Thanks for the congratulations everyone. It was quite an experience. I should tell you right now that I was in the last 10 finishers! I came 155 - it was a small race in a regional city. For sections of the run I couldn't see any other runners, and had cars going past me.
aj - great to hear you've just done a HM - I remember you sharing with us about your first 5k! Good to hear from you again -have you had your shop with Angie yet?
Tam, thanks for the encouragement. As to what exactly I meant re training? warning to everyone else that I am entering the realm of way too much information!
Well I started off with only committing to 3 days a week (most programmes would do more than that). There were 2 short runs moving up from 5km to 8km, each week, and a longer run which went up to 16km. On top of that I took 2 1/2 weeks off running completely from just before Easter, with a cold. I also only did one proper interval training session. And I didn't run at all the week before the race, as I was trying to shake off another cold.
To tell the truth, if I could do this I think almost anyone could. I am a REALLY slow runner (almost shuffler) and I stopped and walked every so often in the second half. I only chose to do it because I knew from previous experience if I didn't have some sort of extrinsic goal to aim for I wouldn't be doing any exercise in this part of the year when the mornings are so dark and bed so cosy. And I wanted a race that was fairly local (this was was 45 min drive away, as opposed to 2 1/2 hours) If there had been a 10km option I would have done that but the HM was the shortest on offer!
