still in shock. The first time I ran for a full hour, was also the first time I ran a full 10K.
Heck, I actually did the 10K in 58m 19s! My second 5K was faster than the first, at 28m32s. Not bad for a 40 year old female who's new at this thing! I am so confused. Ridiculously pleased, but mostly flabbergasted.
Guess my running shoes knew better...
A niche that involves being on my own, yay says inner miserable hermit! 
Park Run double to start the year.
And now for something completely different!
Sometimes - You need something.
I’ve just done something crazy 😜 
