5x50 Week 1 Done/First Park Run Done

[AnnieW55]

First week done and feeling good. Walking & running until Friday when I sort of swam - not the world's best but I did a session, so all good and in one piece (touch wood).

Did my first Parkrun today (on the back of a fast day on the 5:2 eating plan). That wasn't a problem as I had a breakfast of porridge well before I went - but running at 9am felt a bit late as my usual weekend runs are around 7-7.30am. The Parkrun was really good, I thoroughly enjoyed it everyone was very friendly at Mansfield.

It was the:-

first time I've run laps - this is a 3 lap course,

first on the flat (very lumpy where I live) and

first running with others, although within a very few seconds of starting I was on my own near the back and stayed there throughout. And got lapped.

Just received my results: time 32' 31" , 48th out of 62 runners, 20th female, 1st in my age category - probably the only one

Will start the week with a bike ride before walk/run/sort of swim again I think - need to carry on with B210K though as I have my first 10k on 18th May. Looks like day 50 will be spent crawling the last 5k of the challenge

[Lynds Graduate]

Well done - you won! (For your age cat.)

How did you find laps? I've not done laps and sort of not keen...

[greenlegs Graduate]

Yes - congratulations! Really lovely to be a winner for your first parkrun! Good time too. I don't think I'd like laps much either - I need plenty of distractions, and novelty helps.

[Anniemurph Graduate]

Oh, that's great, Annie - I keep thinking about parkruns. I could get to Mansfield but the Stoke-on-Trent one is probably nearer for me. I'm not sure about laps at all but I am really impressed with your time! Fingers crossed for the 18th May - keep us updated!

[AnnieW55]

As it was the first one and all new, running laps was OK but prefer running one longer route. There was plenty to keep me occupied as you could see most of the course as you wove in and out of trees, football pitches etc. There were lots of dog walkers around too - the dogs were very well behaved or at least didn't seem to bother about the runners. Running at 9am was quite hard for me though.

One thing I wanted to do was check my Nike+ against a measured route. I should have realised when I had no music that things weren't right and it didn't log the run. So I will do another one soon to check this. I would also like to run when other people are running too (can't say with them) as there will be lots of runners on the 10k in May.

I will also volunteer as the Parkruns only happen because people do.

[AnnieW55]

Thanks all.

Just looked at Hanley and one or two others and they all seem to involve laps to a greater or lesser degree. But today's experience was a good one and it's nice to run somewhere different and a route that someone else has sorted out beforehand.