I was so nervous beforehand that if I had not told my son that I was going and I'd give him a lift, I may have chickened out! I know it's silly being nervous as I'd run 5 km earlier in the week and knew I could do it. It was really warm today - certainly warmer than I've run for weeks - and I got an awfully dry mouth.
I started near the back of the field and I stayed near the back of the field, but even so, I felt I set off a little too fast and really struggled to keep running. The 5k route is 3 laps of a park and by the second lap I wanted to walk, but I imagined Laura talking to me, telling me that I was halfway there. I also remembered her line about no matter now tired she felt, the satisfaction of keeping going was better than any short-lived joy felt at stopping running. So I kept going. On the final lap I *really* felt like stopping, not walking - but stopping, but I thought that since I'd kept going on the previous lap, I may as well keep running now! I'm nowt if not stubborn! For the last lap I was about 100m behind a wee lad - about 7 years old - and no matter how much I pushed I couldn't get any closer! (Not that I was going to do a Mr Bean at the Olympics and push the wee lad out the way!)
The results show I did the run in 32.48. Nae bad, I suppose, for someone who's only been running for 8 weeks, (My son did it 10 mins faster, but he's been running for years, is built like a rake and is a marathon runner!) I wasn't last - only 5th from the end of the field of 55 runners.
I certainly did not feel invigorated or relaxed like I did on my own last run, but I feel it was a useful exercise to get a base line of my pace at this stage. I may go back in a month, or 10 weeks, or after I've run another 100 km, or sometime...
That was my Week 8 run 2, so fours runs until graduation, although, because I was 'cheating', I've already done 4 x 30 min runs . I *may* do another run in public tomorrow (if I feel up to it) as the local radio station is holding a Day One event for the launch of the 5X50 Challenge.
Then I'm going back to refreshing, no clock watching, 5K+ runs on my own in the woods!