Just finished W6R3! Had a hideous W6R1 earlier in the week, partly because I'd read too many posts on here telling me how hard that run would be so I psyched myself out and it was indeed awful.
I've bimbled around the posts in here for the last few days and seen people having tough runs and ok runs and great runs and I've come to the grand conclusion that running is chuffing hard....but running is (mainly) DAMN hard if you tell yourself it is!
So, this morning I spent a while getting myself into a really positive frame of mind and reminding myself how far I'd come. From my previous runs I knew approximately how far I needed to run so I could pace myself and I set myself up with some funky music too. I've learnt that at a new distance the first attempt is hard but each attempt gets easier so I knew this was going to be tough but that it was doable. I managed the long lower hill that used to kill me a few weeks ago with ease and (in my head) ran down the hill with my hands in the air in order to enjoy the downhill section, and the short steep hill at the end was better too (had to chuckle as I was passed at that point by a bloke in his 60s walking and my music suddenly changed to 'I don't care, I love it'! Anyway, I kept running (ignoring the fact that I was spotted by one of the teenagers that I teach *cringe) and instead of doing the 20 minutes required, I did 30!! I'm slower than an asthmatic tortoise with arthritis but I'm doing it and it feels great!
So, today I learned the benefit of a PMA and am going to do a parkrun on Saturday to celebrate!
Perseverance pays off - slow and steady wins the day
Countryside bingo - I win!
Week 9 mental attitude 
Tortoise-brain wins the day - shame about the Garmin!
W5R3 - Outdoors wins!
