Yesterday produced several running firsts for me.
Number one was marshalling at Killerton parkrun. So at 8.15 in the morning I was fixing high viz arrows to posts and tying ****ing gates open in the middle of the woods, then standing at the furthest point from the finish while all the happy parkrunners came through. And what a cheery bunch they are. The first guy through hardly acknowledged my presence, but most of the rest waved and/or thanked me and I responded with encouragement and lies. “Nearly there!” I shouted, despite the fact that I was standing just past the 3k marker.
After about forty minutes a couple of women with a young girl walked by and asked me whether there was a tail runner, as they were going very slowly and had seen no one behind them. I gave them a couple of minutes and was just about to ring the Run Director to check that there actually was a tail runner, when I espied the tail runner walking with a chap in his forties.
When they reached me, he apologised for wasting my time. I said “Nonsense, that is what I am here for.”
He muttered something about having to face up to some home truths and then I saw Mme Truffe a couple of hundred yards down the track, coming from her post by the cattle grid, so I waited for her before following on.
The walker completed the course, in about fifty some minutes, I think, and handed in his token only for us to find he didn't have a bar code. At least if you come home last it doesn't affect anyone else. I asked him, ”Have you heard of C25k?” to which he replied “Yes, I've got it” and his two teenage sons, who had finished half an hour before said “Yes, mum's doing that.”
I didn't probe further but just said “It does work. Two years ago I couldn't run, but today I am going to run home twelve miles from here. Stick with it. It works.”
His boys beamed and he shook my hand and said he would be back. All of which made me realise how much C25k and parkrun have given me.
Mme Truffe was going on to visit some friends, so all I had to do now was run home. The sun was coming out and it was warming up, but I had been hydrating regularly as I stood marshalling and was prepared with a bottle belt and a muesli bar. The route was mainly familiar except for the bit where I ran round three sides of a field before going diagonally across it to a gate, where I discovered the path was actually on the other side of the hedge. The route was 80% road, but the offroad sections were definitely the most fun, especially running through the middle of a field of eight foot high maize.
The run ended up being 18.43k and I did it in a shade under two hours, but I didn't have enough left in me to run round the town and do my first HM distance, mainly due to it being pretty warm and that I still haven't got my refuelling strategies fully sorted for these longer runs. My splits showed a slow decline in pace over the last 5k, which I would hope might be reduced with better refuelling.
Still, it produced some new firsts......my first run of 18.43k and 1:58:55, my first A to B run, ie. without returning to my starting point and also my first experience of runner's nipple.....which I will definitely have to address before I do any longer runs.......ouch!!
lots of firsts !!! 
Remember me?? Many firsts!!
A day of firsts 
Saturdays of firsts and 8m short of a new PB!
