Great way to finish the week

Norwich parkrun, 18th Feb 2012, approx 6 degrees and windy. This is my 2nd blog and my 2nd ever parkrun, my 1st was two weeks ago in freezing icy conditions, today's run was officially warmer, but because of the wind, it didn't feel it. I have titled this blog "Great way to finish the week" because this week I set myself a personal challenge, I started training July 2011 (so about 7 months, give or take a week), in that time, I have taken up running and cycling, entered a couple of events (a 60 mile bike ride, a 5K fun run and a 10K NYD run) and I've lost 4.2 stone in weight and I've always done things by the book, training 1 day on, 1 day off, but like I said, I wanted to test myself, so decided to train 7 days on the trot, with parkrun being the 7th day session, so Sunday I ran 10K, Monday I cycled 20K, Tuesday I cycled 20K, Wednesday I ran 10K, Thursday I ran 5K, Friday I spent an hour with a personal trainer working on my core and arms, which led perfectly in to Saturday morning at 9am in Eaton Park, Norwich, where as always, I thought I can run a PB!(well it was icy last time so why not) I had learned a valuable lesson last time, do not start the run in with the front pack of sub 20 runners, as you get swept away with the whole adrenalin thing and are burned at 2.5K!! So I stayed back at the back of the front 3rdish and off I went, I knew the course, I knew the finish line, I felt great because of what I'd already achieved this week, 6 in 6 and now number 7!!!! I listened to my running music and Lose Yourself by Eminem got me moving at a good pace, it didn't matter that it was cold or windy, nothing could stop me and I'm always a good finisher! 286 runners were out there and I was flying, until my 43 year old legs decided, enough was enough this week Mr Golden, we need some rest and at that point they started to feel heavy, the wind seemed stronger, the air going in to my lungs felt colder and HEY! Who are all these people overtaking me, especially YOU running with your dog!! But I kept pushing through it because I knew once I got round the boating lake I was nearly there and I'm a great finisher!! Well except for today! There was no great finish, there was no sprint pass 5 other runners to knock a few places and a few seconds off my time, there was just a steady plod over the finish line, I took my chip from the fantastic volunteers and queued up with my barcode to get scanned, knowing I hadn't quite done enough to get a PB because of my ploddy finish, but happy in the knowledge that I had infact completed my personal challenge of 7 in 7, so I went in to the park cafe and treated myself to a cup of black coffee and a slice of banana cake. I then walked back to the car with a seasoned parkrunner and a serious 5Ker, who gave me some excellent advise "only ever go for a PB once a month and rest a couple of days prior to the attempt, other than that just enjoy it and you'll be Suprised how well you do" So 2.5 hours after I finished my run, I was ecstatic when I received my parkrun text saying "Ian, your time in position 148 today at Norwich parkrun was 25:08. Well done on a new PB!!!!" I did it, 7 in 7 and a new PR PB. Now that's a great way to finish a week!! See you in two weeks time. Ian Golden (follow me on Twitter @iangolden)