Tail running

A lovely, sunny morning - just the way it should be on a parkrun day.

I was looking forward to my first attempt at being tail runner, although I'll admit to worrying that this would be the week where all the runners would be sub-30 minuters and I'd get left behind !

I hung back a bit at the start and enjoyed a gentle jog for the first km or so. I recognised several of the people as regular parkrunners and guessed that they wouldn't be at the back throughout the parkrun. This proved to be the case - the regulars kept up a steady pace while some newbie runners, having probably started off too quickly, dropped back a bit.

The two girls were first-time parkrunners, having heard about parkrun at school (Thomas Telford).  They told me they didn't really "do" PE. Half-way round, one of them commented that she would usually have been in bed at this time.  I thought they did well for first-timers who weren't used to running and weren't wearing trainers, let alone running-shoes.  Yes, they walked some of it but they also had regular bursts of running and they seemed to enjoy it and finished well. I hope I managed to encourage them without putting any pressure on - it would be nice to see them come back and try again.

After enjoying running while at primary school, I was put off PE and most sport when I got to secondary school and it wasn't until last year that, after much dithering, I finally started running at the grand old age of 45.  It's been  struggle at times but I love it and wish I'd started sooner, so I think it's wonderful that parkrun can encourage people to just turn up and give it a try and not feel under any pressure.

I think my time was about 43:35mins - a nice, easy walk/jog that didn't aggravate the ankles too much, leaving me looking forward to attempting 10 miles tomorrow morning.  After twice starting to train for a half marathon and twice having to give up due to injury, this time is going to be third time lucky !