Yesterday I wanted to try 2 new things, running in a strange city and the c25k+ podcast "speed". I'd sorted my route out beforehand, part of it I knew from my wanderings on similar business trips, but part of it was new. And I wanted a route where I could start directly in front of the hotel and not too long, as "speed" is supposed to be quite short. I was quite excited as well!
So 06:30ish I marched past reception trying to look as if I do this all the time. Nobody batted an eyelid. I could hardly hear Laura the traffic was so loud and there were so many people around. But nobody bothered about me and I'd turned down a side street by the time the real running started. I nipped off, feeling like a real runner, a white van stopped well in advance to let me cross a zebra-crossing and I gave the driver a cheery wave (white van drivers seem to be nicer here than in Britain!). Then a "real runner" came towards me, slim, fit, lean, fast and I felt a real fraud, but she didn't smile condescendingly or pityingly and we passed each other without my ego withering too much. My usual "early-in-the-run gremlin" raised his ugly head and muttered "This is the slow bit and already it feels hard. How on earth are you going to run faster?" And then I was supposed to run faster, but only for 1 minute. It was really fun, 1 minute is not long and Laura told me when there were only 30 seconds to go, which gave me encouragement to really go for it. I loved the first few runs, apart from the fact that I discovered the route I had chosen was not ideal. I nearly ended up on a really busy road, heading for the motorway, and every time I had to run fast I seemed to come up to a set of traffic-lights - and guess what colour they were! In the end I just ran up and down a lovely wide avenue, pounding past the restaurants (the customers eating their breakfast must have thought I was mad, I ran past at least 4 times). And then it was over. A mere 17 minutes. The last 2 fast runs had been a bit of a struggle, so it's probably good it was so short.
I sauntered back to the hotel, past reception, hoping I wasn't too purple and nobody would notice the sweat pouring off me. Nobody bothered.
Runkeeper informed me about a whole load of personal bests (that's the good thing about just starting!). I buzzed all day.
Might just have a pop at that speed podcast myself after your little tale! X 
Done it! and these are a few of my favourite things:
Post grad run 2 stepping stone fail
A new outdoors 5k PB (2)
Never joined a forum in my life!! new things at 53 years old :)
Hi! New here - just started week 2! 
