Park Run Course completed! on my own

[Jaguar1965]

so I decided to do a trial of the course, so I could get to grips with the terrain - our park run is on a racecourse, which does have some undulations, but nothing too extreme- however the ground was a combination of grass, muddy track, and gravel- which took a bit of focus- I have always worried about running on uneven surfaces. This morning was beautiful, but very cold, there were patches of frost and ice about. It was hard for the first 10 minutes as it always is, but I focused on a world service podcast about boats- bit different than running, but the subject kept me interested and before I knew it MJ was telling me I had 60secs to go of my 30 minute run, so I kept going and managed another 4 minutes till the end of the park run- which is 5k- so now I can focus on running for 5k excluding the warmup/cooldown walks- which was my aim- I'm slow but I can do it! Just have to pluck up the courage to do it with others- am I being silly? I worry that having people pass me will put me off? what do you advise?.

[steviej99 Graduate]

parkrun is brilliant. Very welcoming and friendly. Sounds like you did 5k in 34 minutes is that right? If so that's not slow and you'll be nowhere near the slowest. But as they say at parkrun you can walk, jog or run and there is always a tailrunner so you can't finish last! Go for it, you'll love it. And don't forget to print and take your bar code so your personal best time will be recorded!

[Kertesz]

Go for it!! I did my first Parkrun at the end of week 5 - and included my warm-up walk!! I couldn’t believe how supportive, inclusive and friendly the whole experience was. If you watch the Parkrun promo video you’ll see that they’re quite happy for you to even hop or hula-hoop your way round!! For me, being a part of a huge mass of runners made me feel more ‘proper’ runner-ish than anything else I’d done!!