Sunday evening, time to run round the next village while Miss Rainbow is there. It's been nice all weekend - not exactly warm(!), but sunny (in parts) and dry. So off I went, planning to run 35 mins if I possibly could, but with a slight headache lurking so not sure I was going to manage much of anything. Mr Rainbow was primed that I'd be no more than 45 mins, plus short drive home, so to get the Camembert in the oven ready for when I got back 
Off I went, week 9 podcast playing, feeling very uncertain about the wisdom of this run. The first five minutes went quickly, and I seemed to find a comfortable steady rhythm. I decided that it was in no way cheating to set my route to go *down* the long drag I'd slogged up last Sunday, and I still had two short relatively steep roads to go up to get to the top, so there was definitely still challenge in it!
Up the first steep-ish bit - easier than I'd expected, somehow, but it is a very short road (3 houses!), then a nice gentle trot along the main road to the crossroads. Take the right here, and head UP to the next main road. My little legs were feeling a bit tired at this point, and I found myself walking - but 20 metres later decided that I wanted to beat this road by running it, so somehow got my legs moving quicker again. Up to the corner, turn right with a huuuuge sigh of relief, and start heading back downhill. Phew!
Six minutes later, as I got near the junction with the middle main road, I felt that carrying on down to basically run last week's route backwards would involve more steep bits than I felt up for. So instead I decided to go back along the middle road, up to the crossroad, back again to the first steep road I'd gone up, and back down towards the area of lots of roads which loop round and interconnect. Laura was helpfully counting down, in her supportive way, but I was very aware that I wanted to do the extra five minutes on the end, so needed to pace myself.
As I got back to the low point of the village, I had about 15 mins to go - perfect, I know I can easily fill that time round here. Along past the vets, round one crescent, and Laura says five minutes left. Round the big loop, Laura says finished by I keep going. Then the second crescent, and Runkeeper says 35 mins. Check the distance - 3.08 miles, including the 2.8 in my warm-up walk. Soooo close, legs still feeling good. This is the night I'm going to do it! Finish the crescent, straight along the road back towards where I'm parked. Keep going, four more minutes should do it... Here's the corner where it goes up again, check the distance, 3.38 miles. Whoooooooop!!! That's 5k run, thank you very much! Sooooo pleased!
39 mins isn't going to be setting any records, but I don't care. There's plenty of scope for improvement, and the main thing is I did it! I've never before understood how people could say 'I felt good so just kept going' - I'm usually holding out and just grimly determined to get to my end time! - but tonight I get it! 
Tonight, I feel like a proper runner!
First 5k!!
