Parkrun :) and a follow on from about my trip to america

[amateurwriter]

Hi everyone after last week of tail running in my dress I thought best leave it at home even though I had a lot of fun wearing it during parkrun, I've included a picture from last week's parkrun me with all the volunteers I'm at the front wearing my dress

This week I was just taking my time, tried keeping up with the 28 minute pacer, last time I lost him at the bottom of the first hill we run up, better known as cruella, I thought why not this time I lost him at the top of the same hill felt so good but then my asthma started playing up so had to walk for a bit, I'm just shocked after running the 10k last sunday and then 8k on tuesday didn't think I would do that well but did better than the last time I ran with the 28minute pacer, from now on I'm going to just go off at my own pace instead of trying to go off to fast might be able to do better than I have and my asthma may not play up as much,

I started off a little bit too fast, so ended up walking and talking (once my breathing was ok) to a friend but for the life of me can't remember her name, I then started jogging which I should've done from the start, luckily when I came to walk up the hill a second time, there was a friend who we ended up running the last roughly 2km's with, I kept her going and she kept me going because after starting off too fast I felt stupid not from the walking but the fact that I didn't listen to my own body and start off slower, proud that I kept the 28minute pacer (called Paul) for a little bit longer than last time, well kept him in sight for a bit longer than I did the time before he paced,

I then went and picked up a few things, got some biscuits for the house from lidl, going to go there again for biscuits got 5 for 1.44 where as in asda it's 3 for 1.80, then treated myself to a pad of plain paper (400) from the poundshop, and got some ramekins from the poundshop as well, I was the only one out of the whole family who my nan taught to make her onion gravy, yep literally out of I don't know how many family members (at least 50) I was the only one who got taught how to make her onion gravy, so on friday I went to asda and splashed out almost 2 pounds for the same cornflour my nan used, if it wasn't for my nan's onion gravy I would've just bought a cheap box of cornflour, and my nan used a ramekin to mix cornflour with water in, it's the only way I know how much cornflour to use, but I honestly don't think I've smiled so much just from buying some ramekins <- that was my face when I found some to buy in the poundshops and they are pretty much the same ones my nan used except they was half blue and half white, the ones I have are just white but I don't care, I'm so excited to make some onion gravy, it won't be as good as my nan's onion gravy but I will give it my best shot, my nan taught me how to make a lot of different things, like stews, curries (malaysian curries) casseroles and so many more dishes

So anyway after that diversion in what I was saying, I ended up walking a lot more than I thought I would be around 40+minutes and as I forgot to thingy the watch to the gps and didn't end up starting the watch until I was over a km in to the run, I didn't actually know my time, I expected a time of around 40+ but surpringsly I came in under 35 minutes which shocked me, I came in with a time of 34:46 which really shocked me as I expected a time of around 40+ minutes, goes to show that couch to 5k really does pay off, even if it doesn't feel like it during the first few weeks, it does pay off and once you look back on your journey you actually see how far you have come

Hope everyone had a great weekend,

Take care,

Siobhan xx

Edit: as a lot of you know I have the opportunity of going to a brain injury camp in america, well it will cost me quite a bit so I have set up a gofundme account and this is the link, gofundme.com/2qmyhccs?ssid=... hope you all have a great week, if I don't manage to raise enough to get me over to america I have said that the money I do raise will be given to charity not a penny will go to me if I don't manage to reach my target